Arts of War on the Web

Once again this year—on Monday, May 27—the Memorial Day Writers’ Project will set up its tent on the Mall close to the Vietnam Veterans Memorial. And once again there will be an open mike for veterans and others to read their prose and poetry and to sing their songs

“Join us on the National Mall at the Writer’s Tent,” Dick Epstein, who coordinates the event, said. “We will be there from 11:30 to 5:00 to honor our veterans—those who are with us and those who are not. Bring a funny story, a prose piece you wrote, a poem, or a song. Let your voice be heard.”

The Kurt Vonnegut Memorial Library is sponsoring a unique arts-oriented Veterans Day event, Veterans Reclaim Armistice Day, on November 11 at the Indiana War Memorial in Indianapolis. The event consists of lectures, performances, sculpture, readings, and paintings “in an exploration of how artistic expression can help veterans and military personnel communicate their experiences to others,” according to the event’s organizers.

The non-profit library is an apt venue for this event. “Kurt Vonnegut was huddled captive in a former meat locker when the bombs fell that leveled Dresden, Germany, in World War II. He was forced to pull out dead men and women and children and pets, and he was a 22-year-old kid. It’s why he wrote Slaughterhouse-Five,” Julie Whitehead, the library’s executive director, said.

The event includes a talk by Mark Vonnegut on his father’s World War II experiences and Slaughterhouse-Five, and a Keynote speech by Jonathan Shay, the author and long-time PTSD expert.

The artist Tom Hubbard will give a presentation on his “Semper Fidelis: How I Met My Father” mixed-media fine art exhibition, which is a combination of Hubbard’s work in ceramics, photography, and graphic design. It includes USMC reports, letters written by Hubbard’s Marine Corps Vietnam veteran father, and archival photos of Hubbard, senior, who was killed in Vietnam was his son was just two years old.

The event is free and open to the public, but reservations are suggested. To do so and to see a complete schedule of the activities, go to the event’s web page.

Lewe Barnett, 2006

On Monday, May 28, Memorial Day 2012, the Memorial Day Writer’s Project one again is hosting a group of veteran writers, poets, songwriters, and singers–many of them Vietnam veterans—on the Mall in Washington, D.C. The MDWP tent opens at 11:30 a.m., and activities go on till 5:30 on the Mall near the Vietnam Veterans Memorial behind the sidewalk facing Constitution Avenue near 21st Street.

This event is open to all veterans. If you would like to participate, show up and “bring your guitar, your stories, your poems,” said Dick Epstein, who helps coordinate the event. You can email him for more information at Dick_Epstein@hotmail.com

Those who have signed to participate this year include Jonathan Myer, Dick Morris, Tom McLean, Jimmy Stewart,  Epstein, and Barbara Martin. “Author and journalist Nancy Lynch will be there with copies of her book Vietnam Mailbag,” Epstein said. “Come and listen to the words of poet/activist Sistah Joy, Maritza Rivera, and the stories of Red Cross volunteer Holley Watts. Bring a friend.”

The Memorial Day Writers’ Project, which has been hosting veteran poets, writers, singers, and storytellers in a tent near the Vietnam Veterans Memorial on the Mall in Washington, D.C., on Memorial Day and Veterans Day since 1993, once again this year is asking veterans to participate in the event on November 11

As MDWP’s Dick Epstein puts it: “We who have been there, whether infantrymen, truck driver, cook, medic, mechanic, pilot or supply clerk—you who spent time under the glaring sun, you who floated in a cesspool of never-ending rain, clogged deep in mud or blinded in a white-out trudging forward in snow covered terrain.  All of you have something to contribute—to welcome our young veterans home and to remind them they are not alone. ”

For more info, including how to get on the reader’s list for November 11, go to the Project’s website.  That site also has a reprint of  “Magic Moments Near the Wall,” the article on the Project that appeared in the November 2002 issue of The VVA Veteran.

The Pentagon announced last month that Retired Army Lieutenant General Claude M. Kicklighter will be the Director of the official DoD Vietnam war 50th Anniversary Commemoration. Gen. Kicklighter retired from the Army in 1991, having served two tours of duty in Vietnam: from February 1966-February 1967  with the 1st Logistical Command, and from August 1970-August 1971 as Assistant Chief of Staff (G-4) for the 101st Airborne Division.  Gen. Kirklighter   was Executive Director of the U.S. 50th Anniversary of World War II Commemoration Committee from 1991-95. 

