Vietnam War "girl in the picture" - Kim Phuc - reunited with journalist who saved her life
Kim Phuc, the Vietnamese girl pictured fleeing from a napalm attack in one of the most iconic Vietnam War images, has been reunited with the British correspondent who saved her life. In a photograph that shocked the world, 9yo Kim was fleeing the attack with her arms outstretched and screaming for help. Now Kim has been reunited with Christopher Wain, the ITN correspondent who took her to the hospital after the photo was taken on June 8, 1972. A Vietnamese photographer, Nick Ut, snapped the photograph as Phuc fled and she was still running when Wain stopped her to pour water on her, while telling his crew to continue filming. (telegraph.co.uk)
47 photographs from the Vietnam War
47 photographs from the Vietnam War. (boston.com)
Vietnam War Correspondents travel to Saigon for reunion
Many foreign journalists who covered the Vietnam War are gathering in Ho Chi Minh City, the former Saigon, to mark the anniversary of the city's capture by communist North Vietnam's soldiers in 1975. Tim Page liked Vietnam so much that he has travelled back there almost 60 times since the end of the war in April 1975. Page, a photojournalist for Time magazine, comes back to teach the post-war generation of Vietnamese photographers. "I think it was one of the nicest places I ever lived. It was the most exciting story I ever covered. I took some of the best pictures I ever made." (voanews.com)
Veteran organizes tours to Vietnam for ex-soldiers
Tex Stiteler travelled back to Vietnam in 2001, three decades after his first visit as a U.S. Marine ended with a neck wound. Since then, he's been back 17 times. Stiteler is the president of Vietnam Battlefield Tours, a not-for-profit organization based in San Antonio that is dedicated to taking veterans back to where they served. The 14-day tours, which leave from LA, cost $3,200 and draw veterans from all over the country. Sheila McCann, who served as an Army nurse in Saigon in 1968, stated: "I had never seen anything of Vietnam except Saigon. I didn't realize what a beautiful country it is." (mysanantonio.com)
The last U.S. commander of U.S. military operations in Vietnam: Frederick C. Weyand
Frederick C. Weyand, the last commander of U.S. military operations in the Vietnam War and a former Army chief of staff, has passed away at 93. During WW2 Weyand served as an intelligence officer in India, China and Burma. He commanded an infantry battalion in the Korean War. In 1964 Weyand assumed command of the 25th Infantry Division in Hawaii and took it to Vietnam. In 2006, Weyand was identified as the American general who in 1967 confidentially told two reporters about his doubts about American involvement in Vietnam. According to correspondent Murray Fromson, Weyand said the war was "unwinnable." ()
Jim Pollock: U.S. Army Soldier-Artists in Vietnam [pdf]
From August 1966 through 1970 the U.S. Army sent teams of artists into Vietnam to record their experiences as soldier artists. In 1967, Private First Class Jim Pollock was sent to Vietnam as a soldier artist on US Army Vietnam Combat Art Team IV from Aug. 15 to Dec. 31 1967. This is his story. ()
Lost John Ford documentary "Viet Nam! Viet Nam!" discovered
A long lost film by American director John Ford, called "Viet Nam! Viet Nam!" about the American War, has been released online after 37 years of storage at the US National Archives. The 58min documentary produced in 1971 is divided into 2 parts. The first section depicts the country and the people involved in the war, and the second part covers discussions and images of the anti-war movement in the US. Ford and the film crew sought to expose the peaceful life enjoyed by the Vietnamese people before the conflict started, in contrast to how much it changed during the war. The documentary reveals how misery and horror became part of everyday life for the Vietnamese. (vnagency.com.vn)
War Without Fronts: The USA in Vietnam by Bernd Greiner [book review]
The rape, torture and murder of Vietnamese civilians went on before and after the My Lai massacre - e.g. Task Force Oregon and Operation Speedy Express. "War Without Fronts" casts a ruthless light on that most controversial of American wars - and on Robert McNamara and his associates. They knew about the excessive violence and that civilians were targeted - and they knew that the policy was doomed to failure. Their crime was to allow it to go on. Bernd Greiner's book is a well-documented attack on the war's criminal reality and the failure of American society to come to terms with that. Inevitably a comparison between American and Nazi war crimes grows in the reader's mind. [Buy from Amazon: US, UK, CA, DE, FR] (newstatesman.com)
US army officer William Calley's first public apology for the My Lai massacre
The US army officer - convicted to a short house arrest for his part in the notorious My Lai massacre during the Vietnam War - has made his first public apology. Platoon commander Lt William Calley, who maintains that he was just following orders from his superior, took part in the 1968 massacre of 500 men, women and children. The US soldiers were on a "search and destroy" mission to destroy communist fighters in Viet Cong territory. Although the enemy was nowhere to be seen, the American soldiers of Charlie Company rounded up unarmed women and children and gunned them down. (bbc.co.uk)
Vietnam War re-enactments are on the rise
The paths to Alpha Company's field headquarters are lined with overgrown grass. A canvas tent is protected by machine guns, sandbags and Army-green storage boxes. And waiting somewhere outside is the Viet Cong. But these aren't the jungles of Vietnam, just the woods of Pennsylvania, where history buffs are beginning to re-enact the Vietnam War. For decades re-enactors have played out key battles in the Revolutionary War or Civil War. Now they are bringing alive one of the most controversial conflicts in American history. Vietnam re-enactors have no national organization yet, but Vietnam War re-enactment groups are popping up around the country. (kansascity.com)