Busacca Gallery

I was a Naval Aviator flying off an aircraft carrier stationed in the Gulf of Tonkin, Vietnam, 1967 and 68. During that period I captured many images of the Conflict which eventually became nothing but memories stored in a Kokak Carousel for later viewing. Decades later I had several of these images scanned into digital files for preservation only. After listening to an anti war protest song one evening I opened one image into Photoshop and thought about the implications of war. Remembering a book I once saw of a famous Swiss photographer I took his idea of the Red Cross and layered it across the image which consisted of my roommate standing in front of his A4 Skyhawk jet dressed in flight gear ready to launch sorties over North Vietham. That day was the last time I saw him in over 5 years because his aircraft was shot down and he was held prisoner. This image kicked me into afterburner and I decided to take several of the Vietnam images and do something historical and creative with them. What ensued was a major exhibition at California Museum of Photography, Riverside, and San Francisco Art Committee at City Hall. This specific image depicts the innocence of three young boys flexing their muscles while standing in front of the Vietnam Memorial better known as The Wall. The image of the boys was taken by one of our parents during a summer in Opp, Alabama, home of my maternal grandparents. I am the young boy on the left, my cousin is in the middle and our best friend is standing on the right. The image of The Wall was taken one freezing Winter's day just prior to the burial of my father at Arlington Cemetery as he was a Naval officer in three wars and a hero in them all.

Link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vietnam_Memorial

The Vietnam Veterans Memorial is a national memorial in Washington, D.C. It honors U.S. service members of the U.S. armed forces who fought in the Vietnam War, service members who died in service in Vietnam/South East Asia, and those service members who were unaccounted for (Missing In Action) during the War.

Its construction and related issues have been the source of controversies, some of which have resulted in additions to the memorial complex. The memorial currently consists of three separate parts: the Three Soldiers statue, the Vietnam Women's Memorial, and the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Wall, which is the best-known part of the memorial.

The main part of the memorial, which was completed in 1982, is in Constitution Gardens adjacent to the National Mall, just northeast of the Lincoln Memorial. The memorial is maintained by the U.S. National Park Service, and receives around 3 million visitors each year. The Memorial Wall was designed by U.S. architect Maya Lin. The typesetting of the original 58,175 names on the wall was performed by Datalantic in Atlanta, Georgia. In 2007, it was ranked tenth on the "List of America's Favorite Architecture" by the American Institute of Architects.