2025 Symposium Keynote Speaker
Robert K. Brigham is the Shirley Ecker Boskey Professor of History and International Relations at Vassar
College and the Director of the Vassar Institute for the Liberal Arts. Professor Brigham
is an internationally known historian and leading expert on the Vietnam War and postwar
relations between the United States and Vietnam. He is the author or co-author of
ten books, among them Reckless: Henry Kissinger and the Tragedy of Vietnam (PublicAffairs, 2018); Is Iraq Another Vietnam? (PublicAffairs, 2006); and Argument Without End: In Search of Answers to the Vietnam Tragedy (PublicAffairs, 1999), written with former secretary of defense, Robert S. McNamara
and James G. Blight. He has earned research fellowships from the Rockefeller, Mellon,
Ford, and Smith Richardson foundations as well as the National Endowment for Humanities.
In 2019, the Alumnae/i Association of Vassar College presented Brigham with its Outstanding
Faculty Award. In 2023, the Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations selected
Brigham for the Peter L. Hahn Distinguished Service Award.
His memoir and history of the rippling effects of the Vietnam War on American families is forthcoming from the University of Chicago Press.
This symposium is named in memory of Lance Corporal Benjamin Whetstone Schmidt and generously funded by his parents, Dr. David and Teresa Schmidt. A native of San Antonio, Benjamin came to TCU in the fall of 2006. By all accounts, he loved being a Horned Frog, but after three semesters he returned home and joined the Marine Corps. Benjamin excelled as a Marine and became a scout sniper, but after a sea deployment and a tour in Afghanistan, he decided to complete his enlistment and return to TCU. He wanted to finish his degree in History, then pursue a PhD in military history so that he could become a professor. Before he could do so, however, he learned that the none of the snipers in his battalion who were about to deploy to Afghanistan had combat experience, and he volunteered to go with them. On October 6, 2011, the eve of the 10th anniversary of the beginning of the American War in Afghanistan, he was killed in a friendly fire accident while on duty in Helmand Province.
The Schmidts created the LCpl. Benjamin W. Schmidt Professorship in War, Conflict, and Society in Twentieth-Century America at Texas Christian University in 2012 to honor their son’s legacy and his passion for history. They have continued to support the History Department in many ways since then, including by funding this annual symposium.
We are immensely grateful to Dr. David and Teresa Schmidt for providing us with the opportunity to consider the relationships among war, conflict, and society. We hope that our efforts will shine a light on the costs of war, while honoring the legacy of one who knew them well.