GREEN BAY, Wis. — From the bandoliers GIs carried their ammunition in, to how the Viet Cong made their sandals, Larry Cavanaugh shared his experience in Vietnam with Megan Ambrosius.

What You Need To Know

  • Vietnam Veterans of America Chapter 351 takes a traveling collection of artifacts from Vietnam to schools around Wisconsin

  • The chapter generally offers the presentation 10ths 5 to 20 times a year

  • 58,220 U.S service perineal died in the Vietnam War, according to the U.S. military

It was a part of a stop of a traveling collection of Vietnam War artifacts curated by Vietnam Veterans of America Chapter 351 from Appleton.

The items are there to spur conversations between visitors and the veterans, as well as providing a better understanding of a complex war.

“This was our life. This was all we had,” Cavanaugh said about the collection at a recent program at the University of Wisconsin - Green Bay.

The program travels to 15 to 20 schools and colleges around the state each year. The goal: Giving students and others a first-hand account of what life was like in Vietnam.

“Like we tell all the students, when I was 17, 18, I was just like you,” Cavanaugh said. ”Just think of the stuff we had to face.”

He was infantryman in Vietnam in 1966 and 1967.

“If folks will listen to the stories, we all have different stories, and if they can just take a little bit of what we say,” the Maple Grove resident said. “We were, by the grace of God, lucky enough to come back to this country.”

Both the collection, and Cavanaugh, made a connection with Ambrosius, a graduate student at UWGB.

“It definitely brings it home what they went through each day, that it wasn’t just a walk in the park,” she said. “That they ate out of cans of food. It definitely opens your eyes to the different things they went through.”

Cavanaugh said he didn’t talk about Vietnam for a long time.

This helps.

“It just gives me great pleasure talking about all this stuff. I might have nightmares about it now for a week, but I think it’s great folks are interested in what you have to say,” he said. “That makes it all worthwhile.”