Conscious Choice: Looking Through the Eyes of Vietnam Vets

July 2003

Looking Through the Eyes of Vietnam Vets

by Jonn Salovaara

Seventy percent of visitors to the National Vietnam Veterans Art Museum (NVVAM) are women. According to curator Pim Yotti, 40 percent of that portion are the wives and daughters of Vietnam veterans. Many of them leave comments in the guest book saying that they have for the first time understood what their husbands or fathers went through, why they couldn’t sleep, and why they didn’t want to talk about it. As we try to understand another conflict — the "operation" in Iraq — this museum offers everyone a very memorable depiction of war through art.

I asked Yotti how the experience of the museum’s 800 works, all by Vietnam veterans — about half of which are on display at any given time — differ from the experience of seeing a movie about Vietnam, like "Apocalypse Now" or "Platoon." She replies, "You basically construct the experience of the war for yourself, as you look at one of the paintings or sculptures." And it’s true: many of the artworks are coded depictions of war; it takes the viewer to decipher the code.

Richard Yohnke’s "Guardian I" may be viewed as a summary of his experience in the war. The soldier-figure that takes up most of this large pastel on paper has his back to us; much of it is surrounded with bold black strokes. On one level, this is simply a soldier viewed from behind. But as Yotti points out, in a more metaphorical sense, this soldier is a figure immune to communication, always receding into the blackness, walking away from our attempt to reach him. He’s the soldier who’s been through something that cannot be shared.

Cleveland Wright reacted to the deaths of comrades by depicting a Black mother in receipt of a death notification in "We Regret to Inform You," (oil on canvas, 1979). The mother’s face is hidden beneath a huge red handkerchief. The round face of a clock on the table echoes the circle of the postmark on the letter in her hand. The checkerboard floor suggests the games of chess or checkers in which some pieces are lost while others survive, and perhaps the combination of races in the American armed forces. Does the light above promise hope? Certainly, the crack in the windowpane indicates that this particular family was not one of the wealthier to lose a son to the war. Beyond the unwatchable moment when a mother learns of her son’s death, rightfully hidden by that handkerchief, there is any number of symbolic aspects to this painting, which invite a viewer’s participation in this part of war experience.

This dependence on the viewer applies to some of the photography as well. In "Rescue Mission" (1970) by Làszlò Kondor, one soldier stands tall, carrying an elderly Vietnamese woman like a baby in his arms, though she resembles an unwrapped mummy more than a baby. Another soldier crouches low, hands outstretched in an "everybody keep down" gesture. It’s up to us to sort out the relationship between these three figures and other figures in the scene.

Some of the museum’s pieces may remind visitors of canonized works on display at the Art Institute and elsewhere. Though few of NVVAM’s artists were professionals, it seems the intensity of their experiences allow at least some of them to produce works on a par with officially recognized works of the 20th century. One small complaint: Since these are not famous artists, it would be nice to have fuller biographical information about them next to their works. And one small warning: As you might expect, some of the works are grisly.

Who really wants to get closer to war than this? There’s a quotation from Deng Ming-Dao, a Taoist monk several thousand years before Christ, inscribed on the wall near the entrance of the museum. "If you go personally to war, you cross the line yourself. You sacrifice ideals for survival and fury of killing. That alters you forever." Visiting the NVVAM may indeed increase our understanding of what it means to cross that line, whether the line is drawn in the jungles of Southeast Asia or in the sands of the Middle East.

The museum, established in 1996, is home to a national memorial sculpture of name-imprinted dog tags suspended above the main stairway, honoring the 58,226 Americans killed in the war.

Jonn Salovaara is a freelance writer and landscape gardener. He teaches writing and literature at Columbia College Chicago.

National Vietnam Veterans Art Museum

1801 S. Indiana Avenue, Chicago; 312-326-0270

Recommend this page to a friend

Top Ten pages recommended to friends: