thedrifter
02-25-08, 11:28 AM
Vietnam War photos on display in Hull trigger emotions
By
Mon Feb 25, 2008, 05:44 AM EST
HULL - “It was like another lifetime,” John F. Morgan said Sunday after he perused Vietnam War photographs on display at the Anne Scully Senior Center. The Cohasset resident, now 61, recalled that he turned 21 during his 1968-69 tour of duty with the Marines in South Vietnam.
Wearing a denim jacket adorned with Marine Corps patches, Morgan was one of a small number of visitors at the afternoon exhibition opening.
Sponsored by the recently formed Hull Veterans Council, the exhibit will run from noon to 8 p.m. daily through Thursday at the 197A Samoset Ave. center.
Morgan said he couldn’t relate to all the photos since many of them were shot in locations where he didn’t serve.
Still, the photos “triggered so many emotions,” he said.
Serving with fellow Marines made his time in Vietnam “the best days of my life,” but losing Marine comrades made that same time also “the worst days of my life,” Morgan said.
The exhibit brought back memories for Army Vietnam veteran Edward F. Chase, 60, of Rockland, who found the exhibit “very well put together.”
Photos of Vietnamese children reminded him of seeing children going through rubbish looking for any usable items they could take home, Chase said.
“Nobody, I don’t think, will ever forget that era,” Donna Doherty Dern of Hull said. The 1971 Hingham High graduate recalled the heavy toll that the war took on people of her generation.
The photo exhibit was assembled by John A. Webster, 61, photographer-artist and city veterans services commissioner in Malden.
The non-combat photos show subjects like “Children of Pleiku,” a Buddhist cemetery, a group of Vietnamese Boy Scouts, “Choppers over Bien Hoa” and a shrine to “Our Lady of Bien Hoa.”
Webster titled the exhibit the “Other Side of the Wall” to honor not only those whose names are on the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Wall in Washington, D.C., but also those on “the other side” – ones who came home from the war.
He shot many of the photos during his 1967-68 tour of duty. Others contributed photos after hearing about the exhibit and letting him know that they wanted to be part of it, Webster said.
He has been traveling with the exhibit since 1994.
http://www.wickedlocal.com/hull/news/x467774762
Ellie
By
Mon Feb 25, 2008, 05:44 AM EST
HULL - “It was like another lifetime,” John F. Morgan said Sunday after he perused Vietnam War photographs on display at the Anne Scully Senior Center. The Cohasset resident, now 61, recalled that he turned 21 during his 1968-69 tour of duty with the Marines in South Vietnam.
Wearing a denim jacket adorned with Marine Corps patches, Morgan was one of a small number of visitors at the afternoon exhibition opening.
Sponsored by the recently formed Hull Veterans Council, the exhibit will run from noon to 8 p.m. daily through Thursday at the 197A Samoset Ave. center.
Morgan said he couldn’t relate to all the photos since many of them were shot in locations where he didn’t serve.
Still, the photos “triggered so many emotions,” he said.
Serving with fellow Marines made his time in Vietnam “the best days of my life,” but losing Marine comrades made that same time also “the worst days of my life,” Morgan said.
The exhibit brought back memories for Army Vietnam veteran Edward F. Chase, 60, of Rockland, who found the exhibit “very well put together.”
Photos of Vietnamese children reminded him of seeing children going through rubbish looking for any usable items they could take home, Chase said.
“Nobody, I don’t think, will ever forget that era,” Donna Doherty Dern of Hull said. The 1971 Hingham High graduate recalled the heavy toll that the war took on people of her generation.
The photo exhibit was assembled by John A. Webster, 61, photographer-artist and city veterans services commissioner in Malden.
The non-combat photos show subjects like “Children of Pleiku,” a Buddhist cemetery, a group of Vietnamese Boy Scouts, “Choppers over Bien Hoa” and a shrine to “Our Lady of Bien Hoa.”
Webster titled the exhibit the “Other Side of the Wall” to honor not only those whose names are on the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Wall in Washington, D.C., but also those on “the other side” – ones who came home from the war.
He shot many of the photos during his 1967-68 tour of duty. Others contributed photos after hearing about the exhibit and letting him know that they wanted to be part of it, Webster said.
He has been traveling with the exhibit since 1994.
http://www.wickedlocal.com/hull/news/x467774762
Ellie