Vietnam 50 years on
 

How photographs told the story of the Vietnam War

WARNING: THIS GALLERY CONTAINS PICTURES THAT SOME MIGHT FIND DISTURBING

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-24992606

Quite a pictorial. Only one word was coming to mind as I viewed. Insanity.

Yeah, I'm not sure it was one of the wisest moves in US military history.

I'm sure it was not.

You're being awfully kind.

I'm forced to agree.

Blame the French.

The best pictures I've seen from that insanity were taken by a Navy sailor... My sister-in-law's brother Dennis ran swift boats on the Mekong. He had three boats shot out from under him, two of them, he was the sole survivor because he was driving. Crazy bastard volunteered for three tours in that hell hole. I'm happy to this day that my lottery number never stood a chance of coming up. By the time I turned 18 and graduated high school in '72, they had already started pulling the troops out.

I went to a party at Dennis' house the summer of '72 and some fool asked him where he bought his medals. He was kicked out of the party when he came to.:dead::haha:
One of his slides showed a gunboat moored at a makeshift dock on the river. The boat had a big red circle painted on the exterior of the cabin. He snapped another shot of the same boat a week later and the big red circle had a big black hole in the middle of it from a rocket. There were two bunks hanging on the inside of that wall with a sailor sleeping in the top rack. The rocket exploded right in the middle of the void between those racks. The sleeping sailor was deaf for awhile but otherwise unscathed.

It's the old question of "Does being there make you crazy or do you have to be crazy in the first place just to survive?" An old friend whom we used to call "The Crazy Ranger" was on his second tour when he was stitched up the back with an AK - eight shots if I remember correctly. While he was in the hospital recovering his wife sold his ranch and his beloved horses and divorced him. Later she tried to sue him for alimony. None of that is relevant except to explain why he then volunteered for a third tour. That failed when a major told him he was a fool for wanting to go back again. His thinking of course was that he had nothing left here, so he might as well at least have some fun doing what he did best. When the major started to swear at him he bounced the major off the wall out of this world for a few minutes. The major made sure he was court-martialled and drummed out of the army. The fun part was that they couldn't give him a dishonorable or even phsychological discharge - he had way too many medals and honors for that. So they gave him an honorable discharge and called it good.

I bet the major didn't make it past major...though...damned with faint praise...3 times?:D

Not much experience with the ways of the military judging from that statement.

I'd agree the personal photos are some of the best and creepiest deepening on the person who took them.My dad has lots of pretty good photos from his 2 tours nearly all of the first and all of the second as a LRRP. Nothing too odd in his collection but he is not the odd type either.Mostly just shots just hanging out or posed shots of a team.Of course when they used Cambodian,Chinese or Hmong mercenaries usually he does not know what happened to them.

A good song that describes the Vietnam experience or any war for that matter "Drive On" by Johnny Cash.I can relate honestly 12 years in the USAF about half of them during our current wars and pretty much for nothing really but a crap load of time away from my friends and family just to put a lot of blood and sweat busting my knuckles to keep the gears moving for a war that the politicians simply washed their hands.Yeah so a woman can own a company in Afghanistan not for long once we leave.Not like I feel it was a waste of time but maybe a waste of effort and not really have anything to show for it except for pride and I made a lot of good friends along the way and I know i have a work ethic and integrity that would make Moses jealous.As Forrest Gump said "that's all I got to say about that".

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5gbn7_Bb4Io

I have always been a big fan of the work of Tim Page. Impressive and insightful without voyeurism. This book was published in the late 80s in Germany as a magazine series, it gives a great overview over the many topics and aspects of the war, with amazing pictures not only from him, but also from many others. Some years ago he made a photo exhibition, which featured the pics from collegues which didn't make it back.

Did he ever publish those pics? Haven't seen many photo reports about the Brownwater Navy.

Sadly, no. His pictures were way too personal I'd guess. The poor guy still had nightmares from killing a kid who surprised him one night during his watch. The fifty turned him into a grease spot on the bank.

The most amazing shot he had was of a chopper jockey flying a Cobra upside down.:huh:
He told us of the rockets those choppers used and how you could safely kick them, drop them or beat them with a hammer. You just didn't want to comb your hair around them for fear of igniting the motor.:timeout:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DQFWAIFzoZ4

Full Metal Jacket made this song more of a satire, thanks Kubrick. the original artist intended this as serious.

I have trouble with Vietnam, as I had somewhat the same feeling with our illegal excursions into Iraq, and the losses involved in such bull**** profligacy.

I will leave the astericks, any war since WW2 has been profit driven, and a step backwards in the history of America.

I am not minimizing those who fought there, but I cannot ever justify us being there, we shoulda just let the stupid french lose their dumb colony.
The 60's is long past the colonial age, and maybe they should not have white flagged so fast, but that is what the french do....
But nooooooo, 60k plus Americans had to die for nothing, for zero gain, just like Iraq and Afghanistan, fighting for the freedom of people who do not want our "brand" of freedom.


But the money vultures...They want us to believe we need that so called feedom, exploitation of resources.

Just once, I would love a war not fought over oil, resources or ideology.

(all wars would end, the above statement is an impossibility)

I disagree about Vietnam and the others in all honesty.You must look at the Vietnam through the lens of the Cold War the logic at the time was to prevent the spread of Soviet backed governments Vietnam was really a civil war but this was not understood at the time.

what jacked up things in Afghanistan was actually the Iraq War that pulled troops and resources away from Afghanistan the Taliban was gone then they realized that there where hardly any troops to deal with so they just in most cases walked right back into town.Personally I think had Iraq never happened they would have actually been able to stabilize things in Afghanistan as a matter of fact they where in the process of doing just this when the Taliban started making moves again in 2006 after that it was like a reset button was hit and things went right back to pre 2002 almost over night because it was not possible to commit enough combat forces to Afghanistan until 2010 after Iraq was a done deal by that point it was too late and the entire counter insurgency process has to start all over again.

I fail to understand why western governments involve them selves in Counter-Insurgencies in the first place they are very difficult and typically the population (of the Western nation) tires of the effort long before it is a success.Only a handful have worked Malay in the early 60's and Timmor in the late 90's.The stupid thing about Afghanistan is that we where actually succeeding and then just abandoned it thanks to Iraq and once Iraq was "done" by that point the support was gone.

France did loose their colonies in Laos in Cambodia in and in Vietnam 1954 not sure what makes you think they still had them or that the US was doing the exact same thing as the French not the case at all.The US simply viewed these countries as "keystones".

I have no idea what feedom is.

Even if all you say is true about money vultures and power and all that jazz well I recon that is just a part of human nature and that my friend is something that you can not change.So if if that is way it is then everyone else is gonna be that way as well so looking at it that way I'd rather the money vulture be one of my kind than one of their kind so if that is what the military also represents and it does protect a nations interests then that also means the economic ones and I am confident that China or Russia would treat people a lot worse than we do speaking of governments here not people.

Did you guys know that Tim Page got shrapnel in his head from an explosion in Vietnam and actually had a grapefruit sized chunk of his brain removed? I saw him talking about it on some show on NatGeo a while back.