Little did Martin Tucker know that a class photography project would evolve into a powerful exhibit of national significance. In November 2003, while working as photography coordinator at Sawtooth School for Visual Art in Winston-Salem, he posted flyers around North Carolina’s Piedmont Triad area stating, “Seeking Vietnam Veterans.” He hoped a few veterans would loan some negatives from which his students could make prints.
But the request opened the floodgates.
More than 2,600 prints and slides poured in from veterans and family members within five months. Tucker, a photojournalist and teacher, felt something greater at hand. He envisioned an exhibit for — and by — Vietnam veterans. By November 2004, the exhibit became a reality, and A Thousand Words: Photographs by Vietnam Veterans began a national tour. On Thursday, May 1, the traveling exhibit will open at the N.C. Museum of History in Raleigh. Admission is free, and the exhibit will run until Nov. 17, 2008.
“A Thousand Words is a very personal look at what the soldiers experienced and how they chose to document it,” explains Martin. Each of the 60 compelling images selected for the exhibit has a description from the veteran who took the photograph. Topics include camaraderie, jungle combat, the Vietnamese people, and a soldier’s private moments.
Martin says an important, unforeseen benefit emerged as the exhibit progressed. Through the photographs, the veterans found a way to express what they could not say. Silences about the war were broken between husbands and wives, family members and others.
“Photographs weren’t just dropped off at my office,” he states. “The men wanted to talk. Three decades later, their experiences remained fresh and often just below the surface.”
After selecting the images for A Thousand Words, Martin and his team of volunteers and students invited the veterans back to tape interviews about the photographs. Their gripping words range from the anguish of fighting near the Cambodian border to enjoying a 1966 Bob Hope Christmas show or finally taking a field “shower” in a rice paddy in 100-degree weather.
For example, army veteran Joe Idol recalled wartime anxiety when describing his photograph of a soldier in a Cambodian jungle. “We were never off duty. Being in a war zone, you got to understand, there are different ways to get killed during the different periods of the day.” Others soldiers described calmer scenes, such as a Vietnamese farmer riding on a water buffalo or people washing clothes in a river.
More than 206,000 men and women from North Carolina served in Vietnam. In the 1950s, the first American troops arrived in Vietnam as military advisers to the South Vietnam government. By 1965 American combat forces began arriving in large numbers, and the conflict became primarily an American war. By the time our troops withdrew in 1975, more than 58,000 Americans had died.
Don’t miss A Thousand Words, a profound tribute to the men and women from the Piedmont Triad who served our country. For creating and curating the exhibit, Tucker received the Distinguished Service Award, the highest civilian award from the Military Order of the Purple Heart Association. Tucker, a Vietnam-era veteran who served in the U.S. Navy, currently teaches photography at a private school and runs a photography studio in Winston-Salem.
FREE PROGRAM
Curator’s Tour: A Thousand Words: Photographs by Vietnam Veterans
Saturday, May 17
1:30 p.m.
Join Martin Tucker for a poignant perspective of the Vietnam War through the lenses of soldiers who experienced it.
For more information, call 919-807-7900 or visit ncmuseumofhistory.org.
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The N.C. Museum of History’s hours are Monday through Saturday, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., and Sunday, noon to 5 p.m. Admission is free. The museum is part of the Division of State History Museums, Office of Archives and History, an agency of the N.C. Department of Cultural Resources. The department’s Web site is www.ncculture.com.
