Petty Officer Second Class David S. Ferriero with shipmate and fellow Corpsman Jim Maloney in Subic Bay, PI, 1970. Photo courtesy of the Archivist of the United States.
The Archivist holds his dog tag from the Vietnam War. Ricky Carioti/The Washington Post)
The brave Archivist literally went out on a ledge for this memorable photo op by Brendan Smialowski for the NYT.
Beverly, Massachusetts, birthplace of the American Navy (Courtesy Beverly Historical Society).
Ken Yuszkus for the Salem News
HAPPY NAVY DAY!*
In celebration of Navy Day, we honor our #1 Navy vet, Archivist of the United States David S. Ferriero. As Archivist, he’s spoken openly and proudly of his military service, created the National Archives’ first-ever Vietnam exhibit, and continues to campaign for recognition of his hometown of Beverly, MA, as the rightful birthplace of the US Navy. To the Archivist and all other veterans, we say thank you and are forever grateful for your service.
The Archivist served in Vietnam on the hospital ship USS Sanctuary and told Washington Post reporter Mike Ruane what his work entailed:
At night, after Navy corpsman David Ferriero finished his clerical duties aboard the hospital ship off Vietnam, he would volunteer to help triage the wounded being helicoptered from the battlefield...Some had been shot. Others were missing limbs. Some needed treatment right away. Others were dead when they arrived.
The Archivist credits such experience for his calm when dealing with frantic Archives employees:
When people come to me with a problem, thinking the sky is falling, my first question is always, “Is there a life at stake here?” That is a perspective I got from working in triage in Vietnam (from Historynet interview).
The Archivist explained why a Vietnam War exhibit was important to him, to the National Archives, and to the country:
Ferriero said he wanted the institution to mount a Vietnam exhibit in part because so many of the war's issues remain sensitive and unresolved. In a long career that took him to big jobs at major universities and libraries, ``no one--no one--wanted to talk about it,'' he said. `No one asked me any questions,'' he said. ``No one acknowledged it.... Never was it the topic of conversation.''
[The Archives has] incredible material in the records — photographs and all of the military records, the unit records. We have a lot of stuff...And for me it was important to tell the story from both sides. WPost interview.
More online:
AOTUS blog: Remembering Vietnam Exhibit Entered into Congressional Record
AOTUS blog: Hometown Rivalries Debate the Birthplace of the U.S. Navy
Washington Post feature: At National Archives, the boss, a Vietnam vet, orders up an exhibit on the war
Historynet interview : David Ferriero, Vietnam Vet Who Is Now Our National Archivist
New York Times feature: Collector in Chief Hoards Nation’s Irreplaceable Stuff
Salem News: National archivist keeps the birthplace controversy alive.
Naval and Marine Records at the National Archives
Remembering Vietnam: Online Exhibit
Three cheers for the US Navy!
Gif from here.
*This post is by Miriam Kleiman of the Public Affairs office, who apologizes for the delay and blames the pandemic for her temporal perception loss.
