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. See this traveling exhibit at the Museum of the Cape Fear Historical Complex in Fayetteville. The exhibit will open at 2 p.m. on Saturday, May 2, and run through Nov. 15, 2009. Admission is free. Sponsors for bringing the exhibit to Fayetteville are the Museum of the Cape Fear Historical Complex Foundation, Inc. and the Fayetteville Area Convention and Visitors Bureau.
“A Thousand Words is a very personal look at what the soldiers experienced and how they chose to document it,” explains Tucker. 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.
Tucker 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 emotions remained fresh and often just below the surface.”
After selecting the images for A Thousand Words, Tucker 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.” Other 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 advisors 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 North Carolina 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.
For more information about the museum, call 910-486-1330 or access www.museumofthecapefear.ncdcr.gov. The Museum of the Cape Fear Historical Complex, located on the corner of Bradford and Arsenal avenues in Fayetteville, is open Tuesday through Saturday from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., and Sunday from 1 p.m. to 5 p.m. 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, www.ncculture.com.