THE VIRTUAL VIETMAN MUSEUM THE VIRTUAL VIETMAN MUSEUM
A place to leave your personal comments. You are invited to display articles in the Vietnam Virtual Museum. Weoffer this forum to anyone who might have mementos, stories, photographs, or memorabilia from the Vietnam Era they would like to display and share. We welcome links from other sites pertaining to Vietnam Veterans, the war years and the decades of the 1960s and early 1970s. However, we ask that all articles be the property of the person offering them and do notviolate any copyrights. Briarwoodva.com and Barbara Fleenor Turner are not responsible for any articles in The Vietnam Virtual Museum that might infringe on copyrights or are put into the Museum without permission of the true and legal owner. The web master reserves the right to edit or delete inappropriate materials.
THOUGHTS AND QUOTES:
Welcome the Past: The Decade of Conflict The Vietnam War years were a time of turmoil and political unrest for the United
States of America at home and a time of death and dying for American service men in the killing fields of Southeast Asia. A generation has grown to adulthood and
parented their own children since Lyndon B. Johnson was President and Commander-in-Chief and young men and women were sent to War in Vietnam. Step back in time to 1965-1975 and relive the memories of some who were
there: the soldiers, the politicians, the protesters, the widows, the orphans, the parents. This page is established in special memory to those who gave all, the men
who never came home. We hope it will become the "Black Wall" of cyberspace, so that we will keep the memory alive. Thank you for visiting this site. Leave your special memories for others to share.
REQUIEM He loaded the shot gun He had been grateful to come home whole, The war remained a time-bomb in his duffel, He lay sky-shrunk against a gravel parking lot, the life a bullet Barbara Yount Coyne
as absently as he lighted his cigarette,
remembering NaTrang and rice paddies,
wrinkling his nose as he recalled
the stink of the Far East.
stepping from the American 727 at Cleveland
Hopkins with a bronze star in his pocket;
shrapnel dark blue in his left leg.
dioxin masquerading as other ailments:
the blisters wouldn't heal, headaches baked his
vision, but he was able to stand despite numbness.
Anger sank like stones in his belly.
pupils pinpoints of questions, a pink
froth bubbled at the corner of his mouth:
making a small mark at entry
taking so much when it leaves.
July 1980