Spring Break
McLean County Museum of History looks back to Vietnam
Heather Bowers, Daily Vidette Staff
Issue date: 2/7/08 Section: Features
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Nearby construction workers in Normal decided to take it upon themselves and raise it back, causing then ISU president, Samuel Braden, to order them off campus. However, the workers threatened to return with hundreds of supporters.
Soon, cars and trucks filled with campus and State police in full riot gear surrounded the flagpole and stood in reserve in Cook Hall, waiting for trouble that never came.
This is just one of the stories at the McLean County Museum of History's Vietnam era exhibit, "A turbulent time: Perspectives of the Vietnam War."
Headed by guest curator and history professor Ross Kennedy, the exhibit, which opened Jan. 26, features stories, photos and hands-on displays of life in Bloomington-Normal during the war.
According to Kennedy, the project took three years to research, design and complete.
Upon entering the exhibit, visitors are greeted with the mellow strains of Simon and Garfunkel and the rapid fire of retro news reports announcing the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. and updates on the war.
Featured in the displays are stories from community members who witnessed the events that unfolded from the late 40s to the end of the war.
When putting the display together, Kennedy was surprised to find out that Bloomington-Normal residents were more liberal during the 1960s than he thought.
"[Bloomington-Normal] was somewhat less conservative in the early 1960s than I expected. On Vietnam, [Bloomington-Normal] was pretty cautious. When [President] Johnson did decide to intervene in a major way in Vietnam in 1965, [Bloomington-Normal] rallied around him," he said.
Not everyone supported the war. One Bloomington resident, Mimi "Cha" Smith noted the opposition of war tactics.
"We're going to bomb for peace? Now that isn't really the way to change people's minds about communism," she said.
Those same bombs and other weapons killed 25 servicemen from McLean County. One of those men, private first-class Raymond Witzig, of Gridley, Ill. was killed in action. His uniform and various medals, including the Purple Heart, are proudly on display.
Smith remarked about the growing protest movement in the area and the relationship between students and the police.
"We sort of egged on the cops to fight," she said.
Others, however, were not as amused. Terry Garbe, Normal resident, expressed his opinion on the lack of knowledge behind the protests.
"By that time, I was pretty pissed at the anti-war, the whole hippie-dippie anti-war crowd. I don't even think that most of them knew what the hell they were protesting," he said.
Normal resident Phil Dick also commented on the demonstrators.
"There were the demonstrator types, but there was also the hippies. The hippies weren't demonstrator types. Those were people who were just on the fringes and were partying types of people more than anything else," he said.
Students from both ISU and IWU led marches and protests throughout the duration of the war, with some turning violent. Fires were set and gasoline bombs were found near the ISU police station. Museum volunteer and Bloomington-Normal resident Elsie Schalk said she remembers the time period well.
"There was just a lot of unrest," she said.
Besides the drama on the home front, the exhibit also features an interactive draft, where visitors answer questions to see if they will go to war and read a draft notification letter.
Bloomington resident Chuck Witle said he remembered when he was drafted.
"I got a draft notice and I realized that I'd probably end up in Vietnam…I didn't want to go…I wanted to go to college…My dad was kind of pleased because he thought it would help me grow up. And in retrospect, he was right," he said.
Further down is a recreation of a soldier's "hooch", or living quarters. In it are items from the period that soldiers would have sent to them from home including gum, radios, rosary beads and the complete opposite, Playboy magazines.
Navy pilot and soldier uniforms, along with an M-16 rifle, are encased in glass next to soldiers' rations.
Visitors can also crawl over replicated sand bags into a small bunker and don hippie clothing and movement signs that read "Bomb Hanoi Now."
Kennedy believes that it is important for students to learn about this era.
"The Vietnam era very graphically shows how foreign policy decisions have major consequences for people's lives. The war cost millions of Vietnamese lives, almost 60,000 American lives and well over $1 trillion in today's currency," he said.
He also believes that early ignorance of the war stretches into this decade.
"Such indifference was not just limited to Vietnam; it extended, and extends today, to foreign affairs in general. Perhaps had there been more public pressure for a thorough debate on the war, U.S. policy might have been different," he said.
"A turbulent time: Perspectives of the Vietnam War" will be on display at the McLean County Museum of History through 2010. For more information, call (309) 827-0428 or visit mchistory.org.
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