Arts of War on the Web

Charlie Haughey was drafted into the Army in 1967, and went on to serve as a rifleman with the 25th Infantry Division in and around Cu Chi in Vietnam from 1968-69. In Vietnam he had a second job: taking pictures of his battalion for Army and civilian newspapers.  Haughey, a retired cabinet maker, brought some 2,000 negatives back home with him after the war. He kept them in a box stored away in his home.

Haughey (above, with camera, in Vietnam) opened the box for the first time last year and found that the work had a strong immediacy in 2013. More than two dozen of his images are part of an exhibit of his work at the ADX Gallery in Portland, Oregon.

More of the images—such as the one below—are on view on Haughey’s pages on Flickr and Tublr. You can also see his work on Facebook.

Lisa Lark, the author of All They Left Behind:  Legacies of the Men and Women on The Wall, a tribute to sixty-one American servicemen and women who died in the Vietnam War that she put together in conjunction with the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund, is at work on a second book. “This project, scheduled for release in late 2014, will be a photographic history of the Vietnam War as told through the words and photographs of the men and women who served there,” Lark says.

The project will require some 500 photographs, and Lark is looking for veterans who have photos from their time in the military, “whether in training, on leave, or in Vietnam,” and who would be willing to donate them for use in the book.

“I will consider every photograph sent in, and will use as many as I can in this project,” she says. “There are certain visual specifications that must be met, and certain guidelines that we have to follow.  Sending in a photo does not guarantee that it will be used in the project.”

For more info, email: lisaalark@googlemail.com

Air Force Vietnam veteran—and accomplished photographer—Ted Engelmann  has a new photo exhibit, titled “Soldier’s Heart,” set to open on Friday, March 1, at Anthology Fine Art in Denver.

In this new exhibit, Engelmann combines photographs from the war in Vietnam in 1968-69 when he served there, as well as images he has captured traveling throughout Vietnam in the past 24 years (above), and photos of American soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan he took as an embed free-lance photographer.

“These original photographs explore the emotional wounds of war on soldiers and others,” Engelmann says, “an important topic in today’s world of conflict, trauma, along with the high rate of suicides among American soldiers and veterans.”

The exhibit kicks off with a reception from 6:00-9:00 on March 1. On Friday, March 15, Engelmann will give a slide presentation abut the project beginning at 7:00 p.m. It’s free, and open to the public.

All military personnel, veterans, and their families are invited to submit their poetry, essays, short fiction, photography, and interviews to be considered for the second volume of Proud to Be: Writing by American Warriors, an anthology that will be published by the Missouri Humanities Council, the Warrior Arts Alliance, and Southeast Missouri State University Press.

The deadline for submissions in those five categories is July 1. There are two types of entries, for the anthology alone and one for the anthology’s contest, plus the anthology. All work must be previously unpublished. Send the work for the anthology only in a self-addressed stamped envelope to: Warriors Anthology Southeast Missouri State University Press, MS 2650, Cape Girardeau, MO 63701

If you’d like your entry to be considered for the anthology’s contest (with a $250 first prize in each category), as well as the anthology itself, email it to upress@semo.edu

For contest submissions, the rules are:

• Entries must be sent electronically as Microsoft Word docs (or docx).
• Keep poems in one document (with 1^st poem as title).
• Put your name and contact info on 1^st page and nowhere else on the manuscript.

For both mailed and electronic submissions:

• Limit one submission in each category per person.
• Poetry: up to 3 poems (5 pages maximum).
• Fiction, essay, interview: 5,000-word limit. Interviews are with military or veterans.
• Photography: up to 3 good-quality photos (will be printed in the book as b&w).
• Submissions exceeding the limits will be disqualified.
• Include a bio of 75 words or less with your submission.
• Winners & contributors will be notified by Nov. 1, 2013
• Questions: contact the University Press at upress@semo.edu

Catherine Karnow, a National Geographic photographer who has been documenting Vietnam for twenty-one years for that august publication as well as for other magazines and books, is putting the final touches on a presentation about that country for the National Geographic Live Speakers Bureau.

“I have one gaping hole in my coverage of Vietnam, though,” Karnow told us, “and that is the story of American veterans returning to Vietnam for reasons of healing, reconciliation, and personal growth.”

She is planning to go to Vietnam on January 15 for two weeks, and is “very much hoping to find a group [of Vietnam veterans] going in this time period. Ideally, a really interesting situation of some kind would be a real plus.”

If you’re part of a Vietnam veterans’ group going to Vietnam then, Karnow would love to hear from you.

Email her ASAP at catherinekarnow@yahoo.com or call 415-928-3232 or 415-305-8181. If you do, tell her that you read about the project on The VVA Veteran‘s Arts of War on the web page.

