Anne Morrison Welsh and Stevie Westmoreland to Discuss Post-Vietnam Healing Nov. 9-10
Two speakers with ties to the Vietnam War era will visit in early November to talk about their respective journeys of reconciliation and healing. Anne Morrison Welsh, widow of Norman Morrison, and Stevie Westmoreland, daughter of Gen. William Westmoreland, will speak Monday, Nov. 9, and Tuesday, Nov. 10, respectively.
Each program will take place at 7:30 p.m. in Joseph M. Bryan Jr. Auditorium, located in the Frank Family Science Center, and each is free and open to the public.
Welsh’s first husband, a Baltimore Quaker, self-immolated on the steps of the Pentagon in 1965 in protest of American involvement in Vietnam. Welsh later directed the Rural Southern Voice for Peace in western North Carolina and in 1999 made a pilgrimage of healing to Vietnam. She will speak about her family’s experiences, recounted in her book (authored with Joyce Hollyday), Held in the Light: Norman Morrison’s Sacrifice for Peace and His Family’s Journey of Healing.
Westmoreland was in her teens when her father commanded American military operations in Vietnam from 1964-68 and later served as Army Chief of Staff from 1968-1972. She returned to Vietnam last spring for the first time since her family’s deployment. She will speak about reconciling her love for her father with the destructive impact of the war whose strategy he helped direct. Her daughter, Molly, is a student at Guilford.
For more information, contact Friends Center at 316-2445.
Nov. 2, 2009