50 years after the fall of Saigon, Heroes Hall museum tells story of Vietnam War

Paul Todd had just turned 23 and was enjoying his first year of teaching U.S. history to middle-schoolers at McPherson Junior High in the city of Orange when he received notice he was being drafted to serve in Vietnam.

It wasn’t welcome news at the time. Like many who’d attended college in the 1960s, Todd’s political views trended in an anti-war direction and conflicted with those of his father, who’d served in the Navy for 20 years. But duty called.

“The day school ended, I was on the bus to go to Fort Ord,” the 77-year-old Orange resident recalled in an interview Thursday.

Orange resident and veteran Paul Todd shares his story with a videographer for “Echoes of Conflict: Remembering Vietnam,” a Heroes Hall exhibit that opened Saturday.

(Courtesy of Heroes Hall veterans museum)

After six months of training as a flight operations specialist at Georgia’s then-called Fort Benning, Todd went to Vietnam in 1971, where he served his one-year duty directing helicopter transport activity.

It was in that role he began to view the conflict from a different perspective.

“You may be anti-war when you’re a civilian, but once you’re a part of the military, you do what you have to do and support what’s going on and that’s it,” he said, describing long periods of boredom spent with fellow servicemen, punctuated by sporadic moments of urgency and action.

“Your job was to take care of your buddy, and your buddy was there to take care of you. And the friendship, the bond you made with these guys — we were incredibly close.”

The kinship and camaraderie fostered on foreign shores, debilitating losses experienced during a war whose motives were scrutinized then and are still questioned today and the lackluster reception troops faced upon their return home are all subjects explored in a new exhibit that opened Saturday at the O.C. fairgrounds Heroes Hall veterans museum.

A detailed scene of bunker life on display at the “Echoes of Conflict: Remembering Vietnam,” at the Heroes Hall Museum in Costa Mesa.

(Don Leach / Staff Photographer)

“Echoes of Conflict: Remembering Vietnam” takes a comprehensive look at the controversial war, a story told through artifacts, immersive experiences and the voices of the men and women who, like Todd, survived its turmoil, triumphs and tragedies.

Running through Dec. 21, the exhibit includes a speaker series that on March 1 will feature Black Marines from the Montford Point Marines Assn., reflecting on the topics of war, service and sacrifice.

A second installment planned for March 29 will examine the lives and service of women who worked on the front lines as combat nurses, with a talk from 4th District Court of Appeals’ Associate Justice Eileen C. Moore, a Vietnam veteran.

A mortar round, one of deadliest weapons in the war, on display at “Echoes of Conflict: Remembering Vietnam” at Heroes Hall.

(Don Leach / Staff Photographer)

Heroes Hall supervisor Johanna Svensson said “Echoes of Conflict” coincides with the 50-year commemoration of the fall of Saigon on April 30, 1975, which marked the end of the war in Vietnam.

“We wanted something that didn’t glorify it or put it down but sort of communicated that Vietnam was a very divisive war, both in-country and at home,” Svensson said Thursday.

The exhibit educates visitors on the international events that led up to the war, taking them through the draft and enlistment of millions of Americans, many of them still teenagers, their wartime experiences and returns home.

“Echoes of Conflict” covers the difficult aftermath of service members who were prisoners of war, who faced the fallout of post-traumatic stress disorder or medical complications caused by the massive spraying of the herbicide Agent Orange to root out enemy forces from their vegetative covers and destroy crops on which they relied for food.

Life magazines with Vietnam War scenes on their covers on display in “Echoes of Conflict: Remembering Vietnam” at Heroes Hall.

(Don Leach / Staff Photographer)

“There are so many movies about it, so there is a collective consciousness about what it was, but I feel like so many people don’t know what Vietnam veterans had to experience, which was completely different from World War II and Korea,” Svensson said.

Part of piecing that story together involved the collection of artifacts provided by veterans, many of whom volunteer at Heroes Hall as docents.

Todd said Thursday he happily contributed his P38 can opener, used to open packages of C-rations, along with a rubber map and a “blood chit” — a fabric document translated into 14 languages for use in the event of one’s capture — gifted him by a pilot in Vietnam.

A draft notice, received by Orange resident Paul Todd in 1971, is on display at Heroes Hall’s “Echoes of Conflict: Remembering Vietnam,” exhibit.

(Don Leach / Staff Photographer)

These days, Todd looks back on his service with some amazement.

“It was mainly fought by people who were kids, just 18 or 19. They were just out of high school and had no experience whatsoever with anything,” he said. “But 90% of them rose to the occasion and did what they were supposed to do, and some did more. They had a job, and they did it and did it well.”

Heroes Hall, 88 Fair Drive, in Costa Mesa, is open Wednesday through Sunday, from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Admission is free. Visit ocheroeshall.org or call (714) 708-1613.