A Minnesota PBS Initiative
Plymouth 360
Thank you to everyone who joined us at the Plymouth Library 360 event on Tuesday, March 6 2018 to share personal stories, and to listen and connect. Below are some highlights from this special evening.
LEARN MORE ABOUT THE
VIETNAM WAR 360 EVENT SERIES
Bruce Richardson: "The good Christian kid from East Providence, RI was doing something wrong. What West Point teaches is 'Duty, Honor, County’. What was I doing? I was doing this for revenge for my friend Gary and that’s the wrong reason to be a soldier. On the Vietnam Memorial, there are 29 names of my classmates….and I go find Gary’s name every time I am there."
Watch Bruce's Story
Linda McBrayer: "I lost my father on Sept 2nd, 1967 and I got him back May 27th, 2012. And what happened that day was that my husband and I got in a car and we drove to Kansas City where a wonderful man handed me my father’s diary…"
Read Linda's Story
Stewart Herman: "In late 1969-70, I was drafted and I was very strongly against the war as I had heard speaker after speaker talk about the things that were being done and scope of destruction. I said there is no reason for this war so I applied to become a conscientious objector…"
Read Stewart's Story
Louie Hai Tran: "In 1975 when the Viet Cong started moving down into Saigon, one of my dad’s friends came to the door and said we have to go now. In the middle of the night we had to grab what we could – birth certificates and old photos – and fled our home..."
Watch Louie's Story
Kay Brown: "Sometimes Galen would go into incredible depression. Back then we didn’t know PTSD from a hole in the ground. He’d sit in front of his tv. My daughter was three at the time. He’d sit there for days and not talk. My daughter would crawl up in his lap and just sit there and not say a word. As a child, she sensed his need for love and understanding."
Look at Kay's Story
Anh-Hoa Thi Nguyen: "I am going to do a piece about my mother because a lot of times soldiers are the ones that get all the recognition or the stories and seldom is it the mothers or the wives of the soldiers or the children that ever really tell their stories."
ABOUT THE VIETNAM WAR 360 LIBRARY SERIES
Twin Cities PBS and Minnesota Remembers Vietnam invite you to a community conversation that explores the Vietnam War and its legacy from several points of view. Drawing upon speakers with very different experiences, the conversations expand on the Ken Burns and Lynn Novick Vietnam War documentary and on the Minnesota Remembers Vietnam body of work. Related videos and books will be highlighted.
Learn more
Thank you to MELSA and the Plymouth Library for partnering to make this event possible.
For information on the Galen Brown Art Retrospective please visit galenbrownartcollection.com.
Did you attend the event? We invite you to join the conversation and share your thoughts by adding a comment below.
Story Themes: 360, Anh-Hoa Thi Nguyen, Art, Bruce Richardson, Conscientious Objection, Family, Galen Brown, Infantry, Kay Brown, Louie Hai Tran, MELSA, Plymouth Public Library, Refugee, Stewart Hernam, Vietnamese, West Point
Show Comments