Walter Balon, a member of American Legion Lenape Post 211, raises his hand in a salute during an Oct. 20 remembrance service at Sayreville Borough Hall. The annual ceremony honors those who fought in the Vietnam War. SCOTT FRIEDMAN I t would be decades after the Vietnam War before some veterans would discuss their combat experiences.
Today, some are finding a voice in teaching the next generation.
The New Jersey Vietnam Veterans Memorial Foundation, which oversees the New Jersey Vietnam Veterans’ Memorial and the Vietnam Era Museum and Education Center in Holmdel, enlists the help of volunteer guides who are veterans of the war. The veterans’ memories serve to enrich the experience of students of all ages who come through the museum doors.
“The extra richness in the tour comes from the veterans weaving in their own personal stories,” said Bill Linderman, executive director of the New Jersey Vietnam Veterans’ Memorial Foundation. “If you look over the 10 years of war, there are 10 years’ worth of stories from the millions who served, and everyone sees Vietnam through a different lens. That’s the beauty of it.”
Veterans gather outside Sayreville Borough Hall Oct. 20 for a service honoring those who fought in the Vietnam War. SCOTT FRIEDMAN “One of the great things about this trip is that the tour guides are Vietnam veterans,” said Tom Husar, chairman of the Social Studies and Media Department for the East Brunswick School District. “It’s not like you are going through a curator who has an indepth knowledge of a certain area, but it’s someone who actually participated, in this case, by serving their country in Vietnam.”
William McClung, a Little Silver resident who has volunteered at the museum for five years, wants to impart his firsthand knowledge of war to the next generation. “When I give the tour with older kids, I tell them that war is not good,” McClung said. “I tell them to grow up, get educated and be smarter than our generation was, and to figure out a way to deal with conflicts and disagreements where we don’t go out shooting and killing each other. A lot of them get it.”
On his tours, McClung makes it a point to stop by an exhibit displaying a letter that a mother wrote to her 20-year-old son while he was stationed in Vietnam. Adjacent to the letter is a telegram notifying her that her son had been killed.
“If you’re not learning history, you’re bound to repeat it,” Mc- Clung said. “To make an impact with that exhibit is strong.”
Husar said the students who tour the museum often find common ground in soldiers who were near their age when they were drafted and deployed.
“The veteran tour guide makes an impact because they can talk about their brethren who did not come home, and give a little bit of insight into who those people were,” Husar said. “They were family men only a few years older than our students now. That resonates with a lot of the students.”
McClung paints a picture of a battlefield that stands in stark contrast to “war games” on video game consoles. As an Army medic, he saw numerous injuries and diseases claim the lives of other soldiers.
“War is dirty,” McClung said. “Mass casualties of 40, 50, 100 people — 18-, 19-, 20-year-old kids coming through [the medic tent] with arms hanging off and crying for their mothers. This is not a video game. This is not fun.”
Vietnam veteran and volunteer guide Dan O’Leary recalled meeting two high school students who were taking a tour and expressed interest in joining the Marines after high school. He took the opportunity to share his experiences in battle and to try to impart to them the weightiness of the decision they were about to make.
“Combat is not playing a video game,” O’Leary said. “I brought them into a classroom and said, as a Marine, where will you go? You’ll end up in a village in Afghanistan. Combat is frightening.
It really is. I thought they would blow me off, but two weeks later I received a letter from them saying that they were going to hold off on enlisting. I showed Bill Linderman the letters and he said, ‘I think you just saved two lives.’ ”
O’Leary, of Jackson, never thought he would have shared that sort of information with anyone, let alone as a tour guide at a museum.
“After Vietnam, I didn’t want to talk about it, I didn’t want to read about it, I didn’t want anything to do with Vietnam,” O’Leary said.
It took a chance visit to the Vietnam Era Museum and Educational Center to turn his position 180 degrees. While examining a display case during a visit “to kill some time,” O’Leary found a photograph of himself returning home from a tour of duty with the U.S. Army in 1965.
“I told someone sitting at the desk and showed her the picture, and she said that I was going to be a tour guide,” O’Leary said. “I didn’t want to be a tour guide, but we got into a discussion and she suggested I come back to shadow other tour guides. Here I am, eight years later.”
McClung did not talk about his tour of duty in Vietnam for 25 years. He said he still does not often delve into the topic at home.
“Being able to share experiences with the groups that come through the museum, to me, that’s therapeutic and helpful,” Mc- Clung said. “Around 10,000 kids come through [each] year, and not one of them leaves without shaking your hand and saying, ‘Thanks for doing this.’ You can’t imagine how good that makes me feel.”
Linderman said he sees a “definite benefit” to the veterans’ involvement with the museum.
“I think it’s therapeutic for them to put into words what they are feeling and their experiences, which, in some cases, nobody wanted to hear about in the first place,” Linderman said.
“The first couple of tours were tough, but now I realize what I can talk about and what I can’t talk about,” O’Leary said. “I have to realize that I’m there to teach the kids about the war. I’ll tell a few stories here and there, but I try to back off of what I can’t talk about.”
That mutual benefit is important to the operation of the Vietnam Era Museum and Educational Center, Linderman said.
“Our volunteers are so dedicated to making sure that education takes place and that the legacies of those who served are carried on,” Linderman said. “When a student leaves, they will be able to go back home and relate real-life stories that they heard from the veterans who served.”
The service of all U.S. military veterans will be recognized on Veterans Day, Nov. 11.