Semper Fi 2

SEMPER FIDELIS: How I Met My Father.

September 21, 1966 – USMC – Republic of Vietnam – KIA.

Until recently, this is how I knew my father. A few scattered facts, flowers on his headstone at the cemetery, and stories told by my mother that I couldn’t or wouldn’t hear. For over thirty years it was easier not to talk about it, not to confront it, and definitely not to feel it. In 1996, my father’s body was disinterred in Indianapolis and he was given a full military funeral at Arlington National Cemetery. Unable to grant his final wish in 1966, my mother was able to do so thirty years later. This event marked an end and a beginning. For my mother and the rest of my family it was “closure”, for me it was the beginning of a journey to come to know my father.

This body of work is the result of a personal journey I have taken to come to know my father, a US Marine who was killed in Vietnam when I was two years old. On September 21, 1966 my life became forever connected with Vietnam. The person I am today is in large part because of the loss of my father in Vietnam. Only after becoming a father myself did I realize the significance of my father’s sacrifice and the importance of coming to know him for myself and my family. I have done extensive research on the war in Vietnam from both the US and Vietnamese perspectives and made contact with my father’s childhood friends and veterans he served with. Using USMC field reports as a guide, I was able to re-construct my father’s tour of duty and over a five week period in the summer of 2000, I visited the battlefields, the DMZ and the places my father served including the village of Kim Lien where he and three other Marines were killed.

I have documented my journey in a series of sketch books which have become the foundation for this exhibition which combines my work in the disciplines of graphic design, ceramics and photography.

This work has been exhibited at:

Fort Wayne Museum of Art

The National Vietnam Veterans Art Museum

Governors State University

Semper Fidelis: How I Met My Father is currently available for exhibition.