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The Times Union in N.Y. Pictured is postcard artwork entitled "The sleep of an Iraqi child" by Huynh Chi Trung, age 15.
TROY, N.Y. -- In a back gallery of the War Remnants Museum in Ho Chi Minh City, a series of watercolor paintings by Vietnamese children are displayed.
Their artwork depicts blood, bombs, fire and the iconography of death. These artists, some as young as 4, have created a subconscious visual gallery of the ways that the horrors of combat continue to infect a nation's psyche two generations after the fighting subsided.
Psychotherapist Ed Tick weeps when he visits the museum and observes the children's art, after stopping to take in the powerful black-and-white photographs by Bernard Kolenberg, a Times Union photographer who became the first journalist killed in combat in Vietnam on Oct. 2, 1965. Many of his images show a tenderness for Vietnamese children caught in the crossfire. Kolenberg covered the war in Vietnam for five weeks in 1964 for the Times Union, where he worked for 20 years. He was 38 when he died after the jet bomber he was in collided with another bomber over central Vietnam.
"The museum is very honest and painful because it tells the truth," said Tick, author of "War and the Soul," a book that synthesizes 25 years of treating combat veterans with post-traumatic stress disorder, or PTSD.
A 5-year-old Vietnamese boy's picture shows him trying to protect his disabled sister, who suffers from the ill effects of Agent Orange exposure, as an American bomber drops napalm on his village.
"Children have so much to teach us that grown-ups can't begin to articulate," said Tick, who founded Soldier's Heart with his wife, Kate Dahlstedt, who also is a psychotherapist. They have an office and they've worked locally and nationally since 2006 to develop a series of therapeutic programs to treat PTSD and other effects of war in veterans, their families and communities.
The couple organized a traveling exhibit featuring 100 works of children's art from the War Remnants Museum. They're paired with writings from American veterans, children, teachers and poets. "Speak Peace: American Voices Respond to Vietnamese Children's Paintings," opened Sept. 25 at Kent State University in Kent, Ohio. The exhibit marked the 40th anniversary of the May 4, 1970 shooting of unarmed college students at Kent State by members of the Ohio National Guard. Four students were killed and nine were wounded following protests against the U.S. invasion of Cambodia.
The exhibit will be on display Nov. 5-23 at the Sage Colleges in Troy as part of the school's series of Veterans Week events.
Tick and Dahlstedt also will bring four visitors from Vietnam to Sage and other local college campuses for a series of talks and panel discussions about the ways in which the Vietnam War remains embedded and unresolved in both countries. The visitors include a South Vietnamese Air Force veteran who was held in a Viet Cong labor camp; the director of the War Remnants Museum; a journalism professor at the University of Hanoi who is a leading Vietnamese poet; and a Viet Cong soldier who was gravely wounded by American troops.
"The Viet Cong vet never hated Americans, but said he was just fed up with his country being invaded by outside forces," Tick said. "Even though he was left for dead on the battlefield, he's the happiest person in the world. He laughs at the absurdity of war. He runs a B&B in the Mekong Delta where we stay. Our vets tell their story and he tells his story and before you know it, they're all laughing and giving each other hugs."
Tick left Sept. 30 for Vietnam. He's leading his 10th journey of reconciliation and healing for combat veterans who have been unable to find relief through traditional psychotherapy and medication.
They continue to suffer from PTSD, including feelings of isolation, irritability, mistrust, hyper-vigilance, depression, substance abuse and suicidal thoughts. "Wandering souls," the Vietnamese call them.
Tick's group includes two veterans from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
More than 30 percent of vets returning from those conflicts display symptoms of PTSD, according to the American Psychological Association.
The group also includes six Vietnam War vets.
One of the most emotionally charged moments of Tick's tour comes when the American vets visit Vietnamese elementary schools. Hundreds of smiling, laughing children come rushing out of their classrooms and surround the soldiers, hugging them and trying to push their lunch money, the equivalent of 15 cents, into the veterans' hands.
It's the best therapy in the world.
Tick hopes the children's art exhibit and discussions with the Vietnamese visitors will bring healing to local veterans and their families.
"Children open our hearts and help us tell the truth about war," Tick said. "They view the world with honesty, but without hatred or blame."
