Courtesy Missouri History Society
Mikall Venso, military and firearms curator for the Missouri Historical Society, leads a tour through the exhibit.
The first thing the Soldiers Memorial Military Museum’s latest exhibition asks viewers to do is choose between two tracks: “At War” or “At Home.”
It might seem like an odd setup for an exhibition with a goal to portray a holistic history of the Vietnam War. But according to Mikall Venso, military and firearms curator for the Missouri Historical Society and chief curator of Vietnam: At War and At Home, the exhibition wouldn’t be complete without it.
“We intentionally chose this method of telling the story, which is a rather complicated story during a very tumultuous time, because it allowed us to emphasize the distance between the two experiences both geographically but also psychological and emotionally,” Venso says.
Vietnam: At War and At Home opened to the public on Veterans Day at the Soldiers Memorial Military Museum (1315 Chestnut Street, 314-818-6780, mohistory.org/memorial), which is owned and operated by the Missouri Historical Society. As the end of the Vietnam War nears its 50th anniversary, the exhibition seeks to commemorate those who lived through and fought in the conflict and educate those who inherited its afterlife.
“I tried to find a way that we could really tell a full story; that we could be both a museum and a memorial; that we could honor that sacrifice and service of so many, but that we could sort of challenge our community a little bit to fully understand what happened,” Venso says.
The exhibition is divided into two galleries: “At War (East)” and “At Home (West).” Each gallery comprises six sections that lead viewers on a chronological journey through the war, from the years leading up to the conflict to its legacy at home and abroad. In organizing the exhibition this way, Venso seeks to capture the disparity between two experiences within the same conflict.
“The folks that were serving in Southeast Asia … had a completely different experience of knowing what it was like there than the folks did back home,” Venso says. “They also didn't fully understand all the transitions that were happening back home in America, and in St. Louis, and vice versa.”
To this end, the sections within each gallery correspond to one another: “Building the Forces” versus “Supplying the Forces,” “The Battles and the Action” versus “The News and the Reaction,” and so on.
The exhibition features nearly 200 artifacts from the war gleaned from the loans and donations of veterans, government reserves and the Missouri Historical Society’s own collection. It employs a stunning array of media to accommodate different types of learners, including three-dimensional topographic maps, oral histories and two eight-minute documentaries.
The exhibition also offers visitors myriad opportunities to interact with the material, such as flippable picture books and a digital jukebox that lets viewers explore music inspired by the war and learn more about specific songs of their choosing. Another digital interactive invites visitors to enter their birthday to see if they would have been drafted followed by a vote on how they would have responded.
While the exhibition generally takes a broad approach to the dual narratives that unfolded in Southeast Asia and in the United States, much of it is tinged with history specific to St. Louis.
For example, many of the helmets, uniforms, weapons and other artifacts displayed in “At War” belonged to native St. Louisans, while one display in “At Home” demonstrates the role Anheuser-Busch played in supplying troops with millions of cans of beer and other provisions.
“We tried to take these bigger national narratives and bring them down to a local focus, whether it's St. Louisans who had a role in these stories or contributions that St. Louis made or how St. Louis experienced all of this military history,” Venso says. “Even if you don't know much, or care much about war, you come here, and you're gonna find a lot of ways that you can learn a little bit about history or learn about your community.”
To protect the artifacts and give visitors the opportunity to see the full range of the museum’s collection, the objects on display will rotate several times over the course of the exhibition’s 18-month run.
Venso says the reception of the exhibit has been overwhelmingly positive. For those who know little about the war, the exhibition is incredibly engaging and informative. For the many veterans who have numbered among its visitors, however, the reaction has often been far more emotional.
“We had one veteran tell us that he really looks forward to coming here and bringing his grandson because he wants him to come here to learn about his war,” Venso says. “That's really powerful for us, to create those kinds of opportunities for people in the community to come and engage with their own history.”
You can check out Vietnam: At War and At Home Wednesday through Sunday from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. now through May 27, 2024. The exhibit is free to the public.
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