Kevin Basl
Kevin Basl is a writer and musician living near Ithaca, New York. He served as a radar operator in the US Army from 2003 to 2008, and twice deployed to Iraq. He holds an MFA in fiction from Temple University, where he taught writing for two years. He is author of Midnight Cargo (Illuminated Press, 2023), a collection of stories and poems based on his war and homecoming experience, as well as editor or co-author of several other books. For over a decade, he has taught writing and papermaking to service members, veterans, and their communities with several arts nonprofits, including Warrior Writers and Mission Belonging, and he has participated in previous NEH Dialogues on the Experience of War projects, including Surviving the Long Wars (2022) and The Art of Re-Integration (2018). As a discussion leader for Legacies of War, he looks forward to helping facilitate a much-needed conversation about how the United States remembers and memorializes the Civil War and the Vietnam War, two military conflicts relevant for understanding the historical context of the political divisions currently afflicting the US. For more information about his work, visit kevinbasl.com
Chip Fulcher
Chip Fulcher is a U.S. Army veteran who served in the 75th Ranger Regiment from 2011 to 2015. He completed three tours of duty in support of Operation Enduring Freedom, where he served as a Fire Team Leader. He holds a Bachelor's degree in History from Middle Georgia State University. Chip was drawn to the study of history after serving in the military and realizing he lacked understanding of the historical and cultural contexts of the regions to which he deployed. This realization fostered a deep passion for understanding the underlying historical and political forces that shape modern conflicts. In particular, he is interested in how collective memory and memorialization persist after conflicts, influencing not only how societies interpret the past but also how they navigate the present and future.
Dale Furr
Dale Furr holds an AAS in Technical Studies, an AA in Electrical and Mechanical Systems Maintenance, a BA in Psychology, a BS in Administration and Management, an MA in Human Behavior in Psychology, and an MA in Human Relations. He is a retired Navy and Army National Guard (ARNG) veteran, having completed his career as a Gas Turbine Systems (Electrical) Senior Chief (GSCS) in 2018.
Dale enlisted in the ARNG in 1989 at age 17 as a Combat Medic, serving with units in Indiana and Alaska. He attained the rank of Sergeant before pursuing opportunities with the U.S. Navy. In 1997, he transitioned to the Navy as an Electronic Warfare Technician and, starting in 2006, he worked in engineering departments for the remainder of his military career.
Tom Gery
Tom is a Baby Boomer, a veteran, and a lifelong learner. His early life was shaped by typical American values: work hard, save money, never lie. He read comic books featuring Superman and Sgt. Rock of Easy Company battling Nazi monsters and played with toy soldiers, built models of military machines, and accepted the ideology they embodied. As a young man, he volunteered to go to war. He landed in Vietnam in 1968, assigned to an air mobile squadron, and soon transitioned to an active combat role.
He came home with a couple of bad habits and an undiagnosed disorder found in the DSM-IV. Thanks to the VA and self-awareness, he found sobriety. He has been married for over four decades to the same wonderful woman. Together they raised two children and now have three grandchildren to love, cherish, and watch grow up. Tom returned to school, earning a master’s degree in social work. His career spanned forty years and came with much personal and professional satisfaction in helping children, adolescents in institutional and community settings, adults receiving medical care, and patients in hospice. He did group work with HIV-positive folks in the 1980s and juveniles involved with court during the last five years before retiring.
In 2020, Tom found National University through a friend, in the days of COVID-19, when the previous discussion program, A Soldier’s Place: Veterans and Civilians Speaking about War, came to life on Zoom. The program readings and discussions were informative. The theme, ”trauma of war,” helped him understand some of his Vietnam experience. Additionally, he found some wonderful long-distance friends and will always cherish the National University NEH project. He joined this project as a discussion leader, anticipating it will do the same for others.
John R. Heckman
John R. Heckman is a Ph.D. student at Brock University in St. Catharines, Ontario, Canada. Originally from Pennsylvania, John has studied American military history and historical memory for over 25 years. Although unable to serve in uniform due to a pre-existing medical condition, he has devoted years of his life to listening and learning from veterans of various conflicts. He has taken what he has learned into the field, leading historical tours at places in North America and Europe.
Currently, his scholarship involves the study of how we consume digital content from conflict zones on social media. John's dissertation project involves a deep dive into conflict visuals coming out of the Russia-Ukraine War, including those involving drone warfare and from cell phone usage by those on the ground.
In addition to his dissertation research, John is constructing a co-edited volume on ethics in conflict studies that will bring together an interdisciplinary group of researchers and practitioners to showcase how ethics can be re-engaged with as a living, contested, and transformative force in the study of war, peace, and political violence. Grounded in the belief that scholarship on war must be a critical, morally engaged practice, the volume will cover how we study conflict, whose voices we center, and what responsibilities researchers, educators, and practitioners bear in their professional lives.
Melissa Sheldon
Melissa is the daughter of a veteran, the sister of a Vietnam veteran, and the wife of a Vietnam veteran. She participated in an earlier NEH Dialogues on the Experience of War discussion group with veterans and civilians and has been in a writing group called Pen and Sword for the past seven years, where they have explored a wide range of topics related to war, veterans, citizenship, democracy, and history. She is a retired middle school teacher in Ithaca, NY. “I feel that America has quite a ways to go in grappling with and integrating both the Civil War and Vietnam.”
