Man donates Vietnam War books to N. Idaho college

From Chron.com: Man donates Vietnam War books to N. Idaho college
LEWISTON, Idaho (AP) — When he was a young man attending an Oregon community college in the 1970s, David Rudy found himself in an uncomfortable position.

His uncle Donald Rudy was a veteran of the Vietnam War, and had regaled him and his cousins with tales of his experiences in the Air Force in Indochina. But not all of what Rudy's professor was teaching jibed with Uncle Donald's war stories.

Rudy had never studied Vietnam, so he felt like he didn't have the ammunition to challenge what he saw as a liberal take on the war.

That's when he decided to arm himself with knowledge.

"I really dug into it at that point in time, and started reading," said Rudy, 52. "I'm a Boy Scout and I was raised in a military environment with my dad, and doggonit, you just don't go at anything unprepared."

That quest to learn everything he could about the war's history led to an obsession with collecting the finest, rare first-edition and out-of-print books on the war. Recently, Rudy decided to give the best of his collection to the Lewis-Clark State College Library.

"They certainly help broaden our collection and the resources we have available to students," library Director Sue Niewenhous said of Rudy's donation.

Rudy was born in Clarkston and raised in Lewiston. He graduated from high school in Oregon, but returned to the valley for frequent summer visits to his aunt and uncle's home. His father Arlie Rudy, who served in the U.S. Marine Corps during the Korean War, lives in Lewiston too.

"So Lewiston will always be my home," said Rudy, who now lives in Post Falls and works as a marketing director for a Coeur d'Alene travel agency.

Both his father and uncle attended LCSC, so the college seemed like the perfect place for Rudy and his wife Deborah to donate the collection. The 57 Vietnam War books were given in his uncle's name, and the six Korean War books were given in his father's name.

Rudy estimated the conservative value of the entire collection is between $3,000 and $4,000.

And even though he was fascinated by each title, Rudy said he has his favorites. Two of them — "Last Reflections on a War" and "Hell in a Very Small Place: The Siege of Dien Bien Phu" - were written by French journalist Bernard Fall, who covered his country's early conflicts in Vietnam by traveling with the French army.

"He was really the grandfather of the embedded journalist," Rudy said.

Fall's desire to be close to the action eventually cost him his life, however, when he stepped on a land mine in 1967.

Another favorite is Patrick Harrington's examination of intelligence gathering by small units, "Silence Was a Weapon." But Rudy called Joe Galloway's "We Were Soldiers Once ... And Young" the seminal work on the Vietnam War.

"It really explains the inception of the use of the airmobile tactic, which was helicopters," he said. "Vietnam was the first helicopter war."

Rudy said he hopes his collection helps spur an interest in the past for students at Lewis-Clark State College, even if it is from an amateur point of view.

"You don't have to get your bachelor's and your master's and your PhD in history," he said. "You can just be a marketing director for a company, and love history."