Avoiding the war in Vietnam, I volunteered to search for and broascast what truth could be found. Headquartered in a decaying mostly black urban area, our work of broadcasting news a full power fm was hated by some. Not only playing music about the war, we also broadcast news derived from our subscriptiond to such as the New York Times and other informative publications. Many people in our Midwest city of license were highly offended hearing criticism of the war. And a few worked to close us down. But we managed to keep the 63,000 Watt station alive until the end of the war. When people today moan about Americans being polarized, I just laugh. It was much worse back then.
7
I did not know that segregation existed in the army during Vietnam war - photographs reveal what history hides.
10
I served with the 101st in 70-71. Never saw, nor ever heard of segregated sleeping quarters for anybody. Hooches were totally integrated from my experience. Also from my experience people of color felt very empowered in the military. I hate to think of what a group of black soldiers with weapons and training would have done had they felt as if they were being collectively isolated. I’m not suggesting racism didn’t rear its ugly head, but the caption of the photo reflects a Vietnam that I never saw or heard about.
10
The pictures have impact, in part, because none of them have been out there before, and because they are mostly focused on people's pain, confusion and exhaustion.
Like a number of others, I question whether the picture of the black soldiers behind the barbed wire is a representation of physical segregation: it is also a serious question which should have a response. I could see if the photog meant this to be a symbolic picture of the times -- but then the caption is misleading. And I am no apologist for the US's racism.
The comments of others who who served there carry more weight.
15
@cheryl There was no segregation of barracks in Vietnam. The picture depicts concertina wire commonly used on the perimeter of bases and the barrels behind them were routinely filled with dirt, sand, or concrete which ever was available to protect troops from RPG's and B-40 and small arms fire. I was in the Army and in RVN in 69-70-71.
11
Right on brother. Nam 67-68.
3
Amazing photographs. Capturing the lived experience is so important. Outside the war, I’m struck by the fact that 48 years ago - well within many living people’s memories - black Americans - serving our country! - were segregated behind barbed wire, and women were being barred from participation and punished for the infraction of wearing pants.
All you millennials who hate Boomers should know that a lot of those things changed on our watch (not done yet). As did things like strict environmental controls (rivers on fire!), reproductive rights, LGBTQ rights, etc. Yeah some things were screwed up totally, but in all I would say that the average person born in 1985 or 1990 simply would not recognize the world of 1965 or 1970.
6
Please recaption the photo of the “medic area designed by Food Machinery Corpoation“..... it is a photograph of a medic working in the open bay of a M113 armored personnel carrier. It was made by FMC, but I really don’t feel the designer of a weapon would need to be credited when the vehicle itself wasn’t.
14
Didn't Truman desegregate the Armed Forces?
Yeah...and you wonder why we had riots in the streets. Good enough to fight and die. Just don't live next door.
16
Shameful that African American men who would die for their country were segregated by barb wire at camp. And yet, we wonder why they kneel in protest today Look at the faces of those men, they know they are not being treated with respect. We still have much work to do today.
16
@Carrie Moon-Dupree, I was there 66-67 and never saw anything like segregated "housing". There was one mess hall for all, an EM and Officers Club, both integrated. Wish I could share one or more of my photos.
10
@Carrie Moon-Dupree The claim that the barbed wire was intended to segregate blacks from whites is, I am sure, just plain false. Whoever wrote that description is deliberately fabricating or doesn't know what he's talking about. I was three years in the Marine Corps during the 50s and four years in the Navy during the 60s, an enlisted Marine and then a Navy officer. Vietnam service in '67. During that time there was never a policy of segregation by race. That barbed wire is concertina; it comes in coils and is commonly strung for defensive purposes around installations and positions in combat zones.
11
Regarding the picture with the caption "Black soldiers at Camp McDermott stand by a barbed-wire fence intended to segregate their living quarters from those of white soldiers."
I very much want to know more about this. Was this common during the Vietnam war?
