John Rowan (born September 18, 1945) is an American Vietnam War veteran and the sixth national president of the

Vietnam Veterans of America Vietnam Veterans of America, Inc. (VVA) is a national non-profit corporation founded in 1978 in the United States that is committed to serving the needs of all veterans. It is funded without any contribution from any branch of government. VVA is th ...

(VVA).

Early life, education and military service

Rowan was born on September 18, 1945, in Queens, New York City. He was educated at the Brooklyn Technical High School, and he attended Baruch College but did not graduate. Instead, he learned Indonesian at the Defense Language Institute and Vietnamese in Washington, D.C., before serving in the Vietnam War. In 1967, in the midst of the Vietnam War, Rowan joined the U.S. Air Force Security Service as a linguist. He "flew in planes over North Vietnam with a team listening in on the enemy's communications and translating them into English to guide or warn American pilots." After the war, Rowan attended Queen's College, where he earned a bachelor's degree in Political Science. He attended graduate school at

Hunter College Hunter College is a public university in New York City. It is one of the constituent colleges of the City University of New York and offers studies in more than one hundred undergraduate and postgraduate fields across five schools. It also admi ...

, where he earned a master's degree in Urban Affairs.

Career and civic activities

Rowan spent his career in the public sector. He was an investigator for the New York City Comptroller's Office until 2002. Rowan became a member of the Council of Vietnam Veterans, later known as the Vietnam Veterans of America, in 1978. He was a founding member of its chapter in Queens, New York in 1981. From 1995 to 2005, he was the president of the VVA's New York State Council from 1995 to 2005. Since 2005, he has served as its sixth national president. He has raised awareness about the high rate of PTSD among Vietnam War veterans. He has also worked with the

Vietnamese Veterans Association Vietnamese may refer to: * Something of, from, or related to Vietnam, a country in Southeast Asia ** A citizen of Vietnam. See Demographics of Vietnam. * Vietnamese people, or Kinh people, a Southeast Asian ethnic group native to Vietnam ** Overse ...

to find missing U.S. veterans of the war who died on Vietnamese soil. Rowan serves on the advisory board of the New York City Department of Veterans' Affairs, where he represents Queens.

Personal life

With his wife Mariann, Rowan resides in

Middle Village, New York Middle Village is a mainly residential neighborhood in the central section of the borough of Queens, New York City, bounded to the north by the Long Island Expressway, to the east by Woodhaven Boulevard, to the south by Cooper Avenue and the forme ...

References

External links

John Rowan
on

C-SPAN Cable-Satellite Public Affairs Network (C-SPAN ) is an American cable and satellite television network that was created in 1979 by the cable television industry as a nonprofit public service. It televises many proceedings of the United States ...

Vietnam Veterans of America
Living people 1945 births People from Queens, New York Brooklyn Technical High School alumni Queens College, City University of New York alumni Hunter College alumni United States Air Force personnel of the Vietnam War United States Air Force airmen {{USAF-bio-stub