Faces of Five Wars · Begun 1996
Twenty-four portraits survived. Their stories are coming home.
The complete permanent-installation image set from David J. DeJonge’s first major public-history project is again together—five conflicts carried in the faces and first-hand testimony of Michigan veterans.
Grand Rapids Home for Veterans · Grand Rapids, Michigan · November 9, 2006 · Project photograph; photographer uncredited
Portraiture joined to oral history
A public record made face to face.
Beginning in 1996, David and Grand Rapids Press columnist Karin Orr interviewed and photographed nearly thirty Michigan combat veterans whose service reached from the First World War through Desert Storm.
The project entered the Van Andel Museum Center in 1998, the Michigan State Capitol Rotunda in 1999, and later a permanent twenty-four-image installation at the Grand Rapids Home for Veterans.
The recovered 24-image installation
Every portrait master now visible together.
The sequence below follows the surviving archive’s working order; the original wall order has not yet been recovered. Sixteen identities are secure. Eight portraits remain in place without speculative names until their original records return.
World War II
Louie Dellapella
The surviving story records his Army processing work near Brisbane, Australia, and the life of service to children and fellow veterans that followed.
View the complete original panel ↗
World War I
Haroutun “Harry” Mullion
The surviving story follows his childhood in Armenia, survival of the Turkish massacres, U.S. Army hospital service, and later life in Grand Rapids.
View the complete original panel ↗The record still being recovered
A complete image installation—and an unfinished documentary archive.
The portraits and print masters survive. Sixteen identities can be named responsibly today. Eight original labels and twenty-two full story texts remain missing, so this page preserves those portraits without attaching guesses to human lives.
The strongest lead is physical archival CD 818, cataloged simply as veterans stories. When that disc or an equivalent source is recovered, the collection can grow into complete individual records with verified names, service histories, death dates, and the original testimony.