From: Terry W. Colvin (fortean1@mindspring.com)
Date: Wed Jan 01 2003 - 18:11:13 MST
Some of us can't bring ourselves to speak face to face with students or others
about our memories, but there are other ways to pass along your experience and
insight into our war to the younger generation.
I'll take the liberty to share an email I sent to another brother yesterday,
regarding educating students about our war. It's a thing which we, as SEA vets,
are best qualified to do. It may be the only way many of these students will
get a true picture of what Vietnam was really all about. We cannot rely on
"Academia" to get it right. And it's another way which we, as TLCB members, can
get our own story out to the world. See text below...
I think your stories would be great to share with students studying the war. I
am on a list of Vietnam vets, a list which happens to include Dan Decker, who
have volunteered to be interviewed by students worldwide about the Vietnam War.
Our names, email addresses and our backgrounds are listed at the Spartacus
Schoolnet Web Site, which is maintained by an educational organization out of
the United Kingdom. Students can go there and choose from among the names and
ask the vets for interviews. I've been doing this for several years, and in
fact, I turned Dan onto the site.
The requests from students are by no means constant. There may be months go by
without any, then all at once I may begin getting four or five per week for
several weeks. It has to do with the timing of classes during the school year.
I have received scores of requests from students all over the world, including
the U.S., Saudi Arabia, Germany, Ireland, England, France, Canada, South
America, Australia, New Zealand and others I can't even remember.
It sometimes is a pain in the a** to keep up with it, but it is also satisfying
from the standpoint of helping to educate today's kids on what our war really
was about. The students range from grade school kids to those working on
P.H.D's. It really is rewarding when I get thanks and feedback from students
like, "You really opened my eyes" or "You've given me a gold mine of
information." Admittedly, many of them never write back, once they have what
they need, but those few who do, make the effort worth while.
Anyway, if you think you might like to participate, I'm sure they'd be glad to
add your name and bio to the web site. You'll need to write them an email,
explaining you are a Vietnam vet and would like to participate in the student
interview room of the Vietnam War section of their web site. They'll ask for
you to write an introduction for yourself, which they'll post on the web page
with your email address. The email address to write is:
The Spartacus web site is about many subjects, besides Vietnam, which students
might need to research. If you want to check out their web site, the Vietnam
War specific page address is
< http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/vietnam.html >
There you will find a link to the Interview Room, which has the bios and email
addresses of the participating vets.
If you decide to try it, then decide later you don't want to continue, you can
ask them to pull your name from the site at any time. I suspect you'll find it
rewarding as I and Dan have.
Bob Wheatley, a.k.a., "Air Force Lingy"
Detachment 4, 6922 Security Wing
Ramasun Station, 7th Radio Research Field Station
Udorn Thailand, 1967 - 1968
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--
Terry W. Colvin, Sierra Vista, Arizona (USA) < fortean1@mindspring.com >
Alternate: < fortean1@msn.com >
Home Page: < http://www.geocities.com/Area51/Stargate/8958/index.html >
Sites: * Fortean Times * Mystic's Haven * TLCB *
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------------
Member: Thailand-Laos-Cambodia Brotherhood (TLCB) Mailing List
TLCB Web Site: < http://www.tlc-brotherhood.org >[Vietnam veterans,
Allies, CIA/NSA, and "steenkeen" contractors are welcome.]
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