An Evening with Authors Nick Laidlaw and Andrew Biggio: Oral History in the Age of Social Media
Join the NVMM and Patrol Base Abbate for a thought-provoking conversation with authors and U.S. Marine Corps Veterans Andrew Biggio and Nick Laidlaw as they discuss their books, “The Rifle 2: Back to the Battlefield” and “What War Did To Us: Ukraine.” They will discuss their experiences of documenting the human experience of combat and war by using social media and historic artifacts.
Both books will be available for purchase, and for the authors to sign before and after the conversation. Although “The Rifle 2” will not be officially released until September 19, the NVMM will have advance copies available for attendees of this event.
Additional information will be available that evening for Veterans and active-duty service members interested in learning more about the mission of PB Abbate and ways to get involved with the organization.
Doors will open at 6 p.m. Tickets are free for Veterans, Active-Duty Service Members, and NVMM Members, and $10 for all others.
Andrew Biggio enlisted in the U.S. Marine Corps after high school and served as an infantry Rifleman during Operation Iraqi Freedom and Operation Enduring Freedom (Afghanistan). He finished six years in the Marine Corps as a Sergeant and earned a bachelor’s degree in sociology from Suffolk University in Boston, Massachusetts. Biggio is the author of “The Rifle: Combat Stories from America’s Last WWII Veterans, Told Through an M1 Garand” and “The Rifle 2: Back to the Battlefield.” He will share his journey interviewing nearly 300 American World War II Veterans and how he compiled those stories into a form that would motivate young Veterans to live successful lives after combat.
Nick Laidlaw served eight years in the U.S. Marine Corps as a Rifleman and reached the rank of Sergeant. Laidlaw is the creator of the social media platform Battles and Beer and is the author of “What War Did to Us: Combat Through Their Eyes,” a collection of combat stories from Soldiers of all nations. Nick has interviewed men from both sides of almost every major war since 1939, culminating in more than 1,100 total conversations with men from more than 20 armies.
Michael Jerome Plunkett is a writer from Long Island. He served in the United States Marine Corps and after working in the financial industry for Fidelity Investments and Morgan Stanley for several years began pursuing fiction writing as a career. He leads the Patrol Base Abbate Book Club which has hosted guests such as Karl Marlantes and Sebastian Junger. He also runs the Literature of War Foundation, a nonprofit dedicated to building libraries on military bases.
He is the host of the LitWar Podcast which has hosted guests such as Elliot Ackerman, Phil Klay, and Steven Pressfield. He was a 2021 VCCA Fellow and his writing has been published by Coffee or Die, Dirtbag Magazine, Lethal Minds Journal, and Dead Reckoning Collective.
He currently lives in Charleston, South Carolina where he makes a living as an EMT.
