Elephant Guide to Vietnam
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Zippo: American icon that reflects GI sentiments on Vietnam War |
Talisman, tool, keepsake, weapon -- the Zippo lighter was a daily
companion for US soldiers fighting in Vietnam, who used it for
everything from lighting up marijuana joints to burning down
villages.
An American icon, the tough metal lighter with the distinctive
click became a symbol of death and destruction, but also a canvas
onto which GIs engraved their thoughts and feelings, ranging from
the profane to the profound. At roadside stalls in the former
Saigon, soldiers had their lighters emblazoned with combat slogans
and social protest, peace signs and marijuana leaves, rock lyrics,
Biblical psalms, cartoons and sex scenes. Some mottos reflected
wartime bravado, such as "Army lifers never die, they go to hell
and regroup". Others reflected antiwar sentiment, such as "When the
power of love overcomes the love of power, the world will know
peace". Taken together, the Zippos are a collage of the 1960s and
70s conflict when war rained death on Vietnam even as the peace
movement and the "Summer of Love" counterculture spilled into US
army bases in the conflict zone. Californian artist Bradford
Edwards, who describes himself as a Zippo fanatic, started buying
the battered lighters 15 years ago, drawn by their dark symbolism
and a style that makes them at once pop art and military artifact.
"The engravings are like tattoos on a stainless steel-plated brass
lighter that happens to be an American icon," the 53-year-old
artist said. "It's trench art. The soldiers put these sentiments
and ideas and longings on their lighters. It reflects what those
soldiers are going through, the good the bad, the joyous and the
tragic." More than 60 engraved lighters from Edwards' collection
have been photographed for the book "Vietnam Zippo -- American
Soldiers' Engravings and Stories 1965-1973" by Sherry Buchanan.
"The themes of the period are all there, reflecting the Zeitgeist
and the sensitivities of the 60s and 70s, the dominant images of
that time," said Edwards, sitting in a cafe near his Hanoi studio.
Some mottos were used many times, such as this adaptation of a
Biblical psalm: "Yea though I walk through the valley of the jungle
of death, I will fear no evil for I am the evilest son of a bitch
in the valley." Some are grimly comic, such as: "If you got this
off my dead ass I hope it brings you the same luck it brought me."
Others, such as "Napalm sticks to kids," reflect the sheer horror
of the war, or the anger at having to fight it: "We are the
unwilling led by the unqualified doing the unnecessary for the
ungrateful." "As the conflict got bogged down and as there was a
chorus of dissent, there were people in the military that basically
joined that voice," said Edwards. The Zippo itself became infamous
when a 1965 television news report showed US Marines on a
search-and-destroy mission setting bamboo huts ablaze. "Zippo came
to be used as a noun but also a verb -- to Zippo a village," said
Edwards. "The flame thrower trucks and the portable flame throwers
were also referred to as Zippos.'Zippoing' became synonymous with
burning." Edwards, the son of a Vietnam War pilot, has reproduced
Zippos in lacquerware, oil, metal etching, mother-of-pearl, stone
carving, graphite drawing, silver leaf and photography. He says he
is no war junkie and understands Vietnam is a country, not a war,
and an inspiring one as that. "I'm here to make artwork," said
Edwards, who has lived in Vietnam on and off for around 15 years.
"I actually do a lot more artwork on the dynamic of contemporary
Vietnam. It's the spirit of the people," he said. "It's the speed
of recovery and how rapidly adaptable the Vietnamese are, and how
today you have to be almost diligent to find much evidence of the
war." Genuine Vietnam war Zippos have almost disappeared from
Vietnam's streets although fakes are widely sold, said Edwards,
who estimates he has handled about 100,000 of the lighters over the
years. "Now I've kicked the habit," he said. "I haven't bought a
Zippo since 2001."
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