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| “Duty Honor Country – That’s
What We Did” |
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Every Memorial Day in a small town in western Michigan, a young Calvin Crane and his family would place flowers on the grave of his uncle, his namesake. His uncle was a veteran from World War II. And every time he visited, Calvin could not get over the number of small American flags. As he grew older, especially when he began playing taps at military funerals, Calvin started to understand. |
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Feeling a sense of duty to his country, Calvin left Michigan State in 1966 and enlisted in the Army. He served in Vietnam as a photographer for the Army and a photojournalist for the U.S. Information Agency. |
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As the years went by Calvin saw the misconceptions about the Vietnam War. He joined the movie-going public in seeing the Vietnam veteran depicted as a long-haired killing machine in “Rambo” or a slow-witted man in “Forrest Gump.” Then, in 1999, as Calvin watched a news program from his home – he had enough of the negative propaganda. |
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| “If we don’t do something about it, who
will?” wondered Calvin and Christel Crane.
Fortified with new information from the National
Archives they set out on a 13,000-mile trek to find real veterans in their
hometowns across the nation.
Armed with little-known facts about the Vietnam
War, Series I of The Long Way Home Project is now complete. “The War is not over,” says Crane. “Vietnam veterans must remember that they showed the
country what they were made of once…but that responsibility continues.
It is imperative for young people today and future generations to
know the truth about why we served so that they will want to defend our
freedoms in the years to come.” |
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