Helicopters, Oral History, and Lady Bird Johnson

My guest today is Hayley Hasik, who is a PhD candidate at the University of Southern Mississippi, and her research interests include 20th century U.S. history with an emphasis on war and memory, the Vietnam War, veterans’ experiences, and cultural history. Hayley’s current research focuses on examining the legacy of the “Helicopter War” in Vietnam. Her project seeks to uncover how and why helicopters became such an integral part of Vietnam War history and memory. Hayley has extensive oral history experience and co-founded the East Texas War and Memory Project in 2012. Her previous scholarly research focused on the American POW experience during World War II and the Vietnam helicopter experience using the life history of a Warrant Officer as a case study.

Hayley has presented at numerous academic conferences and has published several articles in the Sound Historian and War, Literature, and the Arts. Hayley is also a recipient of the 2022 Mark Grimsley Social Media Fellowship and 2019 Russell Weigley Travel Grant, both from the Society for Military History. She is a Graduate Fellow at the Dale Center for the Study of War and Society there at Southern Miss for 2021-2022, and she is working under the direction of Dr. Heather Stur.