17
@Mark Conover, was there 66-67, never saw anything like that. never heard of it later either. We did have "jails" for guys who committed small crimes, i.e, stealing etc, not war crimes, held by MPs. Again rare but was my first thought. Or they could have just been building a new perimeter line.
8
@Mark Conover never saw it in my unit. I was shocked to see that photo. I was with the 25th Infantry Division in and around Cu Chi.
8
Heartbreaking. Illuminating, but heartbreaking.
And seeing our black soldiers blocked by barbed wire in a brutal segregation - is even more painful.
6
@common sense advocate Not true it is a lie I served in Vietnam in May 1967 thru May 1968 next to many fine soldiers that were black and we served as one
16
Re: "Black soldiers at Camp McDermott stand by a barbed-wire fence intended to segregate their living quarters from those of white soldiers. Oct. 10, 1970." I really doubt that is true. I served in RVN 1969-70 and I never witnessed any outright segregation. Discrimination, yes. But black troops slept in the same hooches as the white troops. I think what is pictured is the barbed wire perimeter fence around the camp.The barrels stacked are sand-filled as protection for the barracks pictured from incoming rounds.
16
I'm ashamed that I didn't know Black soldiers were housed separately from white soldiers--worse, kept separate by barbed wire. We demanded Black Americans risk their lives for a country that hated them, and they risk their lives still today by simply living their lives.
1
@e w Show me proof of this assertion. Were you there? I can show you several photos of my fellow soldiers in our barracks with black and white soldiers bunks side by side.
7
I don't believe that caption on the photo of black soldiers: "Black soldiers at Camp McDermott stand by a barbed-wire fence intended to segregate their living quarters from those of white soldiers. Oct. 10, 1970." I was in the Central Highlands in 1969 and there was no such segregation by fences. Black soldiers made up 12.6 percent of soldiers in Vietnam. They may have congregated together out of shared experience "back in the World" but they lived, worked and fought alongside soldiers of every race and nationality.
11
Am I correct in understanding that black and white soldiers were segregated IN 1970?? That’s beyond outrageous. And racism doesn’t even seem to be treated as a concern by the government (I’m talking about the past, we know Trump’s feelings) Where are the apologies, the educational programs, the public service announcements? I think racism needs to be in the forefront of the country’s concerns and the government’s mandate. Changes need to be made at every level to make up for what is such an ingrained and prevalent problem. How can there be progress otherwise?
These are beautiful photos, that remind us that humanity remains present even during war.
I wonder about the story behind one photo though. I was surprised to see that black and white quarters were segregated. Wasn't that illegal? I am well aware that racism was very prevalent in the American army in Vietnam. Still, it was not and could not be official Army policy, so I am surprised both by the fact that segregation would have been so blatantly practised, and by how this photo got to be taken, since armies are usually pretty good at keeping their secrets.
The comments by Vets are as moving as the photos.
5
The last picture, Into the misty gray describes it all
6
Beautiful images of ground reality. As a photographer I know the disturbing effect of looking back at past images taken of a traumatizing experience and understand Mr.Greenspoon’s torn feelings.
I like NYT’s dedication to that kind of reporting
3
As John Arnold said, war is sometimes described as long periods of boredom punctuated by short moments of excitement. Thank you for these beautiful photos that reveal both.
1
Haunted by helicopters, landing zones, and long files of jungle green men, these photos bring back even more ghosts who were young then but so old now, if they ever made it to now.
3
I was afraid to look at these photos but except for the segregation of Black troops from White which I find mind boggling if it were not still happening perhaps not in this way thank God but from the highest office in our country. Today, yes today...a President who tells the most absurd lies with impunity, supported by perhaps the same ideologues who supported this failed war. How pathetically absurd and sad this photo is then and now. These soldiers, all soldiers, deserve our humble gratitude not because they were in what seems now and then too, a useless war, but because they did what they were told and that is how the military functions. And they were asked to do this and some suffered horribly for it, some gave their lives. Some their spirits for evermore. Many of these photos show humanity and that shows that inside and far from the politics of then and now (especially now) people have humanity that they apply where possible.
