Light at End of the Tunnel Shines on Opening of Vietnam-Era Center

In 1966, while a soldier in Vietnam, Teddy Pawlyshyn wrote a letter to himself. In it, he said, “We shouldn’t be here.”

Years later, the memory of that letter has kept Pawlyshyn from feeling resentment toward the thousands who protested the war during the Vietnam era.

At the opening Sunday of the nation’s first museum dedicated to that time, Pawlyshyn said it was important to present both sides of the conflict for the benefit of future generations.

“There’s a lot of people who didn’t want any of the protest stuff in here, but that was a big part of it,” he said. “A lot of the protesters, to me, weren’t protesting us, they were protesting the government.”

Pawlyshyn joined about 200 other people, including New Jersey Gov. Christine Todd Whitman and Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), at the opening of the $3.8-million Vietnam Era Educational Center about 20 miles south of Newark.

“It’s important that we remember history by learning about it,” Whitman said.