DoD’s Vietnam War 50th Anniversary Commemoration Program began officially in January of this year.  Through it, the Pengaon will be working with other federal agencies; veterans’ groups; and state, local, government, and non-government organizations on a wide array of commemoration activities.

For more information, call 877-387-9951 or go to the official website.

The Memorial Day Writers’ Project open mike on the Mall–that’s the Mall in Washington, D.C., adjacent to the Vietnam Veterans Memorial—will take place this year from 11:30 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. on Monday, May 30.

Vietnam War and other veterans are invited to bring their poems, prose, humorous stories, and songs to the  MDWP tent on the Mall behind the sidewalk facing Constitution Ave.  Among those who are scheduled to take part are  author/singer/songwriter Dick Morris (above);  Nancy Lynch Steele, the author of Vietnam Mailbag; singer-songwriters Jonathan Myer and Dave McKay; and former Donut Dolly (and author) Holley Watts. 

All authors, poets, singers, and songwriters are invited to take part in this semiannual event, and bring copies of their books, chapbooks, and CDs for sale at the MDWP tent.   For more info, go to  http://www.memorialdaywritersproject.com or email dick_epstein@ hotmail.com.

The state of Wisconsin is rolling out the red carpet for Vietnam veterans the weekend before Memorial Day with a three-day event known as LZ Lambeau. The sponsors are the Wisconsin Historical Society, the Wisconsin Department of Veterans Affairs, and Wisconsin Public Television, along with a slew of veterans’ organizations including Vietnam Veterans of America’s Wisconsin State Council.

The event includes a motorcycle rally from La Crosse to Green Bay on Friday, May 21; the opening of Back in the World, an exhibit by the Wisconsin Veterans Museum; a Vietnam-era military vehicle exhibit; music and other performances; and the arrival of a Vietnam War era Huey helicopter.

Things get started on Thursday May 20, at 1:00 p.m., when the event opens to the public at Lambeau Field, the famed “frozen tundra,” the home of the NFL Green Bay Packers. That will be followed at 4:00 that afternoon with the dedication of The Moving Wall™. The music stage starts at 3:00.

Saturday’s events include an aircraft exhibit at Austin Straubel International Airport in Green Bay; a series of lectures beginning at 11:00 a.m.; music from noon to 6:00 p.m; a 7:30 p.m. Tribute Ceremony; and more music till 11:00.

The Sunday events include music at 12:30 by Vietnam veteran Lem Genovese and a “Wiping of the Tears” Ceremony at the Oneida National Veterans Memorial Wall at 3:30 p.m. The weekend is open to all veterans. For more info go to the LZ Lambeau web site.

For its annual Black History event February 25, the Newton White Museum in Mitchellville, Maryland, is looking for information on African Americans in the military, from World War I to the Vietnam War.

In you’d like to share stories, photographs, artifacts or memorabilia, call 301-249-2004 or email nwmansion@pgparks.com

The Newton White Mansion, which is in the Washington, D.C. suburb of Prince George’s County, is a Neo-Georgian-style brick mansion sitting on 586 acres. The mansion was the home of Navy Captain Newton H. White, the first commanding officer on the U.S.S. Enterprise prior to World War II.

The big National Memorial Day Parade in Washington steps off at 2:00 p.m on Monday, May 25. This is the formerly annual event that took a 70-year hiatus and was re-established four years ago.

The parade’s organizers, the American Veterans Center of Arlington, Virginia, tell me it’s the largest Memorial Day in the nation. They expect a crowd of some 250,000 to honor America’s veterans and those who did not come home from America’s wars. The parade will include marching bands, veteran units, and uniformed military personnel.

This year there will be a special tribute to the U.S. Navy that will include Navy veteran Ernest Borgnine, along with actors Gary Sinise and Joe Mantegna, and country music star Lee Greenwood.  For more info go to the parade’s web site.

The 2008 American Veterans Conference will be held November 6-8, the weekend before Veterans Day, in Washington D.C. This is the 11th annual conference put on by The American Veterans Center. The headliner this year is Lt. General Hal Moore (above), the hero of the Battle of the Ia Drang Valley, who received a VVA Excellence in the Arts Award for his book We Were Soldiers Once and Young. Among other things, the conference will feature a panel called “Baseball Goes to War,” featuring an array of ballplayer veterans including Hall of Famer Bob Feller.

For registration information and the schedule of events http://www.americanveteranscenter.org/AVC_conference-schedule.html For more information email Tim Holbert tholbert@americanveteranscenter.org or call 571-480-4152