Posted on 05/08/2005 9:13:31 PM PDT by CHARLITE
The recent photo of U.S. Army Major Mark Bieger cradling a wounded Iraqi girl in his arms is one of those indelible images that puncture the often impenetrable fog of the war at the geo-strategic level. (For the story of the photo click here http://komotv.com/news/story.asp?ID=36687). This powerful photo contrasts with the negative media portrayals riveted into our minds about the Viet Nam War.
One memorable Viet Nam war photo is the picture of children fleeing down a road from where a napalm bomb was dropped by the South Vietnamese Air Force on the village of Trang Bang where Viet Cong were holed up. One 9-year old girl, Kim Phoe Phan Thi, is shown crying and naked after shedding her burning clothes running away from the searing heat and clouds of smoke from the bomb. The picture does not tell the full story that nearby South Vietnamese ARVN soldiers were unable to aid or cover the little girl’s nakedness because of the unseen burns on her back.http://www.vietnamwar.com/PhanThiKimPhuc.htm
Another remarkable but eerie photo is of the black silhouette of a helicopter hovering directly overhead against the background of an all white sky hoisting the body of an American paratrooper killed in action in the jungle near the Cambodian border in War Zone C, circa 1966..http://www.pieceuniquegallery.com/huet/HH6612_page.html
The above photo is reminiscent of this writer’s own experience of escorting medicated psychiatric patients in Huey helicopters so they wouldn’t fall or jump from the aircraft during evacuations from the 25th Infantry Division Headquarters base camp in Cu Chi to the hospital in Ton Son Nhut near Saigon; as pictured in Eric M. Bergerud’s book Red Thunder, Tropic Lightning- The World of a Combat Division in Vietnam. On the return trips from such evacuations we would fly into fire fights and pick up captured Viet Cong who were sometimes mutilated by South Vietnamese forces, something that U.S. forces never condoned and would have severely punished.
These pictures, and the infamous story of a retaliatory action against Viet Cong collaborators in the village of My Lai and the ensuing court martial of U.S. Army Lieutenant William Calley, are the media images that often come to mind about the Viet Nam War.
However, an almost identical photograph to the Major Bieger photo of a U.S. soldier cradling a Vietnamese child during the Viet Nam War can be found on pages 112-113 of the new book Under Fire: Images from Vietnam edited by war reporter Catherine Leroy (no online photo). Another nearly as powerful photo is of a U.S. Marine rescuing an elderly Vietnamese lady during the Battle of Hue in February 1968 by photographer Don McCullin.http://www.pieceuniquegallery.com/mccullin/DM6804_page.html A selection of the portfolio of photographic images from Under Fire can be viewed by clicking here.http://www.pieceuniquegallery.com/leroy/cl_gallery.html
In the eyes of many, the Viet Nam war was an “unnecessary” war, while the Iraq War is seen more as a “war for democracy.” But is this public perception accurate? The Greek philosopher Aristotle wrote that “thought is impossible without images.” Have the images changed that much between the two wars?
While the public often depends on TV pictures framed by broadcast commentators to understand the reality of war, three books ironically by liberal writers may offer a better picture of the Viet Nam war in retrospect.
Peter Braestrap, Chief of the Washington Post’s Saigon Bureau during the Tet Offensive documented the press’s abject failure to get the story of the Viet Nam war right in his book Big Story: How the American Press and TV Reported and Interpreted the Crisis of Tet 1968. Braestrup documented how television’s misportrayal of the Tet Offensive as a “disaster,” especially by CBS anchorman Walter Cronkite, galvanized American public opinion against the war. There are no pictures in Braestrap’s book but it is chocked with word pictures of the media-casting of the Tet Offensive.
Edith Efron, former TV Guide writer, and lawyer-sociologist Clytia M. Chambers, definitively documented in The News Twisters (1971), with some statistical graphs that are as riveting as any photo, on how the news media biased the American public against Richard Nixon in the 1968 Presidential election and against U.S. policy on the war in Vietnam. Efron’s book focused on NBC broadcaster David Brinkley’s definition of news: “News is what I say it is. It’s something worth knowing by my standards.”
Truong Nhu Tang, a former South Vietnamese Minister of Justice, revolutionist and collaborator with Ho Chi Minh, was a double agent for the National Liberation Front (NLF) who wrote A Viet Cong Memoir: An Inside Account of the Vietnam War and its Aftermath (1985). The book is filled with photographs of NLF activities and the story of the tragic betrayal of the NLF by the communists after the fall of South Vietnam. Disillusionment and despair came after the war when instead of liberation from “colonialism” the North Vietnamese arrested 300,000 people and put many in permanent “re-education camps” that mass media never saw. Tang ended up fleeing as one of the “boat people” refugees after the war.
Does the public view the pictures of the Iraq War through a different cultural and media lens than the Vietnam War? Certainly the circumstances of the two wars are different. But perhaps the public should go back and look at the photographs of the Vietnam War for themselves and come to their own conclusions upon the 30th anniversary of the last Americans being airlifted out of Saigon ending the U.S. involvement in that war.
Note: The writer served with the 25th Medical Battalion, 25th Infantry Division, U.S. Army, based at Division Field Headquarters in Cu Chi, Hau Nghia Province, South Vietnam, during the Vietnam War.
