Сообщение US soldiers shotgunning weed in pictures, 1970 появились сначала на Old Pictures.
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You may have watched the weed shotgunning scene in Oliver Stone’s Platoon movie. Believe it or not, it was a common practice during the War in Vietnam in the 1970s. Just take a look at these historical ‘shotgunning weed’ pictures!
Oldpics has already published some noteworthy pictures of the US Navy sailors during their free time in Hawaii in 1945. Let’s take a look at the marine’s routine during the Vietnam War.
How the weed shotgunning was invented
In 1970, the US army in Vietnam switched from offensive operations to training South Vietnamese troops and holding garrison defenses. Trying to deal with boredom and low morale, many began to smoke marijuana. Note that in Vietnam, you can find cannabis as easy as high schoolers do. It grows literally everywhere, and its quality is just excellent. At the same time, unlike high schoolers, US soldiers didn’t have any tobacco paper or bong, so here why that used what they had: shotguns. Here’s how the weed shotgunning was invented!
On November 13, 1970, a documentary team captured American soldiers in a small jungle clearing in War Zone D, 50 miles northeast of Saigon. The team leader Vito is a 20-year-old recruit from Philadelphia. He demonstrated how his squad used a 12-gauge ‘Ralph’ (nickname) shotgun for the cameras.
Vito discharged the barrel, inserted a lighted pipe with marijuana into it, and invited his comrades to inhale the smoke that came from the long barrel. Yes, that’s how shotgunning weed looks like!
Read more: The war in Vietnam in pictures by Horst Faas
In this photo, soldiers in fire support base Aries, a small clearing in the jungles of War Zone D, 50 miles from Saigon, smoke marijuana using a shotgun they nicknamed “Ralph,” Nov. 13, 1970.
All’s fair in a war… when you stay high.
Vito, a recruit from Philadelphia
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]]>Сообщение The war in Vietnam in pictures by Horst Faas появились сначала на Old Pictures.
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Horst Faas was an outstanding war photographer. His brilliant photos won the Pulitzer award twice. Combat photography of the war in South Viet Nam during 1964 won the first prize. This publication at Oldpics focuses on Vietnamese series by Horst Faas.
The glory of the war cameramen
Horst Faas was a talented photographer. Not even just a talented, but, rather, a brilliant front-line correspondent. They’re not so many masters of the level of Horst Faas. We can compare his photography with war essays of Eugene Smith, Eddie Adams, Susan Meiselas.
The Vietnam photos made Horst Faas world-known. He worked at AP for decades, and its editor-in-chief Caitlyn Carroll said that Horst was perhaps his most irreplaceable employee and an excellent friend.
Women and children hiding in a ditch at Bao Trai, 20 miles west of Saigon, January 1, 1966
Mixed army feelings about Horst Faas
Faas didn’t try to show US soldiers as heroes all the time. And here’s why some officers didn’t like his photography. “This is a terrible photo,” complained one of the commanders. “I don’t want these pictures of my squad. Soldiers look sleepy and tired. They are in a fighting squad.”
Faas tried to explain that their exhaustion reflects their combat experience; six months later, this photograph became so popular that the same commander invited Faasa once more to take new pictures of his platoon.
The site of a bomb explosion at the US Embassy in Saigon, March 30, 1965.
A deadly risk
Faas risked all the way to take his photographs. And there’s at least one case when he was just lucky enough to survive. On December 6, 1967, he was wounded in the legs by an anti-tank grenade in Bu Dopa, South Vietnam. A young American doctor managed to stop the bleeding, recalling this event when meeting with Faas 20 years later. The doc said: “You were so gray and pale, I thought you’re finished.”
Horst Faas is approaching a helicopter after a whole day spent with US rangers
Horst Faas in Vietnam, 1967
Horst Faas walking together with US marines, 1966
Horst Faas as a playing photo coach
While recuperating, Faas was recruiting and training Vietnamese volunteer photographers.
Huynh Thanh My was among his most famous protégé. An actor switched to photography who died in 1965. Faas trained his younger brother Huynh Cong “Nick” Ut then. His image ‘Napalm girl’ won the Pulitzer Prize in 1972.
Horst Faas was a smart planner and tried to ensure the safety of his journalists. As one of his colleagues put it, “not only calculating what would happen next but also what would happen after.”
Horst Faas was a few yards behind his Associated Press colleague Eddie Adams in Saigon when he snapped his most famous picture. He captured the moment when a Vietnamese police officer executed a suspected Viet Cong officer on the street. This image is among the Top 100 most influential photos in history, according to Time magazine.
When the Vietnam War ended, Horst Faas wanted to leave his horrible memories in the past. He returned there only once, in 1978, and subsequently as a tourist. He said that his mission was “to capture the suffering, emotion, and sacrifice of both the Americans and the Vietnamese people.”
US Marines flee from the crash site of a CH-46 helicopter shot down near the demilitarized zone between North and South Vietnam on July 15, 1966.
Wounded American soldiers on a battlefield in Vietnam on April 2, 1967.
