This weekend, the country remembers our fallen soldiers. Nearly 1,500 Virginians were killed in the Vietnam War, and some 230,000 served in it.
During the past year, a group of Vietnam veterans, most in their 70’s, shared their stories and photos through an exhibit at the Virginia War Memorial. As the exhibit ends at the War Memorial in Richmond, there are plans to bring it to more Virginians.
The exhibit “50 Years Beyond: The Vietnam Veterans Experience” features 50 Virginia veterans, some of whom have since passed. And while they shared a history of the Vietnam War, the stories they tell are very different.
Florence Dunn, who served in the U.S. Women’s Army Corps, and Paul Maynor, who served in the U.S. Army, are among the veterans who shared their stories for a 20-minute film. The exhibit also includes personal photos taken while serving in Vietnam.
"And now we are going to give it an extra life by finding different places, especially around Virginia, but hopefully, who knows, even beyond, where we can display these images and stories of 50 different Virginians that served in Vietnam." the War Memorial's director, Clay Mountcastle, explains.
Mountcastle served in the Army for 20 years. His plan is to reach out to veteran care centers, schools and hospitals as potential stops for the exhibit.
"What’s at the heart of this exhibit are just the experiences and stories of those veterans themselves," he notes. "From going into the military, from their experience in Vietnam to coming home from Vietnam, and then living the past 50 years as a Vietnam veteran."
One portion of the video features Calvin David Brown.
"I wanted to be a cook because that’s what I did before I went in. I was a short order cook. And I wanted to be a cook," Brown explains in the video. "Staff Sgt. Wilson, I’ll never forget him. He told me that he’d rather have a sister that was in a house of ill repute – he used another word – than to have a brother that was a cook in the Marine Corps. And I wasn’t going to be no cook."
Brown became a Marine Corps Correctional Specialist instead.
Then there’s the shock of arrival. Walter Roberts was dropped in the jungle to replace another doctor.
"There I am standing there in them crisp new jungle fatigues and nice shiny boots and these guys are all nasty looking and scroungy and everything. And they looked at me and they said, 'I sure hope you’re as good as the last doc we had,'" Roberts recounts in the video.
Along with the War Memorial staff, two veterans were behind the project— videographer Pamela Vines and Laura Hatcher, who photographed the 50 portraits, six of whom were women.
"I was just as surprised when I walked into the exhibit to see how beautiful they were, especially with the colors and the quotes and the in-country picture that accompanied it," Hatcher says. "Several generations can appreciate it because if you notice there’s a QR code in the bottom left-hand corner. So, on opening night, it was so neat to see the grandchildren of the veteran with their phone, knowing granddad can’t do that, right, figure out what a QR code is. And so the grandkids got the QR code and their watching the video while the veteran grandfather is getting his picture taken. That was cool."
"I know that a lot of Vietnam Veterans have really appreciated this exhibit and their family members have appreciated it," Mountcastle adds. "So, that’s why we know that we have to continue to find ways to have it on display."
The War Memorial is working with the Pentagon and some of the Virginia Veterans Care Centers to bring the exhibit to those locations later this year. Along with the traveling exhibit, the War Memorial maintains a permanent exhibit about the Vietnam War as well as exhibits on veterans of other wars and conflicts.
Organizations interesting in hosting the exhibit can contact Clay Mountcastle. clay.mountcastle@dvs.virginia.gov or Catherine Allen catherine.allen@dvs.virginia.gov
This report, provided by Virginia Public Radio, was made possible with support from the Virginia Education Association.
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