Where-To-Go Wednesday - New Jersey Vietnam Veterans' Memorial and Vietnam Era Museum & Educational Center

 

What: New Jersey Vietnam Veterans' Memorial and Vietnam Era Museum & Educational Center

Where: 1 Memorial Lane
             Holmdel, New Jersey

Who: Tweens and Up

 
 

Me - The New Jersey Vietnam Veterans' Memorial and Vietnam Era Museum & Educational Center was interesting. I didn't really know that much about that period of history, but I learned a lot. The memorial is located outside and the museum is inside. A Vietnam veteran took us around. That made it made much more interesting because he gave us a lot more details and much more perspective on what we were seeing. If we went around by ourselves, it wouldn't have made as much sense and we wouldn't have gotten as much details or understood the symbolism as much especially with regard to the memorial. The whole place was was extremely thought-provoking. If you ever have the opportunity to visit the memorial and museum, you should and when you do I would highly recommend taking a guided tour.

 
 

Mom - The New Jersey Vietnam Veterans' Memorial and Vietnam Era Musem & Educational Center is a very touching and fascinating place to visit. Although there is a Vietnam Memorial in Washington DC, the Educational Center is the only one of its kind in the U.S. The memorial is located outside and is free to visit. The museum is inside and is not free, but the cost for a visit is minimal. You can go around the museum and the memorial by yourself, but if you really want to get the full experience, you should take a tour led by one of the volunteers all of whom are actually Vietnam Veterans. The Memorial is very symbolic every single thing about it  has a deep meaning and the meanings are not things you would necessarily be able to figure out on your own just by looking at it. The museum does a really nice job of juxtaposing what was going on during every year of the Vietnam conflict with what was going on in the rest of the world as the same time. Although, you can still get a lot out of a visit to the museum even if you go around yourself, it still pays to take a guided tour through the museum as well. Even if you actually grew up during the Vietnam time period, things were not always like they were portrayed on television, and you will get a truer perspective from listening to someone who actually lived through the war talking about it. The museum is not really for very young children, but school age, children will especially enjoy one particular part of the exhibit that is full of things for them to touch and hold. For older children, a visit can be especially beneficial, any high school senior who visits  and takes a tour between January and April, and writes an essay about their visit will be entered into a scholarship contest and two winning students will each be given a $2500.00 college scholarship.

 
 

And that's our view. For more information about the New Jersey Vietnam Veterans' Memorial and Vietnam Era Museum & Educational Center visit www.njvvmf.org. For more about the essay writing contest, visit www.njvvmf.org/college-scholarships.

Tune in tomorrow for Theater Thursday.