It just so happened that today I went to the Minneapolis Institute of Art to see the exhibit Artists Respond American Art and the Viet Nam War. Coincidentally, this country of ours is now back in the saddle on its war horse. Will it ever be any different? I doubt it.
It was a moving experience to wander through this exhibit. There were a lot of guys my age or somewhat older. Groups of us stood in silent clutches looking at old photos from "Life" and "Look." If those photos brought the Viet Nam war back for me, bringing it back meant something else entirely for someone who served there.
And there was this. Thick sheaves of responses to the questions below.
And there was a Hmong component to the exhibit because so many Hmong now live in the Twin Cities. A local artist has painted a 50 panel series telling the story of his people and their flight from Laos to Minnesota post Viet Nam war. Some of those panels were on exhibit today. It made me think of the Kurds.
So yeah. Hopes and dreams for the New Year. 2020--and all that BS about perfect vision and seeing clearly. I think our nation is blind to suffering. Viet Nam was the first televised war. It was shocking. Walter Cronkite. The nightly body count.
And here we are.
2 comments:
This was such an interesting post. I just got finished re-reading Tim O'Brien's "The Things They Carried." It's a sublime piece of writing.
Little did we know on Jan. 3
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