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After TWO YEARS this project has been completed, with a book I'm quite proud and pleased with, as well as regular exhibits which started November 2025 and continue throughout 2026. Here is an update:
BOOKS:
The 2nd (and final) edition has been published. They sell for $45 each. They’re going fast, and I only have 2 more available. However, in about two weeks I’ll receive a second order. Please let me know how many you want me to reserve for you. You can also order them directly from the publisher but that will be at an extra cost for shipping and sales tax: https://mixam.com/print-on-demand/holtby. The book is now hardbound, 8 ½” x 11” , 64 pages. It profiles 23 military vets with a wide range of ranks and in-country duties, a political advisor to the mayor of Hue, a refugee during the fall of Saigon, and the daughter of a North Vietnamese officer. The book is dedicated to John McCain with an original photo of him being released from Hanoi Hilton. Each portrait has a story by the subject of their experience in-country on the facing page. The stories are quite compelling, making it difficult for the reader to put it down. It is my hope it will serve as a great legacy for all those who participated, as well as add to the history of that war.
PRESENTATIONS:
Our last presentation was at the Coupeville Library and was well attended. Mike Diamanti was kind enough to record and transcribe the entire event and I have a PDF for anyone interested (just email me a request). It includes the talks of the following vets: Sam Aaron, Greg Doering, John Graham, Henry Veldman, Bob Akers, Bob Gabelein and Lew Legat. The next (and last) presentation will be June 16th 3-4:30pm at the Freeland Library.
EXHIBITIONS:
Currently the exhibition is
at the Chehalis Veterans Memorial Museum until the end of April. If you’ve
never been there, it is an awesome place with veteran artifacts all the way back
to the revolutionary war in a 22,000 square foot building. It is worth a trip
down there! If you go you might contact them ahead of time and request meeting
Pat Swanson. He is a ‘Nam vet on their board, and helped me install our exhibit
– a very nice guy! Ask him about his encounter in the jungle with a cobra on
the barrel of his rifle: info@veteransmuseum.org.
In May the exhibit returns to the Island and will be at the Langley Library, and the Freeland Library in June. That is followed by the Langley Frank Rose Gallery in July, and will end up at the Whidbey Veterans Resource Center in August where they will be permanently displayed.
