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Purple Hearts – A day in the mind of a soldier
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I want the taste of all the tears
shed in Vietnam
on every politician's tongue
I want the sight of all the blood
to drown their eyes
I want all the pain
to flow through their veins
I want all the screams of agony
sounded and stifled
to echo in their ears
I want all the sorrow
to visit them in their sleep
and give them heart attacks
if that doesn't put an end to it
then maybe they're right
Jerry Kykisz - 1st Battalion, Vietnam War
Uniting veterans from Vietnam and Iraq is the National Vietnam Veterans Art Museum (NVVAM), the world’s only museum dedicated to collecting, preserving and exhibiting artistic expressions of war created by none other than the veterans themselves.
The National Vietnam Veterans Art Museum was permanently established in South Indiana, Chicago in August, 1996 on the orders of Mayor Richard Daley who was highly inspired by the concept of healing through art.
Several photographers have showcased their work at the museum, including the award-winning photographer Nina Berman’s exhibit, Purple Hearts, which is dedicated to the veterans who have suffered appalling injuries in the Iraq war.
The museum stimulates a timeless environment by bringing chapters of war to life through artwork washed in colors of blood and tears of suffering. Through the eyes and hands of the veterans stories are told of the lands unseen. The visual war autobiographies give a unique insight into the psyche of combat veterans and war’s everlasting mental imprints.
Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America (IAVA) is another organization dedicated to addressing the critical issues surrounding the lives of war veterans and their families. From the Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) to Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI), IAVA advocates adequate health coverage for all returning veterans, women and men alike.
As Sergeant Cara Hammer, an IAVA Veteran Support Associate and Iraq veteran describes, her first experience walking into a VA hospital was a battle she had never been trained for:
“I felt like a candy striper. The only difference is I’m carrying around my medical records, instead of passing out candy and cigarettes. Cat-calls turned what was already an uncomfortable situation into a nightmare.” (Paul Rieckhoff, Exec. Director of Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America (IAVA), Women Warriors: Supporting She 'Who Has Borne the Battle').
While words can’t sometimes do justice to reality, visual imagination has no boundaries –through their work these organizations expose and heal the invisible costs of war. Art is one such mechanism, which allows the veterans to connect the tactile with the intangible. It allows them to digest the images of death they had swallowed at the battlefield, which sit in the waiting room of their consciousness day after day haunting their souls.
Experience a day in the mind of a soldier –feel their pain, their journey through life and death at the National Vietnam Veterans Art Museum.
Purple Hearts - The Video
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