Once Upon a Time in Vietnam

[JSU]

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Mike / Rangefinder--

 

Thank you for sharing this remarkable glimpse into the human side of a saga ever increasingly forgotten.  

 

As a former (retired) journalist, I have the highest regard for those (civilian and military) willing to go into harms' way to be the eyes and ears of those comfortable in their homes

thousands of miles away. When I say thank you for sharing, I am addressing you in particular as well as others such as Larry Burrows and Henri Huet, Robert Capa and Dickey Chapelle, or more recently, Tim Hetherington and Chris Hondros, who didn't come home.

 

Again, I express my most sincere thanks.

 

--Steve / JSU

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[Tragg]

Real photographs of real events. Fabulous!

[stray cat]

It has been a while since I updated this and I apologize for the delay.  Julie was kind enough to send a photo of her dad on a very special day.  I studied it and compared it with the photo I'd taken almost a half-century ago.

 

 

 

 

 

Look at young boy on the right.  I saw immediately that time has been kind to Julie's dad since those long-ago days when he shared a laugh with a friend on the floor of Madam Ngai's  orphanage at An Lac.  In the photo Julie sent, I see a very happy man who has prospered.  I'm very grateful to Julie for having shared this and it reminds, oh so well, of the power of photography.

 

Mike

 

Mike, it is indeed testament to the power of photography. Even beyond that, though, it is testament to the power of kindness, of decency and of humanity. That these pictures even survived, yet have then decades later become an important part of what has become yours and Julie's joint story, is remarkable and inspiring.

[alun]

A terrific thread -- and I don't know how I have previously missed it. First-hand combat photography is rare indeed on the forum. Preserving the recollections of the generation that served in Vietnam is important and I hope others too may come across this thread and be in a position to add to it.

[Robert M Poole]

If anyone is interested in combat Photography, I have a couple of interviews on my site

 

Gary Ayala is from the Vietnam period

 

https://robertpoolephotography.com/2016/02/04/in-conversation-with-gary-ayala/

 

 

Andy is a current war correspondent

https://robertpoolephotography.com/2016/03/20/in-conversation-with-andy-bush-war-photographer/

 

www.robertpoolephotography.com

[alun]

I've only skimmed the Gary Ayala interview because I'm (supposed to be) working, but it seemed excellent and I shall certainly return to it. We know the big names from the Vietnam period -- these are the photographers from all sides of the war and all parts of the world who have gone down in history -- sometimes tragically so. But those -- often kids at the time -- who saved up part-time job money, or scrounged together a camera kit, or 'borrowed' other people's accreditation and simply headed out to cover the biggest story that then existed, well, these experiences are of a different order and we don't generally get to hear them.

 

While the big names of the period are well represented, one book -- now twenty years old and I suspect hard to find -- that seems less well known and which does a great service in covering all of the photographers who were killed in Vietnam and Indochina is Requiem: By the Photographers Who Died in Vietnam and Indochina.