A Vietnam War photography exhibit you must see

It bothers me how easy it is to forget American soldiers are fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan. It seems the wars rarely makes headlines anymore. If you don’t have some connection to the military or seek out information about it, it’s easy to go days without even realizing we’re at war. But then enough soldiers or civilians will die or a politician will invoke the vote that led us to the Iraq war and the fighting will quickly reappear on the news, tucked between stories about gas shortages and Clay Aikens coming out of the closet.

A couple of weeks ago I went to the N.C. Museum of History to check out the Vietnam War photograpy exhibit. It’s called “A Thousand Words: Photographs by Vietnam Veterans” and it moved me to tears. Sixty images were hand picked to show off the various aspects of the Vietnam War from the solider’s perspective.

Fear. Sadness. Bravery. Boredom. Courage. Beauty. Strength. Homesickness. It’s all captured on film.

What makes the exhibit particularly outstanding is that each photo includes a brief summary of the image told in the verbatim words of the soldier who shot the photo. As a result, you get a one-of-a-kind perspective on what transpired and the emotions tied to a given image.

The traveling exhibit was born out of a class photography project at Sawtooth School for Visual Art in Winston-Salem. The teacher, Martin Tucker, advertised in 2003 that he was looking for Vietnam veterans with the goal of obtaining some negatives his class could turn into prints. In five months he received more than 2,600 prints and slides, according to a press release about the exhibit. Only 60 photos were chosen.

After selecting the images for A Thousand Words, Martin and his team of volunteers and students invited the veterans back to tape interviews about the photographs. Their gripping words range from the anguish of fighting near the Cambodian border to enjoying a 1966 Bob Hope Christmas show or finally taking a field “shower” in a rice paddy in 100-degree weather.

In this digital age, our youngest veterans have already amassed millions of photos and videos. They don’t need to wait for another roll of film to capture a moment (mundane or murderess) on camera. Their only limitations are their batteries. Can you imagine what a similar exhibit will look like for today’s wars in 40 years?

The exhibit runs until Nov. 17. It’s free, but donations are encouraged. Find the time to stop downtown to see these images. It’s important.

(Top photo of the exhibit courtesy of Goodnight, Raleigh).