Bumped just for the hell of it. Originally posted 2006.08.23.12:46

Yo! General Bonaparte! Look what I can do!

I happen to know one of the professors involved in getting permission for R.J Del Vecchio to show his combat photos to the college kids .This would be a great time for some Vietnam vets to be present to help Del get the point across about the misrepresentations brought on by the media in the 60's & 70's. I personally will be attending just to help Del get his point across.

At Wingate University in the George A. Batte Fine Arts Center (Recital Hall), beginning at 6:30 PM, on Sept 12, 2006, there will be a two-hour PowerPoint presentation of wartime photographs taken by former photojournalist Mr. R. J. Del Vecchio.  His lecture will include a description of his experience as a Marine and Combat Photographer for the 1st Marine division in Viet Nam, from December 1967 to November 1968.  He has given a number of presentations of his remarkable pictures in high schools and colleges, and enjoys using the medium of photography to educate young people about this important part of twentieth century history.

Mr. Del Vecchio took hundreds of photos and slides for the military during his service in Vietnam. He often shot as many as 100 frames at a time, only to have 10 to 15 selected for record-keeping.  The rest he kept for himself, creating a unique archive of a significant part of Vietnam history.  Del Vecchio now owns some of the last or only photos taken of American soldiers and Vietnamese peasants. Many of the faces in his collection belong to people long since dead.

Though many military photographers shot film around their home bases and at accidents, Del Vecchio found himself shooting more and more combat photos and earning the respect of the other Marines with which he served, as he carried a rifle along with his camera.  In 1968 he caught a bullet in his camera hand. The camera itself was shot straight through, and is now on display in the Marine Corps Museum in Washington, D.C.  He has also kept an archive of live footage from Vietnam. When other videographers were wounded or killed, he stepped in for them.

According to Del Vecchio, "The pictures range from being very pleasant to very grim." One poignant frame, he said, is of a soldier caught at the very moment of death. Others are of Vietnamese villagers at work. This presentation will capture the drama and horrors of the war in a way that no verbal recreation can, as Del tells story after story to go with the images.

Del holds both a B.S. (Holy Cross) and an M.S. (University of Maryland) in chemistry, and has previously authored books on applied Polymer Science and industrial applications of statistical methods.  For the last 25 years, he has worked for a variety of top firms in the rubber industry. For the last 16 years he has worked as a private consultant and now lives in Fuquay, North Carolina. 

There is no admission, and the event is open to the general public.
An open-ended Question/Answer session will follow the presentation.
[Contact: <jagibson@wingate.edu>]

Del believes that although all wars generate a certain number of myths, Viet Nam is unusual in that the myths seem to have been more widely accepted than the actual facts; and he is very active in exposing these myths.

Quotes from Del Vecchio:

On the anti-war movement of the sixties and seventies:

"The coverage of that war [Viet Nam] was different from all earlier wars, due to technical advances such as TV reporting, the very heavy presence of the media in-country, the evolving controversies of the war, the serious loss of objectivity by much of the media, and finally, the frustration and enormous discomfort most Americans experienced during and after it. The antiwar movement seized on everything from valid complaints to exaggeration of the problems inherent to any war to outright falsehoods and communist propaganda and publicized it all in an unending media blitz. Returning vets very often felt alienated, even rejected at times, and the bulk of them closed off the war in their minds and went on to jobs, families, making lives. The comparatively tiny fraction of antiwar vets tended to remain publicly active, and some of them went into teaching, so they've had a very disproportionate share of attention. And since the college campuses had become hotbeds of protest during the war, academia in general accepted and recorded much of the negative reports, and established a bias in thinking and teaching about the war that continues today."

On the ambiguous and misleading statement that "Viet Nam is the only war America ever lost":

"People take this to mean that the full might of the US was brought to bear on a small country with comparatively little military technology, and the small country won against all odds. This has fostered great insecurity among many Americans about our ability to accomplish military goals, which again tends to paralyze us in the world today. But the fact is that the US never fought a real war against North Vietnam, nor even fought with all possible resources and tactics in the South. We fought a holding action until the South Vietnamese had a chance to stand on their own. After Vietnamization and the departure from Vietnam of all US ground units, the South was in fact able to repel a very conventional invasion from the North, one that involved 200,000 men, hundreds of tanks, and artillery pieces superior to what we'd given the South. So we had in fact achieved our major goal. Clearly the South fell and there was a loss, and a failure on our part to support the South as we'd promised; but we did not fight and lose a war in the normal sense, and such a statement is misleading."

"…we as a society, need to acknowledge that what gave victory to the communists in Vietnam was our succumbing to impatience, war-weariness, and being manipulated by antiwar propaganda. We must remain determined and unified in the commitment to do the job all the way, and publicly so. This is what is so scary about the rebirth of the antiwar movement, even as small as its numbers really are, it's having an effect on public perception, and it's providing enormous morale boost to the jihadists. We need more people to publicly voice clear opposition to these misguided idealists, we need more support from Congress to supply whatever is needed to do the job, we need good media coverage about the positive things we achieve in Iraq, and we need bold but very competent leadership in waging this war. It cannot be anything but a lengthy and messy war, and we must learn to deal with that appropriately, with determination. Anything less will guarantee an increase in jihadism and anti-Americanism and instability all over the world."

Contributed by Steve Gardner on August 25, 2006 at 09:59 AM in R J Del Vecchio, Steve Gardner, The American Warrior | Permalink

Comments

Posted by: The Gray Dog

Sounds like an outstanding project by an exceptional patriot. The last quote of Mr. Vechio should be required reading for all that experienced that history, in uniform or not. I hope that his presentation will in some form make it to the internet for those of us unable to see it first hand. Thanks Steve.

Posted by: The Gray Dog | Aug 23, 2006 4:35:15 PM

Posted by: 1st Cav

Thanks Steve. I've been trying to tell this same story for many years. Sure wish I could attend. The invitation will go out on my email list to many Vietnam veterans with similar endeavous to tell the REAL story.

1st Cav RVN 1971 - '72

Posted by: 1st Cav | Aug 23, 2006 8:59:39 PM

Posted by: Jim Bartimus

A lot of what really happened in the Vietnam conflict has been buried by the left and the MSM; that doesn't mean it didn't happen. I commend those of you that are still trying to tell our story and I would also like to thank Steve for bringing Del Vecchio and the scheduled event to our attention.
I had a lot of friends in Vietnam and many of them were born there. We lived and died together for the common cause.
Being spit at by my friends in America on my return to the "Real World" was my first taste of politics and a lesson learned the hard way. You can tell somebody what it's like to hit your thumb with a hammer but they won't really get it until they try it themselves.
Nice one Steve. You seem to track your targets well and that one was dead center.

JB

Posted by: Jim Bartimus | Aug 24, 2006 8:25:47 PM