Mcgowan theater after today tonights program, National Archive staff and volunteers will present each of you with the vietnam veteran lapel pin. On the back of the pin is embossed a grateful nation thanks and honors you. The United States of american vietnam war commemoration is a National Initiative and the lapel pin is the nations lasting memento of thanks. Last veterans day, we opened our Current Special exhibition remembering vietnam in the lawrence f. Obrien gallery upstairs. If you havent already, i hope you take some time to go through it before it closes on january 6th. The exhibit is a mediarich exploration of the vietnam war featuriining interviews with veterans. Its a fascinating collection of newly discovered and iconic original documents, photographs, film footage and artifacts that illuminate 12 critical episodes in the war that divided the peoples of both the United States and vietnam. The visual imagery of remembering vietnam relies on the talents of the many photographers who risked their own safety to capture the stories of the war in fpictures. Tonight well hear from some of those combat photographers and hear their own stories. Its my pleasure to welcome lee reynolds to the stage. He is the Strategic Communications officer for the u. S. Army center of military history here in washington. Previously, he was senior manager of the Universal Studios hollywood backlot tour from 2014 to 2016 and now works as an independent contractor as an actor, screen yn writwriter ande producer. His more than 20 years of experience in the Entertainment Industry as an actor, screenwriter, playwright, producer, and director. Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome lee reynolds and the panel. [ applause ] well, thank you, mr. Ferriero, and to the National Archives and records add stri administration for hosting and cosponsoring the event here this evening. Thank you to all of you for c e coming out and attending the vent. Im lee reynolds. The Strategic Communications officer for the u. S. Army center of military history. And ill be moderating the event this evening. The center of military history is responsible for the recording, the official history of the army in peace and war. While advising the army staff on historical matters. Our core responsibilities are to educate the force and the public, to inspire americas men and women to serve, and to preserve our army heritage. I invite you to visit our website at history. Army. Mil. Thats history. Army. Mil. For more mission and our responsibilities. And about the publications we provide. Were proud and honored to support the 50th commemoration of the vietnam war with this evenings Panel Presentation about the department of the Army Special Photographic Office or daspo for short. Daspo was authorized by president kennedy in 1962 and closed down in 1974 following the end of the vietnam war. It was charged with documentary films and quality photo products showing the armys operations world waid. They would report directly to the army chief of staff. Three detachments were created, one in europe covering operations there. One in hawaii covering operations throughout the pacific theater. And one in panama to cover operations in central and south america. Tonight we will focus on the pacific daspo office. And vietnam, specifically. The daspo teams made up in part by the menu see on stage tonight would carry state of the art equipment in the day out into combat and often by themselves and would embed in army units in the field. They went were civilian journalists either couldnt go or wouldnt go. The results as you will see tonight captured on film through their lenses were some of the most iconic pictures and films of the vietnam war. These images were not just used by the army. They could be seen in newspapers, magazines and films throughout the United States and the world. At the end of the presentation tonight were going to have about ten minutes for questions and answers. Hopefully on the way in, you all were able to get index cards and pencils to write down your questions. We have some assistants on each side, they raise their hand, theyll collect up those cards during the presentation and will get them back to me and well use those to guide the question and answer period. If you need an index card or a pencil, just let one of our assistants know. Id like to introduce dr. Eric valard. Hes digital historian for the center of military history and armys principal vietnam war historian. Hes also author of the new book about vietnam called staying the course october 1967 to september 1968. And hell be available in the lobby after the event to sign copies of the book, and his book will be available for purchase. Ladies and gentlemen, dr. Bellard. [ applause ] thank you, all, for coming and those of you tuning into the live stream, those who will see this afterward. This is a really exciting event. Something thats been in the works for a while and im just pleased to be here. With these great photographers. I was hired at the u. S. Army center of military history to write the book which became staying the course which was the Third Operational combat history in the vietnam war series. It was publish eed about a year ago. In fact, we had the opening book event here, National Archives. In the course of doing the research over many years, i came to really value the photographic archival history. The images, the film, from the vietnam war. Helping me understand what i was reading in the text. Being a visual person, anyway, i suppose, i gravitated toward it and about four, five, years ago, in fact, created a facebookbased group, vietnamhistory. Org, as a way of reaching out to veterans and engaging with them and families and getting more information. And one of the draws, i think, of this group was these great photos that i was finding at the National Archives. You know, i was going up to college park and digitizing these and, you know, i hat seen a lot of photos, but a lot of these id never seen before and it was such a revelation. And over the course of digitizing these photos, certain names popped in again and again. Lathune, acheson, and hanson, and others. And when i formed the facebook group, began putting out these photos which i would digitally enhance, photoshop and some other programs. This photo you see behind you is kind of the current generation of these toype of photos where poured the pixie dust over them and breathed life back into them, take all the little dings and scratches and adjust the color, well, these guys were around. And so they became members of the group and so i got to know them and they