The Vietnam Era Educational Center in Holmdel is open from 10 a.m. to 4 p.
m. Tuesday through Saturday, and by special appointment. Admission is $4, with half off for senior citizens and students.
There's no charge for children under 11 and active military. For more information, call (800) 648-VETS or go to . To get there from South Jersey, take the New Jersey Turnpike north or I-295 north to I-195 east to Garden State Parkway north to Exit 116 -- PNC Bank Arts Center.
Follow signs to memorial. She writes how David R. Beattie, a private first class in the Marines serving halfway across the globe, will soon be a father.
"I think it's wonderful and am so happy for you both," she writes in a letter dated Aug. 12, 1966. "I'll start knitting next week for your son?
-- daughter? -- whichever. Dave he or she will surely be a beautiful baby -- with your looks and Paula looks -- Whow!
Just know your baby will have big brown eyes." Five weeks after sending the best of news, his mother, Alice, received the worst of news: a telegram informing her that her son was killed in action. He died from shrapnel wounds to his chest and left arm.
The letters are perhaps the most moving in a collection of writings and other objects on display at the Vietnam Era Educational Center in Holmdel, the only museum of its kind in the country dedicated to the Vietnam War and the 1960-70s era. The museum explores the history and the outcome of the Southeast Asian conflict. It uses dual timelines to teach history, contrasting what was going on in America with corresponding events in Vietnam.
In the American timeline, the exhibit uses familiar images of celebrities and dignitaries, including Marilyn Monroe, Elvis Presley, Muhammad Ali, Thurgood Marshall, John Wayne, Sean Connery, Jackie Robinson, Chubby Checker, and presidents John F. Kennedy and Harry S. Truman.
"No matter how old they are, there's something they (visitors) can relate to along that historical timeline. Even high school kids who were born in 1990, a 16-year-old, will find something that helps them go back in time," says Kelly Watts, executive director for the education center. The Vietnam timeline shows graphic and sometimes disturbing war images of warplanes spraying plumes of Agent Orange over the foothills, of a South Vietnamese mother wading through deep water to escape a bombing strike on her village, of American soldiers walking past the bodies of fallen comrades.
The nearby memorial honors the 1,560 Vietnam War veterans from New Jersey who were killed or reported missing. Each name is etched into glossy black granite in a circular, open-air structure. Three statues are clustered at the center: A nurse tends to a wounded soldier as a comrade, with an outstretched hand, looks on.
Jen Kavlick, a teacher at Rancocas Valley Regional High School in Mount Holly, said she has been bringing students to the education center for seven years. "We come here to give the Vietnam War a bigger and better meaning, to make it relevant in their lives," she says. "It's great to come here to get a perspective on the war other than TV and movies.
" Learning about the war from real people helps her students appreciate their sacrifice far more, she says. Jeremy Cantarella, 17, a junior from Mount Holly, says the education center and memorial deepened his appreciation for the Vietnam War veterans. "I got to learn more about the history of the war and some of the current events that were going on at the time.
I liked the memorial because it showed that it was a war that we didn't want to give up but we had to. It remembered all the people in the war who sacrificed their lives and honored them in a good way. "Overall, it really respects the history we have of trying to stay one as a nation and honoring everyone who fought and should be honored," Cantarella says.
Larry Horyd, 53, a Vietnam War veteran from Galloway, has served as a museum tour guide for 3 1/2 years. He bristles at depictions of Vietnam War veterans as "homeless, drug-addicted, psychopathic baby-killers." "I want to make sure our story is told properly and that all the stereotypical images of Vietnam veterans are dispelled and (tell) them the truth about the war and ourselves," Horyd says.
Reach Wilford S. Shamlin at (856) 486-2475 or wshamlin@courierposton line.
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