6
For the people of Vietnam, who died in their many hundreds of thousands, this is known as the American war. It is a great pity that US journalism still sees their country's invasion through a US domestic perspective.
5
I've never met anyone who fought in Vietnam and survived who didn't have any scars. One example is the story of a friend who was deeply troubled because he witnessed the American soldiers he was with raping Vietnamese girls. These are stories we don't hear about in the news. But I also remember a rare photograph published somewhere with American soldiers holding up ears cut off as trophies from Vietnamese soldiers they had killed. Sadly, many good men died in this senseless war.
2
@ART i doubt the story of the person who allegedly witnessed the rapes, if he did and didn't stop it he was just as guilty. As for the story about the ears more nonsense...it was something we all discussed as a joke. there were some Korea mercenaries who did it because they collected a bounty on them from the SV government.
1
Haunting memories of a purposeless horror. "In this image marked by an editor for publication, Specialist Fifth Class Jimmy L. Arnold holds a toddler in his arms and obtains a present from Santa for him. South Vietnam. Dec. 25, 1966." A sad encapsulation of the presentation of the Vietnam War and so much of America's invariably aggressive and mindlessly martial foreign policy to the American public. Millions of Vietnamese and Cambodians killed more millions maimed and/or poisoned "But Here toddler. Here's a cheap trinket from "Santa". We mean well and in the end in the face of all your suffering it is really after all all about us." We've learned nothing. And with the end of the draft care even less. Just stop the senseless foreign war and endless military industrial complex driven very profitable military interventions, weapons sales and escalation of tensions around the world. We never stopped producing photos like these (Does anybody need to see another list of the countries we have maimed since Vietnam?) and we have to.
11
@Belasco An American president in 2018 cut foreign aid that has supported so many struggling and war torn countries but showered the military with untold billions and wants to take war to space, what has my country learned these fifty years?
10
Boy, that makes war look quite romantic. Maybe some soldiers relaxing with a cigarette and palm trees in the background would add to the nostalgia.
Fighting nationalism believing it was communism. Sad
3
A nightmare then that still haunts many.
6
How sad it is to look back the past. Peace is the most valuable and incredible happiness in this world.
4
Last night I saw Leave No Trace. I am a woman who served in the US Army at the end of the Vietnam era, having joined, mind you, to "stop the war from the inside"...
Whether it's publishing these photos, filming stories of our vets living off-the-grid, or recounting to our grandchildren our memories of that "conflict", Vietnam (and Holocaust and other violent human events) continue to need our healing attention...
Please. make your own stand for peace.
9
We don't see photos like these of the wars we fight now.
7
@Steve Absolutely correct. Very important point. And it is absolutely wrong that journalists are not allowed to photograph and report war activity as freely as they did during the Vietnam war. The regulations that are supposed to protect privacy, military intelligence, or morale of troops are being used for political reasons and are contrary to the American principle of free speech enshrined in the First Amendment.
1
My friend Bill was 18 when he enlisted. They sent him to photography school and he spent the next couple of years shooting video and still photos throughout Vietnam instead of bullets. The images belong to the Army but every now and then he sees one of his pictures. Not sure how he’ll react to this article but I am sending it to him.
I’m sure there are lots of vets who will have mixed emotions seeing this display. I hope the exhibit makes it to the east coast.
5
I applaud stories like these, they are important, from whatever side of the war anyone was on because soldiers often don't get to choose, its just bad luck of draw, time and place.
I am Korean-American, and had a recent war discussion with a self-styled "modern day" Chinese-American of the Silicon Valley persuasion, about the Korean War. I brought it up on the occasion of the 108th Japanese annexation of Korea, Aug 29th. The person more or less said to me "forget history, move on, don't waste your time, build the future."
Tell that to the Chinese soldiers sent in waves of battle, across the Yalu River in 1950, knowing they were not fighting for their lives, but to their death, as duty, not choice.
Why America went to war in Vietnam after the inability to conclude the Korean one, still astounds me. But fight America did - that is, the soldiers, often too young to choose or realize the ways of the world at large, and for that, should be remembered, as real and important parts of our American and global histories.
