More than four decades after the end of the Vietnam War—one of the bloodiest and least popular in U.S. history—a California artist, with the help of military personnel from the Marine Corps Air Ground Combat Center in Twentynine Palms, has shaped a discarded wartime artifact into an iconic work of art. Reporter David Haldane explains…
Once it was the tomb of two brave soldiers. Now the old Huey Army helicopter, shot down in Vietnam, has been resurrected as an art sculpture welcoming all the troops home.
The exhibit – entitled, appropriate enough, Take Me Home Huey – is the brainchild of Steve Maloney, a mixed-media artist based in Rancho Santa Fe, California. Long fascinated by the concept of velocity, Maloney discovered the old air ambulance in an Arizona scrap heap nearly five decades after its 1969 demise during a medical rescue in which two servicemen died.
The result: a breathtaking 47-foot art installation designed – along with a commissioned song, documentary film and educational exhibit – to promote universal healing. You can experience it all this weekend at Palm Desert’s Freedom Park beginning with an opening ceremony 1 p.m. on Saturday. The park is located in the 77400 block of Country Club Drive.