About the Writer: About the author: Wayne Lusvardi worked for 20 years for the Metro Water District of So. Cal. and lives in Pasadena. The views expressed are his own. . Wayne receives e-mail at wlusvardi@yahoo.com.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- "If you are able, save for them a place inside of you and save one backward glance when you are leaving for the places they can no longer go. Be not ashamed to say you loved them, though you may or may not have always. Take what they have taught you with their dying and keep it with your own. And in that time when men decide and feel safe to call the war insane, take one moment to embrace those gentle heroes you left behind." Major Michael Davis O'Donnell 1 January 1970 Dak To, Vietnam
thanks for the ping!
Those are some powerful words that we should all take to heart. There is a place inside of me for these heroes, and I have loved them all.
You are so right..I cried when I read this!
Maybe when you grow up, you'll learn how to count. The "boomers" didn't "expand Social Security'. That was done by "The Greatest Generation" members of congress during as "Social Security Reform" and LBJs Great Society Medicare program. There were no "Boomers" in those Congresses. The "Boomers" are just the ones who have been forced to pay 15.4% of their wages into Social Security & Medicare for all or most of their working lives to pay for higher benifits for the AARP crowd.
You might also figure out that when Boomers started working, one in every 4 private sector jobs were "union" jobs. Today, it's one in 10!
And if you did know how to count, you might just figure out that not a single "Boomer" is currently eligible for Social Security retirement. Not one.
Perhaps the lesson here is that the "Boomers" were the last generation to actually learn math in school.
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Vietnam Veteran RICK RESCORLA saved 100's of lives in Vietnam in 1965 and 1,000's of lives in New York's World Center... TWICE..!!!
See: http://www.RickRescorla.com
Signed:.."ALOHA RONNIE" Guyer
Veteran-"WE WERE SOLDIERS" Battle of IA DRANG-1965
http://www.lzxray.com/guyer_set1.htm
(Where RICK RESCORLA walked in Vietnam, exactly - See 1st Photo)
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Rick Rescorla, a great American hero. Thanks for posting this, Aloha Ronnie. And, (even though it sounds corny and is inadequate) thank you for fighting alongside Rick in '65. Great photos.
Ros42, see post 28... the links.
How I feel about the photo of SGT Bieger and the child whose name I wish I knew is ... grieved, very VERY sad.
It also makes me even madder at the leftist, liberal "hate America" crowd, some of whom I confronted yesterday. Veterans for Peace were seated next to their so-called "Arlington West" at Santa Monica beach and I gave them H.E.L.L.
Ditto. What you said...
A dam good depression would do wonders.
How many do you think could survive picking beans and pickles for canning factories? How many could stoop that low and eat flour pudding at least five times a week. Most houses that people could afford to hold would become boarding houses to get just a tad more pennies to live on.
OH how my mom told of what they did to make it during that depression. She scrubbed floors, the boys quit school and helped cut fence posts in the swamps for half a penny each (they cut one hundred a day with a bow saw and double bit axe), picked blueberries, and on and on.
Thanks so much, orion.
Char :)
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RICK RESCORLA: Help honor 911 Lifesaving Hero
http://war-forums.com/forums/showthread.php?t=24361
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You are a bright person. I didn't wise up until the Mondale campaign, and later the Dukakis run put me over the top. I knew that guy was bad news. "The Massachusetts Miracle," ha, what a joke.
> hadn't seen it before, if indeed it was ever published anywhere.
Oh, it's been published... won the Pulitzer in '74. The story on it: the soldier you see was a Vietnam war POW, had been for some years. He had just landed on American soil, was asked to go to the microphone and say a few words, and he apparently scanned the audience of well-wishers desperately looking for his family. They weren't there. He was understandably crushed, he thought they had forgetten him.
They were behind the plane, waiting for him to finish speaking, so they could have him to themselves. They had not forgetten him, as you can tell.
Photographer was Sal Veder... and he for *damned* sure deserved the Pulitzer for that one.
To find a decent quality version of the photo you'll need to look in a book... the online versions all seem to be pretty small. Copyright issue, I suppose.
Okay, it's official--between the original post and the picture of the POW--I am officially crying. :)
Tears of joy for the POW of 30 years ago--and tears of sadness and humility for the soldier and the little girl he carried as she died.
> I am officially crying. :)
Anyone who can look at both and not tear up is some kinda robot.
> Tears of joy for the POW of 30 years ago
The bad news: apparently he and the missus got a divorce within a year. I have no further info than that, but I guess after years in the Hanoi Hilton, it should not come as a complete surprise. However... on that one day in the photo, there was complete joy.
> tears of sadness and humility for the soldier and the little girl
There have been a number of good photos (sad, joyful, determined, brave, etc.) to come out of the war. Does anybody know if there is a website that's keeping track?
That's too bad, but you're right.
on that one day in the photo, there was complete joy.
That's a good way to look at it. :)
There have been a number of good photos (sad, joyful, determined, brave, etc.) to come out of the war. Does anybody know if there is a website that's keeping track?
Absolutely--I know I've seen some but can't remember the urls.
I'm pinging people that might know and I will browse through some stuff I have.
Calpernia, Tonk, Ragtime Cowgirl, do you know of a good website that has photos of the war?
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