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A New Exhibit at the Brooklyn Historical Society
BY BOB HOPKINS
“I feel like Lady Macbeth. I’m
never going to get the blood of Vietnam off my hands.”
–Joan Furey, U.S. Army Nurse, Vietnam, 1969 “What do yous think they’ll
axe me?”
Ernie Diorio was a little nervous. There was no mistaking
where he’d been
born and bred. His Brooklynese was a dead giveaway. Although he’d moved
to Jersey many years ago, he retained the uniqueness that identified him as a
son of Bushwick, then Fort Greene.
Diorio, accompanied by Paul Bausch and myself,
was driving to the Brooklyn Historical Society on a crisp
late February morning to look at—and in Diorio’s
case, participate in—In Our Own Words: Portraits of Brooklyn’s Vietnam
Veterans, the premiere exhibit of the new Oral History Gallery.
The project is
a collaboration between Phil Napoli, an assistant professor
of U.S. social and public history at Brooklyn College, and
the Brooklyn Historical Society. A meeting in 2006 between
Napoli and Deborah Schwartz, the president of the Society,
led to brainstorming sessions that culminated in the exhibit.
According to Kate Fermoile, the vice president for Exhibitions
and Education, Schwartz was involved in leading a drive to
establish oral histories as the centerpiece of exhibitions,
rather than ancillary to clips, artifacts, and written explanations
that marked most presentations around the country. The oral
histories—in
this case of Brooklynites who served during the Vietnam War—were to be
the focus of the exhibition. Napoli was a perfect fit, with his background in
oral history projects, including hundreds of hours of recorded interviews with
Vietnam veterans for a book he was working on. Napoli had a professional interest
in Vietnam veterans, and he felt a personal attachment as the son of a man who
witnessed the bombing of his home town of Naples, Italy, during World War II.
The Brooklyn Historical Society is located at 128 Pierrepont
Street in a four-story Queen Anne style building completed
in 1881. As we entered the building, the rich ornamentation
and the life-sized oil portraits of famous Brooklyn residents
struck me. As I ascended the staircase past Commodore Thomas
Truxton, Philip Livingston, Hosea Webster, and William Cullen
Bryant, I suddenly found myself standing before a gold-framed
portrait of John and Dennis Hamill. I had just experienced
a seamless flow into the exhibition, the result of planning
by the Society’s Alison Cornyn. The portraits are printed on canvas, giving them
a painterly sense.
Before each of the nine photographic portraits is a pad
that you step on to activate a state-of-the-art sound system.
As you listen to the 3-5 minute presentations, told in the
veterans’ own words, you become intimate
with the people in the portraits.
Having served in Vietnam, my experience forged a visceral
connection with each subject. Their commonality lies in their
ties to Brooklyn and their service. Although they come from
different racial, ethnic, and religious backgrounds, the
thread of their lives is intertwined in their upbringing
and service.
Each
portrait conveys a part of the personality of the subject,
from the free-spirit surfboard behind Joe Giannini, to the
spirituality of stained glass windows over the shoulder of
Anthony Wallace, and the activism of Herbert Sweet symbolized
by the Black Veterans for Social Justice insignia he wears.
John and Dennis Hamill appear together, although Dennis didn’t serve. His statement at the beginning
of the oral history, “I wasn’t sure I’d ever see him again.
And it was like this amazing emptiness that I never felt that way before,” brings
home the tightness of an Irish family from Park Slope. You instinctively know
why John Hamill wanted his younger brother with him in the portrait.
Adjacent
to each portrait is a glass-enclosed stand with personal
artifacts: medals, letters home, a can of foot powder, pictures
of men striking macho poses. And there are unit insignias,
olive drab in keeping with the uniform of the day. Under
the memorabilia is a printed version of the oral presentation
and a bio of each person.
These simply add to the oral histories.
As I studied the portrait
of Joan Furey and listened to her presentation, I was struck
by the strength of this woman and by a deep sense of loss
that both of us had experienced. Although I only met Joan
once and talked to her briefly, we had a common friend, Lynda
Van Devanter. Lynda had served as a nurse in Vietnam and
wrote Home Before Morning. She died in 2002.
