Michael A. Buchart was born and raised in the ruins of Frankfurt, Germany following the Second World War. In 1957, he was adopted and brought to the United States, where he became a citizen in 1968. In the early 1970s, Mike Buchart joined the United States Marine Corps. While he was stationed at Fort Pendleton, North Carolina, he was trained in riot control tactics in order to non-violently quell the plethora of social protest movements that were sweeping the country in the late 1960s and early 1970s. As a result, he was involved in many riot control duties. One included a two month stationing in Rhode Island in the spring of 1970 to subdue a possible riot by the Black Panthers in New York. When his group (the 1st Battalion, 6th Marine Regiment) returned to North Carolina, the Kent State shootings of May 4, 1970 had occurred, which Buchart and his fellow Marines have recently spoken out about. From July 1970 to May 1971, he served his eleven month tour of duty in Vietnam. He was stationed in the Quam Nam Province, south of Da Nang. Like many Vietnam Veterans, the war had a profound effect on Buchart's life.
After returning from South-East Asia, Mike Buchart left the Marine Corps
and decided to travel the country. He went to live with his father
in Montgomery, Alabama from 1972-73. Not finding the South to his
liking, he set out for the Western United States settling in North Dakota
and then Colorado. During the 1980s he married and had three children.
He now lives in Aurora, Colorado where he is a Heat Treat Manager/Metallurgist
for a tooling company. He currently holds membership in the American
Legion, the Marine Corps League, the 2nd Battalion, 1st Marine Regiment;
and the 3rd Battalion, 7th Marine Regiment, Vietnam. He is also a
life member of the Veterans of Foreign Wars.
This collection contains memorabilia and artifacts of the Vietnam War.
They were donated by Michael A. Buchart, A United States Marine and Vietnam
Veteran. Most of the items were part of the collection of a General
of the North Vietnamese Army (NVA). They were stored in a warehouse
in Da Nang, Vietnam until 1996 when a friend of Buchart's obtained them.
They are totally authentic and were used during the Vietnam war, but were
unobtainable until recent years because they were always kept hidden from
the United States Marine Corps during the Vietnam conflict. Other
artifacts in this collection, such as photographs of Vietnam, belonged
to Michael Buchart, who has shared many compelling stories of the Vietnam
War and the May 4, 1970 issue in e-mail to University Archivist Nancy Birk.
A composite sketch of his conversations is being prepared and will be
available on the web soon.
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