Remember Me: Dedicated to the memory of Hubia Jude Guillory, killed in action in Vietnam 25 April 1968 (28 x 18, oil on linen, 2024)
by Steve Desroches
A young Larry Collins was in Vietnam for a month when his orders changed. At 21 he’d been drafted into the United States Army in 1967, shortly after graduating from the University of Oklahoma where he studied art. As an infantryman he spent a month in the country when, as can happen in the military and in wartime, things changed quickly. He was plucked from his platoon and told he was now a combat illustrator, as the Army saw a way to apply his art degree to fill a need. But he had formed a tight bond with the soldiers, all of whom were also wrapped in the fog of war and comforting themselves in the camaraderie necessary to deal with the stress and trauma of an extraordinary circumstance service members find themselves in in times of combat. But his orders were clear and quick. He was to pack his bags and hop onto a waiting helicopter, giving him no time to say goodbye to his fellow infantrymen with whom he’d grown close. He recalls waving to them as the chopper flew away as some waved back. Soon, several would be dead, leaving Collins with memories of them forever, hard ones made more complicated by his swift departure. From being drafted to now being under constant threat felt feverishly surreal, a sensation with the soundtrack of helicopter blades.
“It was all like a bad dream,” says Collins. “It all went by so quickly and before you knew it I was in Vietnam with a rifle. I went from having a paintbrush in my hands to a rifle and then back to a paintbrush. When I left I buried it all in my heart for a long time.”
Now, at age 79, the longtime Provincetown resident and accomplished and respected artist’s Vietnam experience still lives close to the surface of his being. He didn’t address the PTSD he had until he moved to Provincetown in the early 1990s, working with therapist Djordje Soc, who diagnosed him with the relatively newly understood condition. He struggled to recognize how long he’d suffered with survivor’s guilt.
Collins gets out of his leather chair and over to one of the many bookcases in his Alden Street apartment to pull out Home From The War by Robert Jay Lifton. Originally published in 1973, the book explores the psychological effects of the Vietnam War on American soldiers. Collins has silk red poppies, those worn on lapels to honor those lost in wartime, as bookmarks throughout the volume that so accurately depicts his own experience. He can still see the faces of his fallen friends and quickly recalls their names, four of them to be precise.
Shortly after Collins received his new assignment his former platoon was on a search and clear mission on April 25, 1968 in the A Sau Valley in the Thua Thien Province when they were ambushed and several soldiers were killed, including Private First Class Hubia “Hubie” Jude Guillory of New Orleans, Louisiana. The fighting was so intense and went on for so long that their bodies could not be recovered and despite several attempts since, have never been found. Over the years Collins painted images of this group of buddies, with the final painting, the one of Guillory, taking 11 years to complete and on display at the Alden Gallery as part of a group exhibition over the month of September. Collins pauses and recalls a moment after arriving in Vietnam with Guillory who had been in the country only a couple of weeks longer.
“I went up to him and said, ‘I’m really scared. I don’t know what I’m doing,’” says Collins. “He said to me, ‘Just remember everything they taught you in training and you’ll be alright and you won’t get killed.’ Two months later he was killed.”
When discussing the painting of Guillory titled Remember Me, Collins speaks with the gentle gravitas of grieving a friend as well as with the knowledge of a learned art historian, again referring to books in his home library. It’s not a portrait, but a rendering, he makes clear. It took him more than 20 times before he was satisfied with the face, which he describes as more of a mask, something Pablo Picasso often would do when painting a figure. Behind Guillory is a backdrop of flames, which have nothing to do with war or how Guillory died, but rather the English baroque style of using fire to represent passion. In this case it’s the passion of grief and for the love felt by the family and friends of those who died, a grieving that never goes away, explains Collins. This painting is part of honoring that grief and giving life to someone whose own was cut tragically short. Collins returned to Vietnam in 2009 as part of a veterans trip to help those who served there heal and try to find solace, resolution, and peace, which helped inspire him to paint this series, the others besides Guillory’s being held in private collections.
“My purpose was to go back to the places they had been,” says Collins. “I wanted to see the spot where they died. I needed to see it. It helped a lot….I was lucky. That’s not the word for it, but it’s a close as I can get. I was lucky.”
The work of Larry Collins will be part of a group show including Alice Denison and Jane Paradise at the Alden Gallery, 423 Commercial St., Provincetown, September 6 – 26. An opening reception is scheduled for Friday, September 6, 7 – 9 p.m. For more information call 508.487.4230 or visit aldengallery.com.
