Vietnam, Part 5

This is the fourth person I spoke with.  All of these stories are so different, it's almost as if they might have been fighting the same war, but in very different ways.   If you haven't seen the others in this series, you can read "Barry's" story here, "Jesse's" story here, and "Ted's" story here.

If you recall, I asked each vet for his year of birth, what year he went to Vietnam, and where he was stationed.  I also asked if he enlisted or was drafted.  Then I asked for some personal feelings about things he remembered from the war.

Please be aware these stories were told in my own words, based on the information and facts each serviceman provided me.

Because this affects how I feel about Vietnam and how these veterans bared their souls, I'm adding it to Elke's theme, Landscapes of the Soul at Art Journal Journey. 

This is "Jim's" story.  He was very vocal.  He would talk calmly for awhile, then go off on a tirade over something I said or asked.

I searched the internet for a crop duster, but all I could find was this antique plane, I hoped might look like one.  Suddenly, I found all these old airplane buttons in my stash and decided to use them, too.  At first I didn't want to cut the loops off the buttons for fear they would fall apart (they are in two parts), but once I added the E6000 glue, they stayed intact quite well.

I asked Jim to explain the word "grunt."  He first told me it probably meant "boots on the ground."  Then he gave me these better explanations.

Now you understand the significance of the planes.  They dropped tons and tons of Agent Orange over a good part of the countryside in Vietnam, as well as eastern Laos and Cambodia, where the Ho Chi Minh Trail was located.

Jim also told me he and his fellow American veterans were not the only ones looking for aid from Agent Orange.  The Vietnamese were also affected and wanted reparations for the lives that were destroyed or the children who were born deformed in some way.   

Jim was just another divorce statistic that was often the case with returning vets.  From what I've read and been told, divorce was often synonymous with Vietnam vets, whether they were married before they went to Vietnam, or after they returned home from their tour of duty.

Although I forgot to add something Jim told me, he said one thing that kept him sane was his love of photography.  He kept a camera with him at all times and took photos of both happy and sad times.  He told me he sent all the film home and never saw any of the photos until he returned stateside. 

I used this picture to show a photo he might have taken when he was on leave.

I used the back of the previous page (three pages sewn together) as my substrate.   You can see the heavier bobbin thread didn't correct my tension problem.  I added computer generated text, an image from the internet, four airplane buttons, and one colored image from a travel magazine.

I have one more person whose story I have received, then I will create another page from my point of view.  Thanks for visiting with me today.  I hope you are enjoying this series, and how very different each person's view of the war was.  Thanks also for joining me at Art Journal Journey.  I hope to see you there, too.