Survivors of two days of heavy fighting in Dong Huo, civilians gather after an attack by government forces, June 1965
The body of an American soldier on the battlefield in Vietnam, April 2, 1967.
Landing light from medical evacuation helicopter cuts through smoke of battle for Bu Dop, South Vietnam, silhouetting U.S. troops moving the most seriously wounded to the landing Zone on November 30, 1967.
South Vietnamese government troops from the 2nd Battalion of the 36th Infantry sleep in a U.S. Navy troop carrier on their way back to the Provincial capital of Ca Mau, Vietnam.
South Vietnamese troops, joined by US advisers, rest after a cold, wet, and tense night of waiting in the dense jungle around the town of Binh Gia, 60 km from Saigon, Vietnam, in January 1965.
In this March 1965 photo, U.S. Army helicopters provide machine gun cover to pushing South Vietnamese ground troops.
Vietnamese soldiers had to wear the face mask while passing through the road covered with bodies.
Children drive home from school gazing at the bodies Viet Cong soldiers and their commander in the village of An Ninh in Vietnam’s Hau Nghia province on May 8, 1972.
Artillery squads of the new South Vietnamese 25th division line up for a parade in front of 105 and 155 Howitzers in the coastal town of Quang Nai, South Vietnam, a Viet Cong stronghold, on August 15, 1962.
American soldiers guard Route 7 as Vietnamese women and children return home to Xuan Dien village from Ben Khat, Vietnam, in December 1965.
American POWs at Li Nam De Street camp in Hanoi, North Vietnam, March 1973.
American Lieutenant Colonel George Easter getting aid after a Viet Cong sniper shot in Chung Lap, South Vietnam, January 16, 1966.
A wounded Vietnamese ranger is ready with his weapon, during the battle in Dong Xoai on June 11, 1965.
A Vietnamese doctor leaps from a secure position behind a rice paddy dike. Viet Cong snipers were covering the area with fire, August 8, 1966.
A South Vietnamese woman cries over the body of her spouse. He was among 47 others in a mass grave near Hue, Vietnam.
A South Vietnamese soldier hits a farmer with a dagger for giving false information to government forces about the movement of Viet Cong guerrillas in a village west of Saigon, Vietnam on January 9, 1964.
A battalion is inspecting the Trung Jap, northwest of Saigon. They’ve got information on Vietcong forces in the area. A Vietcong bride was arrested, blindfolded, and bound when troopers saw her hiding a bag with a bomb.
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]]>Сообщение The story behind ‘The Terror of War’: ‘Napalm Girl’ by Nick Ut. появились сначала на Old Pictures.
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‘The terror of war’ or also known as the ‘Napalm Girl,’ is a Pulitzer Prize-winning photograph by photojournalist Nick Ut, a Vietnamese American photographer. The latter captured the historical events of War in Vietnam while working for the Associated Press. Nick joined AP in 1966 after his brother was killed in 1965 at the age of 27. First working in the darkroom, he later became a war photographer just like his brother.
The photo we are looking at was taken with Leica M2 Kodak 400 tri x film as only 400, and 200 versions were available in Vietnam. The camera still exists and is stored in a museum in Washington, DC.
Nick Ut’s pictures were a massive contribution to the Vietnam war history photography, compared with Anthony Adams.
‘Napalm Girl’ picture settled in the Top 100 most influential photos in history, according to Times magazine.
Nick Ut used to say that ‘Napalm Girl’ had a fantastic history behind it. On June 7, he heard about fighting in Trảng Bàng. Ut photographed the refugees and planes dropping bombs, captured the unseen horrors of the Vietnam war. The civilians were caught in between North Vietnamese who were trying to take control of the village and South Vietnamese troops who were trying to defend it. One of the planes dropped a napalm bomb on North Vietnamese positions. However, the bomb mistakenly hit Trảng Bàng and civilians. Kim Phuc and other villagers were hiding in the temple in the village. As the bombs were exploding everywhere, villagers ran out of the temple as they thought it would be targeted as well, when suddenly another plane dropped the napalm bombs. People were running out bomb barrage. Women were carrying burned children, the burning postures of the running people that were doomed.
When the photographer looked through, he saw terrified children and among them, a naked girl (9-year-old girl, Phan Thị Kim Phúc) running and crying. As her skin slumping down, Ut put down his camera and brought water for the girl. He picked her up and brought her to his car with other children and took her to the hospital. There he found that she might not survive because she had suffered third-degree burns on thirty percent of her body. So he helped to transfer her to an American hospital where they were able to save her life.
When he sent his picture to the AP’s office, the photo was actually about to be rejected since the rules for publishing nudity were very strict. In the end, the editors agreed that the historical value of the picture and the news is higher than the reservations about nudity, which is funny because, in 2016, Facebook censored the photograph. Mark Zuckerberg was accused of abusing his power, and after widespread criticisms from news organizations and media experts across the globe, Facebook backed down and allowed the photograph.
