Traveling Trunk holds memories of war
ACounty exhibit tells stories of those who served in Vietnam
BY JENNIFER AMATO
Staff Writer

MIGUEL JUAREZ staff Danielle Peloquin, a nurse who served during the Vietnam War, tries on her old Army jacket during the unveiling of the Vietnam War Traveling Trunk at Linwood Middle School on Jan. 24.

First Lt. Danielle Peloquin was not allowed to fight in the Vietnam War, but that did not stop her from learning how to fire a .45-caliber pistol.

"Everyone was in danger," the war nurse said to a group of students and veterans at Linwood Middle School, North Brunswick, on Jan. 24. "There was danger of guns and weaponry and danger of disease."

Peloquin joined the military as a student and served just under a year in 1968. As a woman in her early 20s, she was sent to the warm, tropical climate to treat both military and civilian injuries. She spoke of her experience in a war hospital, where she was in charge of the entire patient ward, was a surgeon's assistant in the leprosarium, and was a field nurse for tuberculosis patients.

She described the worst case being when a patient's bleeding would not stop, and when a prisoner of war ruined the reconstruction of his face because he couldn't deal with his injury.

"We took care of everybody who came to our doors. Sometimes we didn't know what to do, so we had to get materials," she said.

Peloquin showed the students the jacket she wore over her uniform at night when it was cool. She said that although at first the nurses wore white uniforms, they soon had to wear fatigues because it was safer, since the unit was under constant fire.

In an interesting twist, her future husband was also in the military, an Army captain in the Medical Service Corps. The two met in Texas during basic training and although he went to Korea, she stayed in Texas to work. When she got called to Vietnam she told him that she would marry him if he went to Vietnam, too; 39 years later, they are still married.

"Something good came out of a war," she smiled.

Peloquin spoke during the first official unveiling of The Traveling Trunk, an effort brought forth by the Middlesex County Cultural and Heritage Commission and the Middlesex County Veterans Advisory Council. The trunk is an actual Army footlocker that was going to be thrown out at the National Guard base in Sea Girt. It includes Peloquin's jacket, her husband's dress blues that he wore for their wedding, photographs, letters to the soldiers, poems left by relatives, handkerchiefs sown by Vietnamese women who suffered from Hansen's disease, a varsity letter in memory of Paul Handerhan, an educational guide, and an oral history binder.

"This trunk has mystery, intrigue, lies, death, heroism. It almost reads like a novel," said Anna Aschkenes, the executive director of the heritage commission.

The trunk was influenced by the Wall that Heals, a 250-foot half-scale replica of the Vietnam War Memorial in Washington, D.C. Because the Vietnam War was so controversial, citizens didn't embrace soldiers when they returned home, out of spite for the government. Eventually the families of the veterans, especially of those who lost their lives overseas, decided their service needed to be honored. Because not everyone can visit the original memorial, the wall was created and has traveled around the country since 1996.

Pete Clark, the principal of Linwood, discussed bringing the traveling memorial project to Middlesex County back in the 1990s; the wall eventually arrived in 2004.

"People who never had closure, who never got to say goodbye, they could go [to the wall] and see the names. They could touch it; a lot of people did rubbings of the names. They finally had a chance to say goodbye. They could leave something. They left flowers or a poem … or a baseball glove. Not to take back again, but to leave there … and people felt it was a place to say goodbye and begin to heal," Aschkenes said.

Thus, the idea for the trunk came about in order to secure the items that had been left at the site of the mobile wall.

A brother's bravery

Included in the Army footlocker is a jacket worn by Sgt. Frederick N. Bonner, who was killed at the age of 22 on Dec. 31, 1968. His brother, Michael Bonner, spoke to the students about the tragic loss he still feels today. He was only 13, the age of most of the eighth-grade students listening attentively to his story, when he found out his older brother was killed.

"While I'm sad I lost him, I'm happy for the things he instilled in me about life. … Try your best. Don't take anything for granted," he told the students.

Mike showed Freddy's Purple Heart and Bronze Star medallions for his bravery during the war, as his platoon was caught in an ambush. The soldiers were watching for a Vietcong infiltration along a drainage ditch when the opposing army created a diversion and snuck around the other side. During a firefight there were casualties, including a machine gunner who was hit. Fred attended to his injured mate, giving him first aid, and then took over the gun. Although Fred saved everyone's lives in the squad, he was hit and died from the injury.

"When I look at the locker I can't help but think about everything they sacrificed - hanging out, their youth, the comforts of home, the safety of home. Friends, boyfriends, girlfriends, being home on birthdays, Christmas, all the things we take for granted. That's what the veterans did. Nineteen, 20, 21 years old, they would fly helicopters, hang out of helicopters 300 feet in the air. That's what the trunk is meant to be, a hands-on approach," Bonner said.

In honor of his brother's memory, Mike went on to play semi-professional football with the Oneonta Indians in the Empire Football League in upstate New York and was inducted last summer into the hall of fame. He said Fred was his mentor, an inspiration for him in the short time they had growing up together.

"I always dedicated all of my playing time to Freddy. I wore his paratrooper pin on my belt. I always felt he was with me and part of me," Mike said.

The toll back home

Roger Daley, a judge in the Family Division of the Middlesex County Court, also recounted personal stories from the war. He served from 1968-69 in the 720th military police battalion and said that although he luckily came home healthy, 58,000 people lost their lives and 250,000 returned home seriously injured.

"The Vietnam War is important to me because I was a young man and I had no concept of evil. … But the world is full of evil and the worst thing to do in the world … is to do nothing," he said.

He also told of the life laid down by his neighbor, Robert Murphy, in May 1966.

"Mrs. Murphy died of a broken heart," Daley said, recalling the death of Robert's mother a short time after he was killed. "That's what war is - broken hearts, mothers and fathers, giving their children for our freedom."

Thomas Seilheimer, the executive director of the Middlesex County Department of Human Services, spoke about how despite his enrollment in college, he was still placed as number 22 on the draft list, but due to a delayed entry program, left for basic training two days after graduation. However, he is labeled a "Vietnam Era Veteran" because he was stationed only in the United States and never traveled to Asia.

"During that period of time in the early '70s … my mother and father, I found out later, were very stressed because I was on active duty and I had three brothers on active duty, all younger than me," he said.

He told of how he saw a distant relative's name on the memorial in Washington, D.C., learning for the first time that Howard Seilheimer had fought and died over in Vietnam.

"This war touched so many people in so many ways in those tumultuous years," he said. "[Students have] a better opportunity to understand what went on … so you don't have to live through this again and relive those troublesome times."

Other veterans in attendance were acknowledged for their terms of duty, including North Brunswick Planning Board Chairman Daniel DiStefano, who served from 1968 to 1968 with the 1st logistical command.

The program is designed to teach young students about the perils of war and apply history to situations today. With the war in Iraq currently unresolved, the veterans wanted to stress that despite any political or moral opposition to the war, citizens must honor and respect all military personnel who are sacrificing their lives to protect the freedoms of America.

"Governments and people go to war but the people are affected," Aschkenes said.

There are also three Revolutionary War trunks and one Civil War trunk available for viewing. For more information about the Vietnam War Educational Guide and Traveling Trunk or any other program, contact the cultural and heritage commission at (732) 745-4489 or at culturalandheritage@co.middlesex.nj.us.

In addition, Linwood Middle School in conjunction with North Brunswick Township are offering yellow ribbons to be displayed on houses, building and car antennas to show support for the troops serving overseas. To obtain a free ribbon, contact Clark at (732) 289-3619 or visit the school at 25 Linwood Place or the municipal building at 710 Hermann Road.