I was talking about the photography, since that was his participation. Having read the IMDb boards, I see that a lot of Vietnam vets took extreme exception to Cimino’s storyline in the film (the Russian Roulette stuff especially, claiming that never happened).
The Russian Roulette stuff was from another screenplay about guys who go to Vegas and do it there. The scene was apparently so dramatically striking that Cimino imported it into the film despite it having not much to do with anything.