Marine Corps Base Quantico -- Isaac Both didn’t know all that much about the Vietnam War, so he attended Friday’s “Vietnam History Day” festivities at the National Museum of the Marine Corps to learn more about the conflict from those who were actually there.
The 19-year-old Germanna Community College student came away impressed after touring the museum’s Vietnam War gallery and taking in an informative lecture by retired Marine Corps Maj. Bill Peters.
“It was definitely an eye-opener for me,” Both said. “It was great being able to submerge myself into what it like being there.”
Both was among the roughly 30 people, including a number of teachers and fellow Vietnam veterans, gathered in the museum’s Scuttlebutt Theater to hear Peters, a museum docent, detail his tenure as a young rifle platoon commander in Vietnam from 1969 to 1970. The hourlong presentation included personal pictures and his own take on the many tumultuous events that were happening around him at the time.
Peters’ lecture, which was called “Vietnam: Through a Marine’s Eyes,” was among the three scheduled presentations in the snow-shortened affair in honor of the 50th anniversary of the start of the Vietnam War. Others included a “United States of America Vietnam Commemoration Program” by retired Army Col. Mark Franklin and “Fighting the North Vietnamese” by retired Marine Col. Richard Camp.
Guests to the museum were free to take in any of the lectures when not checking out the rest of the museum or the table of Vietnam-era artifacts such as uniforms and weaponry assembled in Leatherneck Gallery.
Many of the Vietnam veterans milling around the museum remain proud of all they accomplished while serving in Southeast Asia and welcomed the opportunity to tell their story.
“Sometimes I’m surprised that young folks know so little about Vietnam,” said Mark Kramer, a Marine veteran of Khe Sanh.
Kramer is now a docent at the museum, but was just an 18-year-old private first class when he first arrived at the besieged base in February 1968, surviving as many as 1,000 North Vietnamese mortar rounds per day in the two months he was there.
Another veteran, Denham Clements of Albuquerque, New Mexico, expressed his memories in the form of a painting that was available for all to see in Leatherneck Gallery.
“Vietnam Elegy,” which Clements called a tribute to the many Marines who never came home, depicts several indelible images that the former Marine captain has carried with him since returning from Vietnam in 1969. The painting remained on display in the museum Friday and Saturday.
Among the images in Clement’s painting was the etching from the Vietnam War Memorial of the name of a good friend he first met while attending The Basic School at Marine Corps Base Quantico. Clements said he hopes to find a permanent home for the mural in the near future.
“I just felt there were some things about Vietnam that needed to be told,” he said.
— Writer: jhollis@quanticosentryonline.com
Editor’s note: The Department of Defense and Marine Corps Base Quantico have teamed up to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the start of the Vietnam War. Quantico has pledged to hold events to honor the many service members, their families and civilians who supported the American effort in Southeast Asia.