U.S. Marine, Hue, Vietnam, Feb. 1968 by Don McCullin

“WAR/PHOTOGRAPHY: Images of Armed Conflict and Its Aftermath” is the name of a huge exhibition that opens on Veterans Day, November 11, at the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston. This extensive collection of images of war and its aftermath includes more than 500 photographs, books, magazines, albums, and photographic equipment. The photos are the work of more than 280 photographers who have covered wars around the globe, from the Mexican-American War in 1846, to the 21st century’s latest conflicts.

The exhibition includes a good sampling of Vietnam War photographs from the long list of illustrious photojournalists who chronicled that war. That includes the work of Larry Burrouws, Don McCullin, Eddie Adams, Henri Huet, Phillip Jones Griffiths, Dick Durrance, Sawada Kyoichi, and Tim Page.

Admission on November 11 is free to everyone. Active-duty military and veterans will be admitted free through the end of the exhibition on February 3, 2013. The exhibition will then travel to the Annenberg Space for Photography in Los Angeles (March 23-June 2), The Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. (June 29-September 29), and the Brooklyn Museum (November 8-February 2, 2014).

“Coming Home: Helena Area Vietnam Veterans” is the name of photography exhibit that will be on view beginning November 9 at the Myrna Loy Center for the Performing and Media Arts in Helena, Montana.

The exhibit is centered around photographic portraits of sixteen local Vietnam veterans taken by Michael Lee, a U.S. Navy Vietnam veteran (third from left in photo above at a 2012 reunion with USS Arikara shipmates) and a life member of Vietnam Veterans of America.

“The primary reason” for the project, Lee says, “stems from the reception that Vietnam veterans received on their return home. ” The exhibit, he says, “is a remembrance and, I hope, a salve for some Vietnam veterans. ”

The veterans in the photos ”have one thing in common: they are veteran advocates.  Many were and some still are engaged in public service.  These Vietnam veterans have served to bond together our Helena community.  Their distinguishing characteristic, however, is their passionate advocacy for other veterans: they will never forget and will always serve fellow veterans.”

Ken Inabnit, a Vietnam veteran who recently was named as Montana’s civilian aide to the Secretary of the Army, will be the featured speaker at the exhibit’s opening.

After the exhibit closes, Lee plans to donate the photos to the Montana Military Museum, which is located at the Fort Harrison complex in Helena.

Baynes McSwain, a native of San Marcos, Texas, was killed in action in Vietnam on October 10, 1968. McSwain received a posthumous Distinguished Service Cross for the extraordinary heroism he exhibited that day as a squad leader with Company A, 2nd Battalion, 12th Infantry, in the 25th Infantry Division.

“His company came under heavy small arms and automatic weapons fire from a fortified Viet Cong base camp,” McSwain’s DSC citation notes. “Sergeant McSwain’s platoon was pinned down and the point man lay wounded in an open field completely exposed to the communists’ barrage. Though wounded in the leg by the initial volley, he immediately deployed his men to provide covering fire and disregarding his safety, crawled further into the enemy line of fire to help his stricken comrade. Shielding the man with his body, he quickly administered first aid and was pulling him to safety when he was mortally wounded by the hostile fusillade.”

Baynes McSwain also was an accomplished amateur photographer. A group of folks in San Marcos has resurrected his photos. and put together an exhibition of prints made from the slides (including the photos above and below) he took in Vietnam. There will be a soft opening around November 10 at the Walkers’ Gallery in San Marcos, and the exhibit will continue through the end of the year under the direction of the gallery’s curator, Linda Kelsey-Jones.

Todor Ostojic, a photographer in London, is working on a photography project involving Vietnam veterans. “I would like to meet with veterans, do their portraits, interview them, and put together a blog entry with the interviews and portrait images, along with a couple of images of the veterans when they were serving in Vietnam, a then-and-now image,” Ostojic told us.

“The Vietnam War is something that I have read about, and watched numerous documentaries, and it would be an honour to do this project, not only for me but to educate anyone who reads the interviews I put together. ”

The photographer is looking for Vietnam veterans living in the U.K.—or visiting veterans from the U.S.—who would be willing to take part in the project.  Each participant will receive a digital image of the final product, along with a large print.

If you’re interested, send an email to todor@nw10photography.com or go to www.nw10photography.com  If you do, please mention that you read about the project on The VVA Veteran‘s Arts of War on the web page.

“Lens” is the name of a New York Times blog that features photography, video, and “visual journalism.” One of the current entries on the blog looks at the unique and innovative photographic images of Binh Danh, 34, a Vietnamese-American artist who grew up in California and has an MFA from Stanford University. Binh Danh’s work concentrates on his Vietnamese heritage and the American War in Vietnam. His work, he says, deals with “mortality, memory, history, landscape, justice, evidence, and spirituality.”

In 2001, two years after making his first trip to Vietnam, Danh invented a photographic technique, the chlorophyll printing process, in which photographic images appear embedded in leaves through the action of photosynthesis. From the start he has included images of the Vietnam War in his leaf photographs.

The article includes details on how the printing process works and Dinh’s reflections on being a Vietnamese-American and the continuing legacy of the Vietnam War.