Keven Joyce wears his Vietnam medals in the form of stickers on the bottom of his umpire’s mask. He’s proud of his time in the marine corp, but those stickers are among the only indicators that he served at all. That’s because he was in the Battle of Hue 50 years ago in 1968, and he’d rather not remember it. It was an infamously bloody battle that lasted 26 days and took the lives of over 200 marines. While other veterans find solace in reminiscing and reuniting, Keven has his own way of dealing with memories he has no choice but to carry.
This piece came to us from our production partners at Atlantic Public Media through their media training program, The Transom Story Workshop in Woods Hole. Otis Gray is a graduate of the workshop and you can find out more about that program at Transom.org
Ways of Life is edited by Jay Allison and made possible by the Circle of Ten - ten local businesses and organizations committed to local programming on WCAI.