Although we only saw each other
on occasion, we had forged a bond in the early days of VVA.
She had schooled me in women veteran issues. She said I was
lucky to be able to go to The Wall and
look up the names of men I knew who had died in Nam.
She told me many men had died on her watch and she didn’t
know any of their names. Furey’s recounting of the perils of personal attachment,
as a nurse in a mass casualty unit, brought this all back to me.
Away from the
portraits is a kiosk that has expanded stories on the nine
veterans featured in the exhibit and additional stories of
other Brooklyn veterans. To listen to all of the histories
takes about four hours, but it’s well worth
it.
In addition to the oral history section, there is a reading
room on a separate floor that has a display of photographs
from—and after—the Vietnam
War. The photos by Bernie Edelman, Leroy Henderson, and Tony Velez are compelling.
These black-and-whites exude a sense of pathos. They are representative of the
men who took them and their involvement in Vietnam and its aftermath. Other photos
will be rotated in during the year that the exhibit is scheduled to run.
Also
in the reading room are books related to the Vietnam War
and a computer. Visitors are invited to contribute their
own stories, which will be added to the project archives.
After our visit, Diorio was interviewed for two hours as
part of the oral history project. He is typical of most Brooklyn
residents who identify themselves by borough neighborhood.
Canarsie, Park Slope, Flatbush, Williamsburg, Bedford-Stuyvesant
(Bed-Stuy), and Fort Greene are all parts of the lexicon
and folklore of Brooklyn.
Diorio was an only child, born in his parent’s home on Vanderbilt Avenue
and delivered by a midwife. He moved from Canarsie to Brownsville, and then to
Bushwick before ending up in Fort Greene. He described his childhood in mixed
ethnic and racial neighborhoods as uneventful but happy. He identified with the
Brooklyn Dodgers and was devastated when they left in 1958. He couldn’t
support the Yankees because they were American League and therefore to be hated,
so “we were left with no team till the Mets came.” He talked about
the food, smells, sounds, and friendships of his neighborhood.
Drafted initially
in 1966, Diorio quit his job and was given a party before
reporting, but was promptly rejected for service, temporarily,
for high blood pressure. “The
next time I had to report in 1967, they didn’t give me a party. I reported
Thanksgiving Day. That holiday still brings back bad memories.”
Diorio was
assigned to 1/5 Bobcats of the 25th Infantry Division. He
saw a lot of action, including the Tet Offensive, and was
wounded but remained in the field. After the war, he returned
home, went back to work, married, and had three children.
He moved to New Jersey so that his children would have more
room to grow up in. He put the war behind him, or so he thought.
“After 30 years, I realized I needed help. I’m getting that now,” Diorio
said.
Although you won’t hear Ernie Diorio’s full story at the exhibit,
you can hear and see parts of it in the voices of featured speakers.
As we left for home, we made stops at Junior’s for cheesecake and the House
of Calzones in Red Hook for their famous fried calzones. As we waited for our
order, I realized that the exhibit had captured a sense of what it was like to
be from Brooklyn and to have served during the Vietnam War.
Oral histories were
the centerpiece of the exhibit, and the veterans had the
final say on what was in each of their stories. This trust
made the exhibit a success. The lack of a political agenda
and the care taken to balance the speakers and exhibits allows
each person to form his or her own view on the war and its
aftermath. Ω
Bob Hopkins lives in West Allenhurst, New Jersey. He served
with Charlie Battery, 3/13th Artillery, 25th Infantry Division
in Vietnam. A long-time member of VVA Oakhurst Chapter 12,
Hopkins was one of only two New Jersey delegates to attend
VVA’s Founding Convention. Philip Napoli is an associate
member of VVA Brooklyn Chapter 72.
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©2006-
2008, Vietnam Veterans of America. All Rights Reserved. 8605 Cameron
Street, Silver Spring, MD 20910