Like any other famous historical photograph, this one is also a little controversial. At first, some people, including then-president Richard Nixon, doubted that the photo was authentic. Nick Ut later said: “The ‘Napalm Girl’ for me, and unquestionably for many others, could not have been more real. The photo was as authentic as the Vietnam war itself.” Nixon suggested that the photo was fake, and the girl was perhaps burned with oil since no one ever survived napalm bombing until then. The picture was also initially published cropped, so the first version was published without the soldier rewinding his film. Nick Ut said in the interview on Petapixel that the soldier was David Burnett. As the civilians were running out of the fire, everyone was terrified, and all the photographers and TV cameras started taking pictures. David Burnett ran out of the film and was desperately trying to rewind it. When he finally did it, he also took photos of Kim. Now, the picture had a more significant impact without the figure of a soldier looking like not caring too much, especially when the people didn’t know he was trying to document the accident. What do you think about cropping photos like that?
Nick later said. “I wanted to stop this war, and I hated war. My brother told me I hope one day you have a picture to stops the war,” and on June 8, 1972, Nick Ut took just a picture like that, a picture that stopped the war. The photograph is said to be one of the most memorable historical images of the 20th century.
As Saigon fell, he moved out of Vietnam and eventually settled in LA. He spent more than 50 years as a photojournalist. Photographing famous historical events, politics, and celebrities, but his most known photo was taken at the beginning of his career and, in my opinion, had the most significant impact.
Ut won a World Press Photo and Pulitzer Prize for the picture in 1973.
In 2012 he was inducted by the Leica Hall of Fame for his contributions to photojournalism.
Kim Phuc survived, and she and Nick Ut met again after the end of the Vietnam conflict. Ut said he was pleased when he looked at the picture because it changed the war history.¨
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]]>Сообщение A story of ‘Saigon Execution’ photo by Eddie Adams, 1968 появились сначала на Old Pictures.
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‘Saigon Execution’ by Eddie Adams, 1968
‘Saigon Execution’ is the best-known photo of the American photographer Eddie Adams. It captures the moment when brigade general of the Vietnamese army Nguyen Ngoc Loan shoots a captive officer of the Vietcong army. The picture scares with expression. Fear on the face of a prisoner of war, cold calm on the face of the executioner. Now comes a shot…
This image brought Adams to glory, Pulitzer Prize, nomination in Top 100 influential photos in history (Time Magazine)… and also sorrow. Photographer used to say with regret that “The general killed the Vietnamese; I killed the general with my camera. A simple image can be the most powerful weapon in the world. People believe them: but photographs can lie even if they have not been manipulated. They speak only part of the truth.”
Read more: The history of the Korean War in 34 photos
Escorting Van Lem, the captain of the ‘Avengers squad’
So where is the truth about which photography? Let’s start with the victim. His name is Van Lem and he was the captain of the ‘Avengers squad’. His unit murdered brutally families, with women and children, of the South Vietnamese police officers just minutes before this photo was taken. 34 bodies were found in the ditch. Vietcong fighter was very proud of what he had done, chanted his communist ideals, boasted that all the people from the list he had previously compiled perished. ‘Saigon Execution’ can’t tell this story behind.
The photograph can’t tell all the truth about General Loan too. “This guy was a real hero,” Eddie Adams recalled. The photographer even apologized to the ex-general and his family for the damage that he had caused them with his picture.
Execution accomplished
The former general left Vietnam and settled in Virginia in 1975. He opened a small pizzeria, but the image haunted him. Letters with notes like “We know who you are”, “Killer!” were his day-to-day routine. US Immigration and Nationalization Services wanted to deport him, and this photo was the main reason it. Feds contacted Adams and asked to testify against Loan, but Adams instead testified in his favor.
The photographer even had to appear on television where he tried to explain the story behind the picture. After all, Nguyen Ngoc Loan was saved by the congress bill.
Nonetheless, he had to close his restaurant. In 1998 Nguyen Ngok Loan died of cancer.
Adams and Loan stayed in touch, even becoming friends.
Eddie Adams (right) holds up his Pulitzer Prize for the ‘Saigon Execution’ photo
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]]>Сообщение Burning Buddhist monk, 1963 появились сначала на Old Pictures.
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This photo was not photoshopped and this is not a trick, either. In 1963, Vietnamese Mahayana Buddhist monk Thích Quang Duc burned himself to death as a protest to the South Vietnamese Diem regime’s discriminatory Buddhist laws. He wanted to show that to fight all form of oppression, a sacrifice must be made. Photo was made by Malcolm Browne
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]]>Сообщение “Operation Babylift”. Babies evacuated from Vietnam, 1975 появились сначала на Old Pictures.
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1975, a plane full of orphaned babies being evacuated out of Vietnam during the war. Evacuation is more known as “Operation Babylift”. During the controversial mass evacuation, almost 3,000 children were flown out of Vietnam to be adopted by families from America, Europe, and Australia. Some of those evacuated babies and kids were not really orphans and are still seeking the family they lost more than forty years ago.
The history of the Korean War in 34 photos
Сообщение “Operation Babylift”. Babies evacuated from Vietnam, 1975 появились сначала на Old Pictures.
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