Journalist Nancy E. Lynch, author of the award-winning book Vietnam Mailbag, Voices From the War: 1968-1972, and Vietnam veteran Rick Lovekin, join forces for a multi-media program at 5:30 p.m. on Oct. 29 at the Laurel Public Library.
Underwritten by a grant from Delaware Humanities, Lynch and Lovekin’s presentation is sponsored by the library at 101 E. Fourth St. in Laurel and will be held in the library’s community room.
A Bethel resident, Lynch will read selected correspondence from servicemen featured in her book, based on the nearly 1,000 letters and hundreds of pictures her popular News Journal column, Nancy’s Vietnam Mailbag, received for five years from our troops on the front lines during the undeclared and polarizing war.
In her final column in December 1972, she promised “her guys” that she would someday put all their war letters and pictures in a book to honor them. The 2008 Veterans Day release of her 456-page social history fulfills her pledge. The book earned a gold medal from Independent Publisher in 2009 for Best Non-Fiction in the Mid-Atlantic.
Lovekin had a medical disability and could have avoided service in Vietnam but chose instead to enlist in the Army and spent a year in combat as a door gunner on a Huey helicopter and later as crew chief on a Cobra chopper. He was based in Bien Hoa and Vung Tau with the 147th Helicopter Company.
He wrote frequently to Lynch during his 1969-1970 tour, always signing his letters, “Your Man in Nam.” He will share some of his combat experiences as well as a media presentation of images from Vietnam enhanced with 1960s music. Now retired, Lovekin, formerly of New Castle County, lives in Northeast Maryland.
Lynch and Lovekin will be available for questions after their program.