From: Nancy Smoyer
Dated: September 15, 2018
Subject: Newseum
That exhibit at the Arlington Newseum was my first exposure to it, and it was wonderful. Unfortunately, I wasn't invited to be there with you and all the other celebs!
I do have a celeb story related to the news (which I may have told here before). Bobbie Keith (weathergirl and State Dept employee In Vietnam and Wall volunteer) and I went to a seminar at the Press Club over one Veterans Day. Peter Arnett was on the panel and since Bobbie had known him in VN, she wanted to say hello after the event. When she went up to him, he said incredulously, "Bobbi? Bobbie Keith?? I thought you were dead!" Turns out another Bobbie had in fact died, not this one. You guys know about her, but I forget, Did she die in Vietnam?
Nancy
From: Marc Yablonka
Dated: September 14, 2018
Subject: Newseum
Very moving story Nancy. I somehow got invited to the Newseum's first incarnation in 1997 when it was in Arlington as part of the weekend celebrating the publication of the book "Requiem for the Photographers Who Died in Vietnam and Indochina" (the French war), the brainchild of Tim Page and Horst Faas. It was quite an honor to be in their presence as well as the likes of David Halberstam, Nick Ut, Bob Schieffer, Bernard Kalb and many others.
Marc
< From: Marc Yablonka
Dated: September 11, 2018
Subject: Newseum
Spent the weekend in Washington, D.C. and had the great fortune of going to the "Newseum", a museum focusing on journalism, while there. Recommend it very highly if you are ever in D.C. There is currently an exhibit of images shot by Stars and Stripes photojournalist John Olson, audio and, hate to use the word but know of no other, artifacts of the Marines' battle for Hue during the Tet Offensive in 1968. Will attach a few photos I snapped of the exhibit and its link. The Newseum is on Pennsylvania Avenue between 6th and 7th Streets, about a half a mile from the Capitol Building.
Link; http://www.newseum.org
Marc
The Following five photos were received from Marc.
Photos of the TET 68 Battle for Hue
From: Nancy Smoyer
Dated: September 12, 2018
Subject: Newseum
I love the Newseum. I've been there 2-3 times on my trips to DC--sometimes for Vietnam related exhibits. It's a quality museum, whatever they do.
Nancy
From: Marc Yablonka
Dated: September 15, 2018
Subject: Newseum
My understanding, from interviewing a couple of people from the AFVN group, is that the other Bobbie the Weather Girl died Stateside after returning home from Vietnam. Bobbie Keith has a chapter in my book, which, at least for the time being, I've had to pause from writing owing to my teaching load and promoting "Vietnam Bao Chi: Warriors of Word and Film". But I plan to get back to writing my AFVN bookit ASAP. I was first introduced to Peter Arnett here in L.A. by my friend Jim Caccavo, who was the Red Cross writer/photog in Vietnam `68-`70, when Peter was promoting one of his books at a World Affairs Council dinner. Ran into him again in the elevator of the Cambodiana Hotel in Phnom Penh in 1996. My understanding is that he now lives nearby Little Saigon in Orange County with his Vietnamese wife whom he had divorced years ago and semi-recently remarried.
Best,
Marc
From: Jim White
Dated: September 16, 2018
Subject: Newseum and Bobbie Oberhansly
Marc and Nancy,
Bobbie (Weather Girl #2) was Bobbie Oberhansly. Most likely no one can remember her last name because they can neither pronounce it nor spell it correctly. Several years go (possibly in 2015?), her mother wrote me about Bobbie's death. It is on our website at https://www.afvnvets.us/pho-sto-oberhansly-1.html She died not long after she returned from Vietnam; she did not die in Vietnam.
Jim W
(Your faithful "Keeper of the Facts")
PS: Except the above facts were not all correct. Bobbie Oberhansly was the FIRST Bobbie, the Weather Girl, at AFVN.
From: Nancy Smoyer
Dated: September 12, 2018
Subject: Newseum
P.S. The rest of the story about the Newseum is personal to me. The first executive director was Peter Prichard who was the editor in chief of USA Today. While at the newspaper, the Friends of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, with whom I was volunteering, was setting up an on-line program to research names on the Wall. When they took it to him and to show how it worked in order to publicize it, they asked him for the name of someone he knew who died in Vietnam. He said Bill Smoyer. One of those amazing small-world coincidences. He was in a class before Billy at Dartmouth, and that was the name on the Wall which personalized it for him.
Nancy
From: Roy Burnette
Dated: September 11, 2018
Subject: Newseum
I visited the Newseum in April of this year. Certainly worth the entry fee and the time.
Roy Burnette
Wreckage from the Pentagon after 9/11
AFVN Group Conversations
From: Dick Ellis
Dated: September 16, 2018
Subject: Bobbie "O"
Here is a photo of Bobbi “O” the first weather girl on AFVN. She died back in the states...and I corresponded with her family and spoke with them on the phone several times. #2 Weather girl Bobbi Keith is very much alive and well in Florida, dickie, weather producer...1967-68.
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Project Jenny KLIK - 1st Inf Di v Women in Vietnam RELATED-- To AFVN To Saigon To Vietnam Further Afield Index
Newseum -- Washington, DC
September 2018
Boots indicating the Death of a Newsman
Cameras After the Battle
A collage of journalists who have been killed covering conflicts around the Globe.