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On November 13 American heroes Jack McLean and Dick Hughes will present “Vietnam in Context: The Healing Continues” at Millersville University to share lessons learned from the Vietnam War and their work with survivor groups.
This event, which is free and open to the public, will be held at 7 p.m. in Lehr Room, Bolger Conference Center, Gordinier Hall.
McLean is author of Loon: A Marine Story, the highly acclaimed and gripping memoir about his life from a civilian to enlisted Marine at Parris Island to combat veteran in Vietnam to the first Vietnam veteran to graduate from Harvard. McLean will discuss the tumultuous political times of the late 1960s and the effect those events had on the average Marine fighting in Vietnam. He will include personal insights not only for today’s student-veteran, but for veterans and their families across all generations.
Hughes has been helping to heal the wounds of Vietnam for more than 40 years beginning with his Shoeshine Boys Project in Saigon and Da Nang that provided assistance to some 2,500 homeless Vietnamese street-children by helping them find food and shelter. More recently, Hughes is leading the nonprofit organization Loose Cannons, Inc., a group dedicated to bringing awareness to the health effects of Agent Orange. Hughes will explain ways that people can make a difference in the world and provide current information about the lingering effects of chemical warfare.
During the spring of 1968, both McLean and Hughes were at Con Thien, located just south of Khe Sahn, near the Vietnam border with Laos; McLean as a Marine with Charlie Company and Hughes as a reporter covering Delta Company, both units of the 1st Battalion, 4th Marines, 3rd Marine Division. Both men bear witness to the atrocities associated with war and today continue their work to bring healing and understanding to all those whom have endured war.
Joining them will be Keitha R. Beamer, clinical nurse specialist from the Addiction Recovery Unit at Philadelphia Veterans Affairs Medical Center. Beamer will discuss ways U.S. military personnel and their families can obtain mental health services and discuss her work in the addiction recovery unit.
For more information email Dr. Jeffrey Wimer, associate professor at Millersville University.
One reply on “Vietnam in Context: The Healing Continues”
I salute these gentleman and their outstanding work to bring healing and understanding to veterans of the Vietnam War and others.
As a combat veteran, I can only add that war changes you. It changes you into someone or something you never knew you were. It will make your soul bleed. In order for you to understand what I am saying, you would have to experience war. Then and only then could you begin to grasp the horror and madness of the death and destruction that surrounds you 24 hours a day. And if you are lucky, and I emphsize lucky, and survive the war and return to the world, war is not just something you are going to leave on the battlefield. It will haunt you until you take your last breath.
Vietnam was a nightmare 24 hours a day,and at anytime that nightmare could turn into reality.
Semper Fi,
Ken Leland, Sgt. U.S.M.C.
Vietnam 1966-67