World War II and Vietnam War Father and Son's Military Archive of 3 Photographs Albums plus Ephemera

Multigenerational archive of the WWII and Vietnam service of an Air Force family, the Coons, of Penn Yan, New York. 1942-44 and 1968-1969. Two photo albums from the Vietnam War and a scrapbook from WWII, along with a bag full of ephemera such as patches, medals, registration cards, business cards, a ring and a dogtag belonging to this Air Force father and son. The father, Clarence Coon, reported to the Air Force in WWII and was stationed in Italy and later in Africa in 1944. His son, Michael Coon, followed his father in the Air Force and was deployed to South Vietnam in the late 1960s. The archive includes 123 photographs across the two albums and the (truncated) scrapbook, with many postcards, including 26 which have letters written on verso. Three pages of a letter written in the scrapbook. Scrapbook also includes newspaper clippings and religious pamphlets. An interesting contrast in this archive is the tonal difference between the Clarence Coon's fairly straight and narrow experience of WWII service and what the pictorial history of his son Michael's service in Vietnam shows. Clarence is frequently writing home to his parents speaking of the "all work + no play" lifestyle during his deployment, while Michael's album is littered with moments shared with his brothers in arms drinking, flipping off the camera, going to see live music, including one burlesque/strip joint, swimming, brandishing their weapons, riding above Vietnam in helicopters, and even them pretending to take a sledgehammer to an military office typewriter. Clarence's album is clearly infused with a spirit of youthful rebellion which came to be in the 1960s, while his father's time in the service seems to be more reverent and dutiful, which tracks given public sentiment (including enlisted men) about their respective wars. Nevertheless, Clarence's personality shines through in his extensive writings. In a letter to his father, he writes, "Another card to let you know that I don't do all my writing to women." and speaks of the 1942 New York gubernatorial election, which Republican Thomas Dewey won in a landslide over Democrat John J. Bennett "The radio just announced Bennet's Defeat. To bad. Well we will see what Dewey can do. I wish him luck." Later during his deployment in Tennessee, he writes "Well, as far as I'm concerned they can give Tenn. back to the Indians. We are walking around in a sea of mud. Its all day + rains every 5 min. I wouldn't live in the South for anything." Clarence's training history and achievements are recorded in newspaper clippings at the back of the scrapbook. He trained in flight schools in Westover, Mass. and Nashville and Smyrna, TN, graduated as a plane mechanic in Gulfport, Miss., and received his wings training as a top turret gunner and was awarded for his skill on the pistol range at Tyndall Field, Fla. In Coon's combat deployment, he flew on a B-24 Liberator Bomber as an engineer-gunner, as part of the 15th Army Air Force in Italy, where he flew on at least 5 combat missions. Ephemera seems to be evenly split between the WWII and Vietnam eras, with multiple sergeant chevrons (Clarence's highest rank) and registration cards and dogtags for his son Michael. An interesting and well recorded archive of a family's extensive military service in the Air Force. (Inventory #: 19304)