"And sometimes remembering will lead to a story, which makes it forever. That's what stories are for. Stories are for joining the past to the future. Stories are for those late hours in the night when you can't remember how you got from where you were to where you are. Stories are for eternity, when memory is erased, when there is nothing to remember except the story."
Tim O'Brien, The Things They Carried
"The Vietnam War cost the United States 58,000 lives and 350,000 casualties. It also resulted in between one and two million Vietnamese deaths."*
This May, the communities of the Everett Public Library and Sno-Isle Libraries join together to read Tim O'Brien's semiautobiographical novel The Things They Carried. This is a powerful novel set in Vietnam at a time when young American soldiers fought a war that wasn't a war. Yet, this is a war story, and it's about us -- both those of us who were there and those of us who waited.
Over the next 31 days, we share our memories of that time. Some of our storytellers lived then, others are our children and grandchildren. We invite you to join us, and share your thoughts and stories.
Photo credit: Courtesy of Ed Yourdon, August 19, 2009 - Vietnam Memorial, August 2009 - 26 on flickr, under Creative Commons license, some rights reserved, http://www.flickr.com/photos/yourdon/3835343342/.
*Mintz, S. (2007). Learn About the Vietnam War. Digital History. Retrieved 4/30/2010 from http://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/modules/vietnam/index.cfm
Awesome photo!
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