Triangle Road: Veteran's Day

Let me be clear. I have neither regrets nor any particular pride about my service (almost 3 years). I did not volunteer or get drafted. I signed up because in 1964, out of college and unmarried, I was very likely to be drafted and if I signed up instead, I could get training in a field of my choice. I chose photography, and I could have stayed on at the army photography school in Fort Monmouth, New Jersey as an instructor if I hadn't been such a f*k-up (I actually did teach for a while). And so, to get rid of me, I was sent to Vietnam, where I did two 9 month tours. The first, shooting 16mm movies and regular photos for the 9th Signal Corps (from combat to "shake & grin"), and second, doing graphics in a print shop for the 6th Psyops Battalion in Bien Hoa (operations included leaflets dropped from airplanes). The second tour was optional, but the thought of returning to an army base in the US for a year did not appeal to me.

There are a lot of stories behind those tours, but long-story-short, I got out alive. And with a few photos taken by others to show I was there (see below). They all are from my first tour as a photographer for the 9th Infantry Division, located in the Mekong River delta area, a land of rice paddies, sloughs, rivers, mud, and monsoon rains.

I am sorry about the people that didn't make it back and those that didn't last long after they did (I knew both kinds), and those that were messed up - mentally or physically, or both, from the experience). It was a strange and bumpy time in American history and one we seemed doomed to repeat every few years.

I acknowledge with appreciation people's thanks for my service. I did try to do a good job.

1. I am embarrassed by this photo - it's the obligatory variation on the "macho idiot" pose taken by many not long after arriving and before we came to realize what kind of war we were involved in (that's a subject for another day). The M-16 rifle I was brandishing was soon replaced by a holstered .45 M1911 sidearm - try holding a rifle and using a movie camera...it doesn't work).

2. The original Signal Corps photo crew. I can still put names to most of them.

3. Out on a job.

Checking out a VC tunnel complex. No, I didn't find it or clear it. I was sent there to cover General Westmoreland's visit. One photo I took of him, sighting a VC sniper rifle, was published in Newsweek magazine, back then a competitor of Time magazine.