close

History Center exhibit explores the tragedy of the Vietnam War

4 min read
1 / 6

Courtesy of Rose Gantner

Rose Gantner provides cookies to the children of the Montagnards, allies of the United States, in 1966 or 1967. Gantner, a Western Pennsylvania native, served two tours in Vietnam with the American Red Cross.

2 / 6

Courtesy of Detre Library and Archives, Senator John Heinz History Center

Western Pennsylvania native William A. Korber conducts interviews in the field in 1968. Korber served as a broadcast specialist covering the activities of the 25th Division. Here, he interviews artillerymen, giving them a chance to say “hello” to their families back home.

3 / 6

National Archives photo

Men of the U.S. 7th Marines, part of a massive U.S. troop buildup, move along rice paddy dikes in pursuit of the Viet Cong in 1965.

4 / 6

National Archives photo

UH-1D “Huey” helicopters airlift members of the 2nd Battalion, 14th Infantry Regiment northeast of Cu Chi, Vietnam, in 1966.

5 / 6

National Archives photo

Men of the 173rd Airborne Brigade are shown on a search-and-destroy patrol after receiving supplies in 1966.

6 / 6
Logo for Vietnam exhibit

No question, 1945 was a year of epoch-making events.

The death of Franklin Roosevelt. The death of Adolf Hitler. The end of World War II. The start of the atomic age.

Amid all this tumult, it would require almost supernatural prescience to foresee how a brewing struggle to shake off colonial rule in a far-off corner of Asia would end up shaping American life and culture two decades later, and end up killing more than 58,000 young Americans and at least 2 million Vietnamese, Cambodians and Laotians.

Just how a postwar independence movement 11 time zones away from Washington, D.C., slowly blossomed into a bitter, unwinnable quagmire for the United States is explored in the exhibit, “The Vietnam War: 1945-1975,” which opened Saturday at the Senator John Heinz History Center in Pittsburgh’s Strip District. Developed along with the New York Historical Society, it includes artifacts from the war, audio/visual displays that tell the stories of people on the war’s front lines, and a look at how residents of the Pittsburgh region were affected by it.

“It’s a difficult subject, a hard thing to talk about even today,” said Andy Masich, the president and CEO of the Heinz History Center. “But it’s an important subject for us to deal with.”

Ironically, “The Vietnam War: 1945-1975” follows the center’s exhibit on the Apollo 11 journey to the moon in 1969, juxtaposing America’s most triumphant moment of the 1960s with its greatest slow-motion tragedy. Masich pointed out that the Vietnam War’s impact is still being felt more than 40 years after it ended, particularly in how it made Americans cynical and mistrustful of their government.

In fact, “The Vietnam War: 1945-1975” highlights how the majority of Americans supported the country’s involvement in the conflict when Marines were first sent there in 1965. In the decades that preceded the United States’ direct intervention, it supported efforts to keep Vietnam under French colonial control. U.S. policymakers feared that it would otherwise become a communist state and set off a “domino effect” throughout the region. By 1954, the French departed and Vietnam was divided, with North Vietnam led by independence movement commander Ho Chi Minh, and South Vietnam led by a series of regimes friendly to the United States. A guerrilla war waged by the North against the South escalated to the point that, by 1964, there were 23,000 American troops in Vietnam. The next year, ground combat units arrived.

The exhibit contains many of the items those troops used, including a UH-1H “Huey” helicopter with a 48-foot wingspan, cots graffitied by Pennsylvania soldiers and a jeep in which they traveled. It also has weapons that were utilized by America’s opponents, such as a Viet Cong rocket launcher on loan from the Soldiers & Sailors Memorial Hall and Museum in Oakland. The region’s ties to the conflict are also represented by images snapped by the late photojournalist Eddie Adams, a native of New Kensington.

The Vietnam War was the first war where footage from it was widely seen on television, which helped contribute to the decline in its popularity. The exhibit has a reproduction of an American living room circa 1965, and it also looks at music that commented on the war by Marvin Gaye, Jimi Hendrix, Credence Clearwater Revival and others. The protest movement spawned by the Vietnam War, both across the country and in Pittsburgh, is explored through posters and photographs.

Several public programs will be offered in conjunction with “The Vietnam War: 1945-1975” before it closes Sept. 22. Former Pittsburgh Steelers running back Rocky Bleier, who was seriously wounded in Vietnam before playing with the team, will deliver a talk on his experiences July 8. Then, on July 23, Lynn Novick, who co-directed the 10-part “Vietnam War” series with renowned documentarian Ken Burns, will be at the center.

Active-duty and military veterans will be given a 50% discount on admission throughout the run of the exhibit, and free admission on Memorial Day and Fourth of July weekends.

Additional information is available at www.heinzhistorycenter.org/vietnam.

CUSTOMER LOGIN

If you have an account and are registered for online access, sign in with your email address and password below.

NEW CUSTOMERS/UNREGISTERED ACCOUNTS

Never been a subscriber and want to subscribe, click the Subscribe button below.

Starting at $3.75/week.

Subscribe Today