8
While these pictures are horrid and I wouldn't have wanted to be on the ground then, please don't forget those of us who served on board ships off shore during the war.
I was on the air craft carrier USS F. D. Roosevelt (CVA 42) in the last half of 1966. We, too, suffered casualties with fires on board and lost aircraft during our tour. We took on some Agent Orange, too. But, the VA fails to recognize us since we did not, literally, touch down on Vietnamese soil.
We are proud Vietnam vets, too. Proud to have served.
Please don't forget us!
10
@Pendoctrjd The DVA has since recognized the blud water navey veterans who can document exposure to AO.
Pic of boy with injured mom and the one marked in red could have won Pulitzers.
3
I enlisted in the Army October 1966. I was 19. Wish I had stayed in college. I will be71 in September. Everyday I recall how Vietnam changed my life forever. Everyday I regret forever the decisions I made. Every day. Fifty two years of regret and terrible sadness.
29
this is not john wayne war. and it needs to be seen, felt, so that people who have not known war, can somehow feel what it does to every participant. for now and forever.
8
The past is never really gone even after fifty years. War imprints your body, soul and mind but is indelibly etched in your senses. Going through the photos eyes become alert and scanning, the normally forgotten smells return seeing the background landscape, seeing a Huey you hear the whomp-whomp and feel the turbulence not quite covering the sounds from the wounded, the taste of the rations and the sweetness of a beer. The years fade away but the pulse rate quickens and the muscles tense. Having become so used to the new "star wars" gear of 21st century grunt, where we really so casually outfitted? Take away the helmets and it could be a deer hunting party.
Thank you. There are reasons for a visit to the past, to never forget and never repeat.
12
I highly recommend everyone should see Ken Burn’s documentary series on Vietnam. Very enlightening for someone born after we had left. It even talks about John McCain and the legacy after the war. What a hard time in America’s history. Hard to think it could be as tough as what’s going on now. We hardly bat an eye that we’ve been at war in Afghanistan for 17 years. Outrageous acts become normal. Thanks for sharing these images.
14
@Matt w The Burns Vietnam story is just that. it is not a "documentary" by any definition. RVN 69-70-71
2
What is striking is how many images of the Vietnam War are available here and elsewhere.
Contrast that with the limited photos from our recent and current ongoing wars.
Its no coincidence, our military has learned to limit reporters access. The less the American people know the better as far as our wars are concerned.
Otherwise, the people might start asking pesky questions about what the US is doing.
20
@Maison
Without a draft very few people have any skin in the various Near East wars, therefore little interest. Little interest = little information, ie news...
9
Thank you so much for publishing. So profound. Such innocence, in the midst of such torment.
4
One word sums these up for me: "Haunting".
Thank you, Mr Greenspon, for sharing these once again.
4
Oh, God, they were so innocent, so young....
And so many died so needlessly.
Good and bad memories flooding back....
10
It still hurts and it still sucks...
USN 1967 - 71
Viet Nam 1968
14
Memories of friends lost, of horrible treatment of the Vietnamese people, of horrible racism come back with these photos. A nightmare of the military industrial complex that has continued to this day. From "shell shock" and "combat fatigue" to "PTSD" the USA's fighting men have been there for us.
6
Thank you. Thanks as well to the men and women who served. I only wish those in power had learned some lessons from this and other wars.
5
As a history professor, I lament the fact that future generations will not have the chance to stumble upon forgotten boxes of 35mm negatives. The digital age has its perks, but so many unedited moments will be lost.
5
The first thing I think of when I see these benign photographs of strangers is "I wonder how many of these people are still alive today?"
Weird?
3
Memories, yes, welcome or not.
Due to drawing a high lottery number, I was spared from the draft and therefore from the hell that these fellows were in. It is still difficult to get my head around the capriciousness of that...
Certain friends were not so "lucky". The law compelled them, their social world compelled them. They drew lower numbers, they went. Two died there. The rest returned, but never really came back, more or less.
