Chapter 3

Meet Professor Philip Napoli. Napoli is currently the Chair of the History Department at Brooklyn College. He has taught classes centered around the Vietnam War, the United State’s History of War, Oral History, and Immigration. He also wrote the book An Oral History of New York City’s Vietnam Veterans and helped co-curate an exhibit at the Brooklyn Historical Society called “In Our Own Words:  Portraits Of Brooklyn’s Vietnam Veterans”. He also has his own Veteran Oral History project which you can visit here. In these clips, he shares his experience working as a professor with student veterans in his classroom. 

Clip 1: Why Generalizing Veterans Is Hard.

“For others, it just hasn’t been that impact, in fact, it may have strengthened prejudices and attitudes that they entered the service with.” – Phil
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Clip 2: Is Brooklyn College Doing Its Job?

“It’s hard to know where to turn, especially when you don’t like the 19 and 20 year olds and you are 25. So where do you go?” – Phil
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Clip 3: Seeing Students Vanish

“But if a student is asking for time off, and they don’t want to admit they have a PTSD problem, and I know that they have this problem, I can’t do anything about it. It’s not fair to the rest of the class.” – Phil
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