An exhibit has opened at UT Arlington that highlights the work of Bob Schieffer covering the war in Vietnam when he worked for the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. Schieffer was born in Austin, grew up in Fort Worth and graduated from TCU.
"Our Man in Viet Nam" includes letters sent to Schieffer and the Star-Telegram when he was working in Vietnam. The paper had sent him there to cover the war.
"I covered a lot of stories, but I never felt the way I did, I never got the response I got when I would tell kids, 'Hi, I'm Bob Schieffer from the Star-Telegram, and your mother asked me to find out how you're doing," Schieffer said at the unveiling of the exhibit. "I remember kids who would absolutely break into sobbing tears. They were lonesome, they were in a place many of them had never heard of, like me, when they were sent off to Vietnam. I think just a word from home helped them through a dark and very difficult situation."
Schieffer was sent to Vietnam in 1965 at 28 years old.
"I learned more covering these guys and the few women who were in combat in those days than anything else. I loved them," he said. "I learned more from them, I spent more time with them, but the thing I think I got out of them mostly was--I covered a lot of different things, big things--but I never got the feeling I got from those kids."
Schieffer said his editor told him the paper would use wire services to get information from generals and military leadership, but "we want you to go over there and talk to our readers' kids, find out how they're doing."
"That's what we owe our readers, to keep them up to date on their kids and how things were going," he said. "That's what local newspapers used to be about, that kind of service."
After the opening, people started working through the exhibit looking at pictures, paintings and letters. Schieffer took pictures with people who had stopped by and answered questions.
"I hope you will remember not me so much but what these young people did," he said.
Among the people Schieffer photographed was Joe Beaver Junior, a Marine from Arlington.
"I spent a little while with Bob in Vietnam. We ate some C-rations together. His job was to take pictures, and my job was to get rid of the bad guys," Beaver said in an interview after the unveiling.
Beaver said he spent eight years in the Marines and then became a pilot in the Army.
"The military gave me a career. For all you young guys, the military's a great place. You'll make some friends, and they'll be your brothers forever," he said. "I was fortunate. I got to come home a lot--Medevac'ed, but I got to come home. I'd get well, and I'd turn around and go back. I'm just lucky. I'm a lucky guy."
Beaver said he hopes people seeing Our Man in Viet Nam will see the importance of supporting the military.
"They didn't welcome us home," he said of his service in Vietnam. "I never killed any babies, but they called us baby-killers. There are 58,000 Americans who died, and I held some guys, knew they were going. They knew they were going. It's sad we don't do more to honor the people who got killed. They're the ones who sacrificed everything."
Schieffer says he hopes people visiting the exhibit will keep looking forward.
"We've got to make sure the two things we pass on to the next generation are an accurate history they can work from," he says. "The second thing is to remember--it's as important as going to vote--is to have a clear, guaranteed, free press."
Our Man in Viet Nam is free and located on the sixth floor of the UT Arlington Central Library. The exhibit will stay open through April 4. More information is available at https://libraries.uta.edu/schieffer/#about.