VietNow National Records (Rockford)

VietNow is for veterans who served the U.S. Armed Forces from 1957 to the present. The family-based organization includes Vietnam veterans, Gulf War veterans, veterans who were not in a war, parents of veterans, wives and children of veterans, and other people who just care about veterans issues. Legend has it that in Vietnam, sometime in 1969, two soldiers from Rockford, Illinois met up with each other on a hilltop near Pleiku. They promised each other that if they ever made it back home, they would get together sometime for dinner and to talk over their wartime adventures. Sometime in the early 1980's a group of Vietnam veterans did come together to share their experiences, and talk about what Vietnam had meant to them. “Veterans Helping Veterans” is VietNow’s motto. The organization’s many causes include keeping the POW/MIA issue alive in the public minds, helping families affected by Agent Orange, and helping the homeless veteran get jobs, get off the street, and get decent food. On November 6, 2017, VietNow National Headquarters Inc. was dissolved as a settlement to the lawsuit filed by Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan in 2015 (other state attorneys general joined Madigan’s suit after the original filing). Madigan took legal action against the organization after the Chicago Tribune reported on its investigation findings that VietNow spent over eighty percent of donated funds to pay for-profit telemarketers. The court order only affects the national organization headquartered in Rockford and not the local chapters across the nation, which is estimated to be over 20 chapters.

Note written by History, VietNow National homepage. Lawsuit, Rockford Register Star, 11/7/2017.