Others were far more fortunate. Coming from families with high income levels(and the sway and connections that were seen to accompany that), they were able to get college deferments and avoid the drama of unseen bureaucrats deciding their fate. They weren't forced to become killers. They became engineers, and the like. They were haunted in a different way.
These photographs are cruelly beautiful, with a pathos that is, I feel, universally valid. Back in the day they would have been seen as an indictment, or taken with a shrug (yeah...war is hell).
But the routine boredom of war? I think this is a corrosive psychological factor that is rarely depicted or examined.
5
Memories of another time and place......what stands out in my memory are the faces of all the young Marines I served with April 1968 - May 1969 and the respect I hold for for each of them.
Semper Fi
3
In 1968 I was getting married and busy orginizing with SDS, opposed to the war. At the same time my brother was in Vietnam and was wonded June 6th, 1968 the same day Bobby Kennedy was shot and killed. My brother survived his wounds. These images bring back all of the thoughts and feelings of that time.
4
As much as I found the Vietnam War to be a waste of blood and treasure, and an exercise of American Imperialism on a nation's internal struggle for self determination, I admire the courage and dedication of those of us who fought it.
Along those lines, I am highly disturbed by the present politically correct movement to tear down all Confederate monuments, including those dedicated to the common infantry soldiers who fought in it. Yes, monuments to Jefferson Davis are repugnant, but Silent Sam?
Silent Sam depicts a field soldier in the Civil War. It was raised in 1913, the fiftieth year anniversary of the Battle of Gettysburg. That same year, white bearded veterans of both sides who fought at Gettysburg had a reunion there.
As much as I found the Vietnam War to be repugnant, I would never think of desecrating a monument to our troops who fought and died there.
9
Sorry that you equate the foot soldiers of the rebellion against the constitution of the USA with foot soldiers In The US Army. Perhaps the courage of the Union soldiers should be memorialized in North Carolina also? Tho I am fascinated by how you can determine the motives of a bronze statue. Probably a lot easier to determine the motives of those who placed it. Certainly not an inclusive motive.
5
@RMMonuments making the slaughter of cannon fodder seem noble? Are you really saying that war is honorable? Particularly wars for mere domination, as in the cases of Vietnam and Cambodia?
1
@RM
"white bearded veterans of both sides who fought at Gettysburg had a reunion there."
"You also had some very fine people on both sides,” D. T. Trump
1
Thank you for sharing these images. I was a child when we were fighting in Vietnam and didn't understand much of what was happening. Seeing these pictures helps.
26
@hen3ry Don't get any ideas Henry, these pictures are too tame if you actually want to learn something. Try Google/Image of these items. We used napalm, we did My Lai massacre, we sprayed a cancerous defoliant (Agent Orange) on 4.5 million acres to destroy foliage and crops that still deforms and kills today, we did the Phoenix Program. And yes, some of our soldiers raped and collected body parts; I know two of them.
We lost 58,000 dead and missing. 2 million Vietnamese civilians died on both sides, 1.1 million North Vietnamese and Viet Cong fighters died, and 250,000 South Vietnamese soldiers died in the war. (2,000 Vietnamese are injured EACH YEAR by land mines and unexploded bombs ) That's about 3.5 million Vietnamese dead, and counting. After all that, we simply walked away in 1974; we should have walked away in 1962, when it was obvious we could not win.
Better yet, forget pictures, read the Frances FitzGerald book, "Fire in the Lake." Good luck with your lessons.
The lesson for me, "If you spend THAT much money each year on bombs and weapons, eventually you will want to use them."
23
@hen3ry
"Seeing these pictures helps."
Seeing is not experiencing at first hand in real time.
USN 1967 - 71
Viet Nam 1968
2
@Ralph
My first thought as I looked at these photos was "these are so tame, so family album like." There is little of the mud and blood and suffering Vietnames civilians. To get a sense of the visual impact of that war without having been there, get a copy of Requiem by Faas and Page. As for the three guys behind the wire, I never saw such a thing during my time there. Photographs don't necessarily depict reality. Bottom line for me is this: stop hand-wringing.