Once upon a time I wanted to be a professional photographer.
Heck, I was even admitted to Brooks Institute in photography but I didn't go.
I did go to Vietnam however and a I took a camera.
In fact I wore out two cameras while there due to the dust grit and humidity.
While doing so I took about 2000 photographs.
Self portrait Lai Khe at 337 RRU
All of the photographs were taken in 1968 and 1969 across South Vietnam.
Convoy gunner. Let's go to Phuc Vinh.
Some are strictly military subjects.
Skeeter my dog. I had to leave her at Lai Khe when we went TDY with 1st Air Cav.
Some are just human interest.
Cobra fire at Lai Khe
All of them were taken by me and reflect where I was and what I was doing. Time to time I'll post groups of these. I've culled the 2000+ down to about 400 and will only show those.
Starlight scope, me, and my M-16 at the free fire zone.
"Air America" at Quan Loi.
Peat boat on the the Song Dong Nai
Bugs that bit me. The coin is a quarter.
Night soil (Honey) wagon.
Razor wire and sun
Two soldiers (she was our house "girl" and was actually a VC according to CID)
Song Dong Nai
6 comments:
Good stuff. You have quite an eye. With the advent of camera phones, I think the era of this kind of photography - by regular people who capture their lives like this - is a thing of the past. Too bad.
I'm surprised you got a photo of Air America. I thought they didn't exist?
I think maybe it will be just the opposite. I used to take 36-72 pictures per day on a trip or of an event. Every picture I took had an X cost whether I used it or not. Now I will take 300-400 pictures per day on a trip or at an event. Their cost is about 1/50th of X if I don't use them and 1/2of X if I do. Plus retrieval and printing are under my control without a darkroom which was a damn pain.
GKS said: "I'm surprised you got a photo of Air America. I thought they didn't exist?"
It didn't and doesn't and neither do I.
Dr. ER spotted the Marlboro reds in yer self-portrait right away.
Three packs a day plus a third of a bottle of brandy or whiskey or a bottle of Rhine wine a day. We could get booze and smokes when we couldn't get rations.
I have an uncle whose Marine records are either classified, or blank when finally released (it depends who's President and SecDef when you ask). As a civilian, he got a job working for AFLC, Wright-Patterson AFB. His first assignment involved a scenario in which an incident brought Soviet tanks from Czechoslovakia in to Germany. While he had a classification rating, it wasn't very high, yet he went on about various details concerning nukes that should not have been within his purview.
The next day, there was an MP at his office door and the deputy commander of the base sitting at his desk when he showed up for work. When questioned, he placed a call, and handed the phone to the General. The call was put on speaker phone; on the other end of the line was the then-Commandant of the Marine Corps, who told the General that if he ever asked a question about the specifics of my uncle's Marine Corps records, he would personally see the General busted to airman. He also asked why my uncle's classification rating wasn't higher, based upon the simple fact that he had kept up his rating even after retiring from the Marine Corps.
My uncle exists, and spent ten years in the Marine Corps. Yet, his records only list the day he entered, the day he left, and three convictions during courts martial hearings, in which my uncle plead guilty and was fined $1. That's it (I know because I have seen them; the first time I asked, however, my FOIA request was turned down).
The level of classification access is classified as Secret if it is higher than Top Secret. Strangly my DD-214 has mine on it and is not classified at all, therefore it is a public record. My wife, a civilian, had a Secret level classification because she could see my NSA/ASA "World Wide Badges" the existance of which 40 years ago was classified as Secret.
Your classification level expires 10 years after your seperate from the service. All that means is that you can't see shit anymore. You are still responsible for not disclosing what you know. When they wanted two of my buddies back in recently their classification status was revised instantly.
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