Photo courtesy of masspeaceaction.org
Half a century later, we still continue to learn new truths about America in the Vietnam War. For an international event that dramatically altered the United States’ public trust in the military, there are still many lessons to learn.
“Waging Peace in Vietnam,” a traveling exhibit about the history of dissent towards the Vietnam War within the US military, is currently on display at the University of Massachusetts Amherst until October 11. Curated by Ron Carver, this exhibit showcases photographs of soldiers and veterans, underground newspapers, and other artifacts that, according to UMass Professor of History Christian Appy, “vividly document anti-war resistance among active duty military.” Along with Comparative Literature Professors Jim Hicks and Moira Inghilleri, Appy helped to organize the exhibit and event series that includes documentary screenings and panel discussions aligning with topics discussed in “Waging Peace.” After the exhibit’s 2018 opening at the University of Notre Dame’s Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies and at the War Remnants Museum in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, the collection is on its second stop of their 2019 North America Tour at UMass while simultaneously touring Vietnam.
Located in Umass’s Integrative Learning Center main lobby, the exhibit’s photographs and artifacts hang suspended on the walls of an open hub for students and UMass community members. A small cafe shares the lobby, leaving one able to sit, drink coffee, and read the many posters spread around the space.
Caroline, a junior majoring in political science at UMass, is one of the students leading tours for those wishing to interact more with the material. “It’s an important experience,” she said in regard to taking Professor Appy’s class, “Waging Peace in Vietnam,” where students were able to design and lead tours for the exhibit after studying Ron Carver’s book, which delves deeper into the material explored by the exhibit.
Through showcasing the history of the war, its global effect and the domestic hardships U.S. soldiers and veterans faced when opposing to fight in Vietnam, the exhibit challenges the ‘hippie’ stereotypes of the 60s and 70s anti-war movement. “[It] recovers a virtually secret history of rebellion within the military,” said Professor Appy. The stories of those shown in “Waging Peace” include those who fled to avoid the draft, authors of anti-war underground newspapers, owners of anti-war coffeehouses, veterans who publicly protested and petitioned against the military action, citizens in Vietnam still suffering health complications from the war and many more characters and events that objected to the U.S. military action in Vietnam.
“Our hope is that students will make connections between the Vietnam era and our own times. Why do we continue to fight seemingly endless undeclared wars under false pretexts long after a majority of the American public has deemed them unnecessary, wasteful and even immoral?” Professor Appy said when asked how the exhibit relates to the contemporary college student. The responses from those interacting with the material, both from students and Five College community member alike, clearly showed the exhibit’s success in making those connections. “It showed that people who are really willing to show their opinion and speak their mind can get it shown – no matter the consequences” said Abby ’22, a history major at UMass who attended the documentary portion of the event series, called “Why We Fight.” Through interviews with military personnel, found footage and journalists’ and historians’ accounts of U.S. foreign policy, the film investigates the economic and social tactics of the U.S. Military to maintain active combat abroad.
After the film screening, Professor Appy led a discussion with an audience of UMass students, Vietnam veterans and community members. Here, the viewers quickly connected America’s history with Vietnam to the current conflict with Iraq. One student linked the U.S. military’s use of the word ‘communism’ in the Vietnam era to ‘terrorism’ in our contemporary political climate as trigger words for foreign military action.
At one point, Professor Appy asked the audience, “Did anybody find anything in the film that gave you reason for hope?” After a long pause, one woman mentioned Karen Kwiatkowski, a veteran interviewed in the film who “unabashedly” expressed her critique of the U.S. military. Later, Abby ’22 connected America’s public dissent of Vietnam to the climate change protests. “It’s uplifting, in a way, to know that if enough people speak their mind, it will at least be brought to the attention of the politicians.”
This Friday, the final event of “Waging Peace in Vietnam” will be held in the UMass campus center. A panel discussion regarding “Moral Injury and the Traumas of War,” where Vietnam veterans Wayne Smith and Doug Anderson, poet and army veteran Karen Skolfield, Iraq War veteran Ross Caputi and Hampshire College professor Robert Meagher will speak.
Today’s activist Smith student could find valuable solidarity with the protesters of the past featured in this exhibit. More importantly, every U.S. citizen can find a connection to “Waging Peace in Vietnam.” The conversations on how to challenge stereotypes, hold government accountable, and as Appy poignantly puts, “strive for a more democratic foreign policy” are ones we as a country must continue to have with each other.
