Vietnam combat veteran, former WCPO-TV vice president and general manager, and author William Fee is giving the keynote address at the 63rd Veterans Day Commemoration 10:45 a.m. Saturday, Nov. 11, in the Main Library's Reading Garden Lounge.
Fee spent most of his career working with the E.W. Scripps Co. for 32 years, retiring in 2010 after having served as vice president and general manager of WCPO-TV for 12 years. He was born and raised in Cincinnati, and graduated from Walnut Hills High School in 1965.
After a year in college, Fee enlisted in the U.S. Army in 1967, and volunteered for infantry and service in Vietnam. He served in combat as a rifleman with the First Infantry Division. He was wounded in combat in November 1967 by a rocket propelled grenade, and spent 10 months in three different Army hospitals, undergoing four operations to repair a badly damaged shoulder. After his medical discharge in 1968, Bill returned to college and graduated from the University of Cincinnati with a B.A. and M.A. in German literature.
Fee and fellow Vietnam veteran Earl Corell co-directed the fundraising and design of the Greater Cincinnati Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Eden Park, which was dedicated in April 1984. In 2016 Bill published his first book – Memoir of Vietnam 1967 – detailing the story about his military service in Vietnam with the First Infantry Division, and the impact the war has had on his life in later years.
The 63rd Veterans Day Commemoration program includes patriotic music, presentation of Memorial Wreaths, lighting of the Flame of Remembrance and the playing of "Taps." This program is sponsored by the Friends of the Public Library and the Library Programs Fund. Registration is not required.
For more information, call 513-369-6900 or visit CincinnatiLibrary.org.
