Photo By Richard Goldenberg | New York State Military Museum Director Courtney Burns, left, places the cover over a...... read more read more
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SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. – College students studying the Vietnam War teamed up with the New York State Military Museum to commemorate the service of Saratoga Springs veterans by putting together a special temporary exhibit.
The exhibit opened May 1 at the museum, which is administered by the New York State Division of Military and Naval Affairs.
Eight students enrolled in Skidmore College’s “The Vietnam War in American Memory” history course, taught by Visiting Assistant History Professor David Kieran, gathered the oral histories of 11 Vietnam era-veterans from Saratoga Springs.
A joint effort between the students and the New York State Military Museum and Veterans Research Center features the students work in a new public exhibit running through November 2015 as part of Department of Defense 50th commemoration of the Vietnam War.
“The 50th anniversary of the war provides an opportunity to think about what the war meant and continues to mean for the nation and how it was and continues to be significant in the lives of the men and women who served during it,” Kieran said.
The nation marked the start of the 50th Anniversary of the Vietnam War in 2012 and New York State, the New York National Guard, the City of Saratoga Springs and the Military Museum are all Commemorative Partners with the Department of Defense to honor the service of Vietnam Veterans and their families.
Past events hosted at the museum thanked and honored veterans of the Vietnam War and their families for their service and sacrifice and sparked the project for Skidmore College, located in Saratoga Springs, and Kieran.
“The commemorations in Saratoga provided an opportunity for students to do that -- and help others do that -- by putting their classroom learning in a public context ion a couple of ways -- first by working with veterans and learning how to conduct oral history, and second by developing a way to present the history that they had studied and contributed to the public.”
Skidmore students learning about the Vietnam War in Kieran’s course sought out 11 area veterans and completed individual oral history assignments to learn more about Vietnam Veterans’ diverse experiences.
Among those veterans was retired New York Army National Guard Command Sgt. Maj. Robert Van Pelt, a career Soldier who retired after more than four decades of military service.
Van Pelt’s service began in 1969, when he was drafted into the Army. He served in the signal corps during his tour in Vietnam, and continued to serve on active duty in Italy before leaving active service in 1971 and joining the National Guard.
Van Pelt spoke with Skidmore students Rachel Castelano and Maya Obstfeld during an informal meeting and then took part in a full 90-minute interview, providing a summary of his experiences both in-country and coming home.
Like all the veterans, Van Pelt offered up unique artifacts to share with the students. In his case, he provided the draft notice that started his long military career.
“If you really look at the upheaval of the 60s and 70s regarding Vietnam War,” Van Pelt said, “the actual resentment of the war had more to do with the draft than the actual war.”
“It changed my life,” Van Pelt said of the induction notice. “I thought that was pretty significant!”
Through collaboration with Courtney Burns, Military History Director and curator of the military museum, the collection of the students’ work, including many of those veteran artifacts that document their experience, will be exhibited at the museum.
“The museum, and Courtney in particular, has been a wonderful partner in this project,” Kieran said. “First, that the museum was open to hosting a student-curated exhibit shows that it’s a creative, vibrant place that's open to partnering with the community.”
Part of the challenge, Kieran explained, is the difference in academic research and writing compared to the work of creating a museum exhibit for the public.
“My students are not public historians, and they've never curated a museum exhibit before,” Kieran said. “That Courtney was willing to walk us through the project step by step -- hosting a class at the museum on night, visiting our class to talk about how writing content for a museum is different than academic writing, and then, of course, teaching students how to install the exhibit, and, of course, using his resources to produce all of the materials -- really allowed us to produce an exhibit that both the students and veterans are proud of,” he said.
The exhibit, by its very design, is meant to capture the unique perspectives of individual veterans and highlight their views of the war and the impact it had on their lives.
“The most important lessons have been that there is no single Vietnam experience and no single set of views about what the war meant and continues to mean,” Kieran said.
“The students have heard from veterans who were opposed to the war before they were drafted and from others who continue to believe that it was a just and necessary war. They've heard from people who have spent their entire career in the military and from others who completed their tour and didn't think much about their service afterwards," he said.
“This class opened my eyes to the complexity of Vietnam,” said student Summer Fitzgerald-Keith. “It was sobering. I learned how heavily Vietnam has influenced American society, culture, and soldiers and the way we think about war.”
The exhibit featuring the Vietnam Veterans experience and their oral histories will be on display at the museum through Veterans Day 2015.
The New York State Military Museum, housed in Saratoga Springs historic New York State Armory, boasts a collection of more than 10,000 items relating to New York’s military history, including the nation’s largest collection of Civil War battle flags. The museum’s collection dates back to 1863 when the governor of New York directed a militia officer to collect items relating to the state’s Soldiers in the Civil War.
Today the museum has permanent exhibits on World Wars I and II, the Civil War, the Revolutionary War and the 19th Century New York militia and National Guard and hosts special exhibits on a regular basis.
| Date Taken: | 05.01.2015 |
| Date Posted: | 05.01.2015 09:44 |
| Story ID: | 161915 |
| Location: | SARATOGA SPRINGS , NEW YORK, US |
| Web Views: | 114 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
This work, New York Military Museum and Skidmore College partner in producing Vietnam War exhibit, by Richard Goldenberg, identified by DVIDS, must comply with the restrictions shown on https://www.dvidshub.net/about/copyright.
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