collecting history

1994 - A Russian soldier playing an abandoned piano during the First Chechen War

December 20th, 1947 - The wedding of Wayne Wetlaufer (Montello, Wisconsin) & Mary Bell (Kilmarnock, Scotland) at the UW campus. Wayne was a student there at the time.

Alan Cranston, then chief of OWI’s (Office of War Information) Foreign Language Division, described for Walt Disney Studios “six basic propaganda themes” developed as background for “general information programs”

1. The Nature of the Enemy - general or detailed descriptions of this enemy, such as, he hates religion, persecutes labor, kills Jews and other minorities, smashes home life, debases women, etc.

2. The Nature of Our Allies - the United Nations theme, our close ties with Britain, Russia and China, Mexicans and Americas fighting side by side on Bataan and on the battle-fronts.

3. The Need to Work - the countless ways in which Americans must work if we are to win the war, in factories, on ships, in mines, in fields, etc.

4. The Need to Fight - the need for fearless waging of war on land, sea, and skies, with bullets, bombs, bare hands, if we are to win.

5. The Need to Sacrifice - Americans are willing to give up all luxuries, devote all spare time to the war effort, etc., to help win the war.

6. The Americans - we are fighting for the four freedoms, the principles of the Atlantic Charter, Democracy, and no discrimination against races and religions, etc.

Top Left:: 1943, Unattributed Top Right: 1943, U.S. Office of War Information Bottom Left: 1943, U.S. Office of War Information Bottom Middle: 1943, U.S. Office of War Information Bottom Right: 1943, Office of Defense Transportation & U.S. Office of War Information

July 1940 - Recruitment poster in Benton Harbor, Michigan

A dazed mother and children wander through the aftermath of a German air raid

by Thich Nhat Hanh

Your sad eyes

overflowed

with loneliness and pain.

You saw me. 

You turned your face away.

Your hands drew circles

in the dusty ground.

I dared not ask you

where your father or mother was.

I dared not open up your wounds.

I only wished to sit with you a moment

and say a word or two. 

O you small ones

of four or five

your life buds already cut off,

already engulfed

by cruelty, hatred, and violence.

Why? Why?

My generation,

my cowardly age,

must shoulder the blame.

I’ll go in a moment,

and you will remain

in the shabby yard.

Your eyes will return 

to your family yard

and your fingers will draw again

those small circles

of pain

April 1967 - As the sun sets behind them, gunners of the U.S 1st Cavalry division finish their daylight firing mission near Bong Son on the central coast of South Vietnam

April 1967 - U.S infantrymen hitch a ride back to base on the beach near Duc Pho during Operation Oregon in southern Quang Ngai province, about 325 miles northeast of Saigon.

It’s    Been        a          Bleak             December

With    Nixon’s       B-52           Bombers               Bringing

April 1967 - U.S soldiers of the 25th Infantry Division wade through a canal in pursuit of a sniper who opened fire on them during a mission west of Cu Chi near the Cambodian border. The sniper escaped.

March 27th, 1967 - During the second phase of Operation Junction City in War Zone C, U.S troops of the 2nd Battalion, 173rd Airborne Brigade, advance toward suspected Viet Cong positions, passing through the smoke and dust of an earlier artillery barrage.

I want to mourn the stream, I want to mourn the road, I want to call the sun-- they all break down and weep.

Now weep no more, O river of farewells. Now weep no more, O road of sad goodbyes. Now weep no more, O hungry, tattered sun. I’m nothing -- don’t blame me

I’m just an orphan left distraught. I’m just a lover, sorrow-crazed. I’m just a widow numb with pain. I’m nothing in the world today.

The day he discovered a mother and child in the river, he wrote:

March 16th, 1967 - An infantryman shouts a sniper warning as troops of the 4th Infantry Division were setting up a mortar position in Plei Djereng, 20 miles north-west of Pleiku near the Cambodian border. The infantrymen exchanged fire with an estimated platoon of North Vietnamese soldiers.