- Playing
- Vietnam Bones
- From
- Karen Brown
This is the story of Dereyk Patterson, a man trying to repatriate the bones of a Viet Cong soldier -- stolen by his father during the Vietnam War. Dereyk's father, Steve Patterson, died last year in a helicopter accident, leaving the remains behind in his garage. As Dereyk tries to do the right thing, he also tries to come to terms with his own stormy relationship with his father, and to understand what would drive a young man to take such a morbid "souvenir" in the first place.
This piece first ran on WFCR in Amherst, MA in June of 2003. It also ran on WNPR in Hartford, Connecticut, and WAMC in Albany, NY. It won a Massachusetts Associated Press Award in 2004.
NOTE: Programmers can edit out the introduction, and the station-specific outcue.
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Piece Description
This is the story of Dereyk Patterson, a man trying to repatriate the bones of a Viet Cong soldier -- stolen by his father during the Vietnam War. Dereyk's father, Steve Patterson, died last year in a helicopter accident, leaving the remains behind in his garage. As Dereyk tries to do the right thing, he also tries to come to terms with his own stormy relationship with his father, and to understand what would drive a young man to take such a morbid "souvenir" in the first place. This piece first ran on WFCR in Amherst, MA in June of 2003. It also ran on WNPR in Hartford, Connecticut, and WAMC in Albany, NY. It won a Massachusetts Associated Press Award in 2004. NOTE: Programmers can edit out the introduction, and the station-specific outcue.
3 Comments
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Review of Vietnam BonesI found this story very intriguing. First we have a son coming to terms with his fathers life and trying to understand one of his fathers prized possessions; a skull and femur bones brought back from Viet Nam, carefully preserved for years. I was interested in hearing this piece to see what it might reveal about a person who takes the bones of another human and keeps them. Human bones, were they war trophies? Can they be anything else? I wondered what Dereks late father thought of each time he was with "his bones". Unfortunatley no one in the family ever asked him why he'd taken the bones.
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Review of Vietnam BonesThis is an intriguing and somewhat gruesome tale that reverberates now amid the ravages of war now. The practice of taking the bones of war enemies goes back to theft of Native American dead residing in modern day museums. But Deryk Patterson attempts to right the wrong of his father who stole the bones of a Viet Cong soldier. His effort leads him to question and makes some sort of sense about the reasons behind his father's actions. Can we ever understand the actions of a soldier in a war and the most horrific of violence? Was his father a hero? If so how could he take the remains of a human being as a souvenir of war? Producer Karen Brown does solid work here raising questions and offers several perspectives. A timely piece with the election and the discussion of "war heros" and current war we're in right now. I wonder how many "enemy" bones are out there sitting in American homes from wars past. There is a host intro that would need to edited out but this piece would work well on local news magazines. |
Broadcast History
This ran on WFCR, Amherst, on WNPR, Connecticut Public Radio, and on WAMC in Albany, NY.
Timing and Cues
Programmers can edit out the introduction, and the station-specific outcue.
Musical Works
Traditional Vietnames music featured.
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Whit Richardson
Posted on November 07, 2004 at 06:57 PM | Permalink
Review of Vietnam Bones
This piece is an intimate look into a family, especially the son-in-law Dereyk Patterson, dealing with the war trophy of a veteran. It is a story not often heard, with Veterans day arriving and the current war in Iraq raging, we must wonder if this practice is being repeated with the bones of dead Iraqis, or vice-versa. Are the bones of dead American soldiers sitting in a box in some Vietnamese village, or an Iraqi town? It is an engaging piece that sheds light on a topic rarely discussed.