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While the Vietnam Wall across from the Convention Center in Wildwood has been getting all the ink — U.S. Sen. Robert Menendez laid a wreath there recently with the usual media fanfare — the Forgotten Warriors Vietnam Museum at the Cape May Airport in Rio Grande has been quietly going about its business of keeping alive the memory of the sacrifices made by our fighting forces in Vietnam since its opening two years ago.
Across from the better known NAS Wildwood Aviation Museum, the Vietnam museum is an unassuming structure from the outside, but inside is a breathtaking display of memorabilia from the Vietnam War ranging from a Vietcong uniform to a separate room – hushed and reverent – with a flag-draped coffin and an urn containing the ashes of a dead soldier.
The president and founder of the Vietnam museum – the only one of its kind in the country – is Tom Collins (“Just like the drink,” he said jokingly), who, along with his wife Theresa, has devoted most of his waking hours to the project.
A retired Delaware County police officer and an Army sergeant first class who spent 13 months in-country as a helicopter door gunner, Collins, 63, is now wheelchair-bound after losing a leg to Type 2 diabetes caused by Agent Orange contact in Vietnam. He also suffered neck and chest wounds.
Collins started the museum with a case of his own personal Vietnam memorabilia and “it just snowballed,” he said. The couple plans to add another building soon because the goal is to show every donated article, not store some away like many museums do. They feel it is that important and are in the process now of raising $12,000 that will be necessary to do so.
The displays in the museum represent every aspect of the Vietnam conflict. There is even a case of crossbows and a homemade rifle from the Montanyard tribes in the Viet highlands who fought with special forces troops as counter-insurgents. In a section devoted to Vietcong and National Rifle Association equipment, there is a homemade gas mask used by that formidable enemy, as well as what appears to be a child’s uniform, but is actually that of the diminutive Vietcong. A Vietcong pith helmet taken from a corpse on Hamburger Hill bears the deep tears of shrapnel.
“They told us never to throw anything away over there because the enemy would find some way to use it,” Collins recalled as he held up a pair of Vietcong sandals made from discarded American tires to demonstrate his point.
Outside the museum is a Huey gunship that Collins says was shot down eight times and lost its entire crew of four twice. In front of the chopper is a large drum of the deadly Agent Orange that ultimately cost Collins his leg. Near it is a shrine to the 23 Cape May County warriors who died in Vietnam. On the building next to the museum is a Grandma Moses type mural depicting combat scenes in ’Nam. There is a deuce-and-a half truck and an ambulance across the way. The scene is a fitting introduction to the abundance of memories that are stirred by the interior of the museum.
Vietnam veterans react in various ways to the museum. “It helps most of them,” Collins said. He recalled one man who came to the door on four separate occasions, looked inside, dropped a $20 bill in the donation box at the door and left. On his fifth visit, he came inside.
The music that plays inside the museum is from Vietnam Armed Forces Radio tapes, and the mostly rock music is interrupted occasionally by the voice of a disc jockey dedicating a song to a particular combat outfit or making a wisecrack a la “Good Morning, Vietnam.”
On the subject of movies depicting the Vietnam conflict, Tom Collins said that, for his money, “We Were Soldiers,” starring the now-disgraced Mel Gibson, came the closest to getting it right.
At one point, Collins said that he had his insurance agent appraise the contents of the Forgotten Warrior Vietnam Museum and the agent said that the contents were virtually irreplaceable and in that sense were priceless. No policy was written.
He is at some pains to point out that virtually every item in the museum was donated as word spread of the facility. A winner of both the purple heart and the silver star from Upper Darby died and a neighbor found his medals and other Vietnam mementos in the trash and donated them to the museum.
“When we die, a lot of the time that kind of stuff ends up in the trash or at a yard sale,” Collins said.
Visitors to the museum are sporadic. “We’ve had one person so far today,” Collins said at noon. “If it rains, it’s usually a good day for us. It’s all by word of mouth. We can’t afford advertising.”
It’s a worthy undertaking, as well as a necessary one. America should have no forgotten warriors.
More information is available at www.forgottenwarriors.org.
