More than 50 LifeLong Learning volunteers gather for the club’s annual Fall Volunteer Meeting and Celebration Nov. 6 (photo by Phil Korzilius)
Volunteers Celebrated at LLL’s Fall Meeting
Patricia Ingalls
Jill Burnham (left) and Pam O’Shea, LLL’s co-directors of volunteers (photo by Phil Korzilius)
LifeLong Learning (LLL, an all-volunteer organization) held its annual Fall Volunteer Meeting and Celebration on Nov. 6 in the Tuscany Falls Chianti Room.
More than 50 of LLL’s volunteers attended the event, which celebrated all the hard work of LLL’s various teams. During this 2024-25 season, LLL is presenting more than 20 speakers in its acclaimed Speaker Series, is offering more than 30 classes, and is sponsoring at least eight educational trips. The teams also have organized LLL participation in the national Great Decisions group-discussion program and in monthly PC Reads, a community book group.
Anyone interested in volunteering for LifeLong Learning can reach out to volunteer co-directors Pam O’Shea ([email protected]) or Jill Burnham ([email protected]). More information also is available at lifelonglearningatpc.org.
Great Decisions Groups Discuss Global Issues
Patricia Ingalls
Once again, LifeLong Learning is proud to offer America’s largest discussion program on world affairs: Great Decisions, an eight-week curriculum created by the Foreign Policy Association (FPA). The association’s mission today, as it has been for more than 100 years, is to serve as a catalyst for developing awareness, understanding, and informed opinions on U.S. foreign policy and global issues.
In LLL’s Great Decisions setting, each group meets weekly for eight weeks to facilitate informed, thoughtful discussion under the auspices of the FPA. Each week, participants read the FPA materials (about 12 densely packed pages) to learn various approaches to a foreign-policy issue. Each weekly session begins by viewing a professional, academic DVD summary of the issue, then launches into a 90-minute discussion.
There is no need to reach a consensus—each member sends his/her opinions to the FPA online after the session. The FPA tabulates about 12,000 opinions from groups across the country and presents them to Congress in the fall. The three LifeLong Learning Great Decisions groups have a small voice in influencing foreign policy!
This year’s topics are: American Foreign Policy at a Crossroads; U.S. Changing Leadership of the World Economy; U.S.-China Relations; International Cooperation on Climate Change; The Future of NATO and European Security; AI and American National Security; India: Between China, the West, and the Global South; and After Gaza: American Policy in the Middle East.
Go to lifelonglearningatpc.org to select and register for the class session that best meets your schedule and to purchase your printed “Great Decisions 2025” book for $40 or an ebook through outside sources. Classes begin the week of Jan. 20, 2025, and conclude in mid-March.
In 1971, at an Army base near Long Binh in Vietnam, American soldiers unwind and bond, while musicians share music of the era. At LLL’s Jan. 10 presentation, award-winning author and Vietnam veteran Doug Bradley will explore music’s broad impact during the Vietnam War. (Photo provided courtesy of Doug Bradley)
Doug Bradley to Analyze Music During Vietnam War
Patricia Ingalls
The next Premier Speaker, scheduled for Friday, Jan. 10, at 7 p.m., in the Tuscany Falls Renaissance Theater, will delve into the powerful role of music during the Vietnam War. Doug Bradley, author and Vietnam veteran, will examine how U.S. troops used music to forge connections with each other and with home, and how it served as a coping mechanism amidst the complexities of war.
Drawing from veterans’ testimonies, Bradley will highlight how music shaped individual and cultural memories of the Vietnam War, a crucial, yet often overlooked, aspect of the American experience. He will also discuss the profound impact of Vietnam-era music on the countercultural revolution and the turbulent political landscape of the time.
Bradley, a distinguished author, educator, and Vietnam veteran from Wisconsin, brings extensive experience to this topic. His work includes blogging for “PBS’s Next Avenue” and “Huffington Post,” and teaching at UW-Madison, Baldwin-Wallace University, Edgewood College, and Arizona State University. Bradley is the author of three books on the Vietnam experience, including DEROS Vietnam: Dispatches from the Air-Conditioned Jungle, Who’ll Stop the Rain: Respect, Remembrance, and Reconciliation in Post-Vietnam America, and the co-author of We Gotta Get Out of This Place: The Soundtrack of the Vietnam War, which was named Best Music Book of 2015 by Rolling Stone magazine. His forthcoming music-based memoir, The Tracks of My Years, will be published by Legacy Book Press in 2025.
Bradley was drafted into the U.S. Army in March 1970, following his college graduation. He served at the Army’s Hometown News Center in Kansas City, Mo., and as a combat correspondent with U.S. Army Republic of Vietnam headquarters at Long Binh, South Vietnam, from November 1970 to November 1971. After relocating to Madison, Wis., in 1974, he helped establish Vets House, a community service center for Vietnam-era veterans. With more than three decades of experience as a communications professional and senior lecturer at the University of Wisconsin, Bradley’s insights into the Vietnam War and its cultural legacy are both profound and enlightening.
Admission to all Premier Speaker Series events is $15 per person and can be purchased online, or with cash in the lobby of Renaissance Theater one hour prior to the presentation, subject to availability. For full details, and to register for the evening Premier presentation, go to lifelonglearningatpc.org.
The theater is equipped with a hearing-loop system, which is a special type of sound system for people who use hearing aids. The loop system provides a magnetic, wireless signal that is picked up by a hearing aid, when it is set to the T-setting (telecoil). Many hearing aids are equipped with telecoil technology.
In 1971, at an Army base near Long Binh in Vietnam, American soldiers unwind and bond, while musicians share music of the era. At LLL’s Jan. 10 presentation, award-winning author and Vietnam veteran Doug Bradley will explore music’s broad impact during the Vietnam War. Photo provided courtesy of Doug Bradley.