A Vietnam War veteran from Garden Grove who survived the first major battles of the conflict will share photos and personal experiences Saturday at the OC Fair & Event Center’s Heroes Hall museum.
Ronnie Guyer presents “Into the Valley of Death: An Eyewitness Account of America’s First Major Battle at Ia Drang,” a talk that begins at 2 p.m. It’s part of “Echoes of Conflict: Remembering Vietnam,” an ongoing exhibit and lecture series at Heroes Hall running through Sept. 17.
Guyer was a member of the 1st Air Cavalry Division who served as a radioman and transport driver during Ia Drang in 1965. As the battle unfolded, he was tasked with identifying U.S. casualties on the field and ensuring their remains were returned to their families.
His story became part of the basis for the 2002 Mel Gibson film “We Were Soldiers.”
Guyer will “put more of the historical narrative of what he experienced, contrasted with Hollywood,” Heroes Hall museum coordinator Brent Ogden said Friday.
After the war, Guyer became an outspoken conservative activist. He served as a field representative for former state Assemblymember Van Tran, who in 2004 became the first Vietnamese-American in the U.S. sworn into the state Legislature.
Garden Grove resident Ronnie Guyer, left, who survived the first major battle of the Vietnam War, poses with Pulitzer Prize-winning photographer Nick Ut at Heroes Hall.
(Courtesy of Heroes Hall)
Ogden said Guyer’s public advocacy and willingness to share his story made him an “exception,” as many of those returning from the conflict were met with outrage from members of the anti-war movement, who viewed them as anything but heroes.
“Immediately off the plane there’d be crowds of people calling them baby killers and everything under the sun,” Ogden said. “And they’ve kind of bottled up these emotions and experiences for about a half a century. It’s only recently in the last couple of years that a lot of these men and women who served in Vietnam are more open to telling their stories.”
Regardless of one’s political beliefs, Ogden said it’s important to take into account the perspectives of the men and women who, often barely out of high school, were shipped to the other side of the globe to fight for the U.S.
“It connects humanity to something that would be considered maybe just a statistic,” Ogden said. “The biggest disconnect that most people have when understanding Vietnam is the motivations of these men and women had when they first went over, and maybe some of the disillusionment that some of them developed much, much later.”
Other “Echoes of Conflict” presentations include David Hume Kennerly, who will share a June 13 talk, “Shooter: From Vietnam Combat to Presidential Portraits.” On June 27, Frans VandenBroek presents “The Legacy of the Vietnam Vet: A Helicopter Door Gunner’s Journey.” For more, visit ocfair.com/heroeshall.