The 39th annual Veterans Day parade is Saturday in downtown St Louis, beginning at 10:30 a.m. and heading down Market street to Soldiers Memorial Military Museum. There will be a ceremony on the south steps of Soldiers Memorial following the parade.
Next week, a new exhibit opens at the museum, called “Vietnam: At War and At Home.” The exhibit is divided into two sides. Visitors can go left to see artifacts from the war, or go right to see how St. Louisans reacted to the war at home.
Michael Venso is the military and firearms curator for the Missouri Historical Society and the Soldiers Memorial Military Museum. He told KMOX that the exhibit is for anyone, regardless of how much they know about the war going in.
“It’s designed for people who lived through that experience, it’s also designed for people who weren't even born when the Vietnam war ended, so that they might learn from this,” he said. “So many people learned about the Vietnam war in the last few hours of their history class in high school.”
Venso said the exhibit does show both the opposition and the support of the war. There are also interactive stations in the exhibit, including one where you can find out if you might have been drafted or not in the 1970 draft lottery.
Listen to the full tour from the museum's Michael Venso:
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