remain members of the group. So, i mean, its such a wonderful thing to be able to post a photo, say, hey, bob, what you were doing that day when you took that shot . Oh, yeah, we were this, that and the other. As a result of that kind of dialogue, i thought, this is something we need to share with everyone. The world needs to know about these guys. They need to hear the stories behind the photos. So thats where the idea behind this came. So we worked together and, again, i want to give a special thanks to our executive director, center of military history, Charles Bowery jr. Who believed in this mission, supported us and made this all happen. So tonight youre going to hear from, you know, five of the top photographers in the vietnam war. I see this as the beginning of an ongoing project. Again, im posting these photos on my social media feeds and you also will find them on the center of military history social media feeds so encourage you to, you know, to, you know, follow those things and learn more about it. But tonight were going to hear from these five individuals. And im going to run the slideshow for most of them until we get to the final one, but without further ado, id like to turn over to our first, bill st. Hamm hammill, who will tell us about the history of daspo and what it took to herd this group of wild cats. Keep them in line when they were doing their thing in vietnam. Thank you, erik. Im sam hamel. I was captain with daspo. And i started with the United States Army Photographic agency. In the pentagon, worked my way into daspo, i left there january 1st, 1970. My mos was an 8500 and 8511. Well, whats that . 85 h is a pictorial unit commander and an 8511 is a Motion Picture tv director. In those capacities, i wore a couple different hats. Well get into that in a moment. To talk about the origin of daspo, as legend would have it, around 1961 or 62, general david or george decker, im sorry, who was the chief of staff of the army at that time, would go to briefings over at the white house with jfk and the other chiefs were there also. Air force, navy, et cetera. And every time decker would go there, he would would be out and hed be furious because hed say to his deputy, you know, that curtis lemay, every time we go in there, hes mouthing off and his photographs and his movies and he puts us to shame. I want to do something just like he does. And i want it done now. And he of course, curtis lemay was affectionately called iron ass but he wanted to compete with lemay. So a delta force concept was developed with decker and his staff and he wanted an elite special ops unit. Im going to read to you what they tried to create and which they did. Im going to read it because i dont want to miss something. He wanted a Rapid Response team. He wanted the team to be full time. He wanted the team to be highly mobile. He wanted them unencumbered by red tape, security clearances and travel orders. He wanted everything to have a secret or topsecret clearance. Cover worldwide military subjects. He wanted quality still and Motion Picture products. He wanted us to have the best equipment and always tdy into the countries we went to and we were told to live on the economy. And the reason for that is, well, ill get into that in a second, but also it was special missions that were going to be ordered by the deputy chief of staff for operations out of the pentagon. Thats who we worked for. Thats where our budget came from. And the units that they developed were for pacific panama and europe as lee said but europe was the deal was if its going to the pacific, local commands could not take charge or have anything to do with our unit except, perhaps, give them an office on the base. And so europe said, no, were not going to do that. Pacific said, fine, you no, our hands off. Sink back. Hands off. Same in panama, fine. Let them come in. Europe said no. So europe never did get a team. It ended up going to conis and thats where it stayed. The objective was Central Control over the assignments, supplies, training, and the disposition of the work product. It got sent where it should go. The action officer to put all that together was major arthur jones. He was at the center. He put a Team Together, ill be very brief, he wanted he did a lot of developing with it. He wanted an acronym. They came up with daspo, department of the army special photo office. He cherrypicked the photographers that would go into the initial units. They got them from the pic center. And through the course of time, they would go out and try to find enlisted men and officers who had backgrounds in photo. In my particular case, i was found by Lieutenant Colonel walter ohalloran who found me at ft. Gordon, georgia, going through the officers communication course. I had three years of background in Motion Pictures because i worked for a studio in chicago. Ended up having to take my commission from Loyola University in 1965. And he found me and he put me in the pentagon and i thought, boy, this is a really wellgreased organization. They know what theyre doing. So, anyway, the other deal was no parades, no change of commands, in marching bands. You guys dont shoot that. You are going to do documentaries. Youre going to do training films. Youre going to do combat. And youre going to be not a Public Information officer or office type of unit. And then lastly, special orders with a license to steal that we were accused of one time in okinawa. Ted and i were on a mission, was top secret, and i never told anybody about it. I wont even talk about it tonight. I happened to open a book and the middle page was written by the author of the puzzle palace, top secrets, whatever the name of the book was, and there was this whole deal in the middle of the book all about our topsecret mission. So, the secret was out. Anyway, im going to read a few lines from our instructions. We were to take military aircraft when we went on our tdy trips. If there was no military aircraft available, you could take a private airline. Panam, twa, to get to the southeast asia. If that wasnt available, you could take a foreign flag, you could rent the ship, a naval boat. You could do anything you wanted to get and accomplish your mission. And if anything would deter us from accomplishing our mission, we could circumvent the problem and go do what we wanted. We would rent cars, trains, planes, we would do anything we wanted to. So we had total freedom to move around. And this is what really irritated that colonel in okinawa. It said the utilization of government quarters and mess is not required. Well, we walked in there, he said, youre not going to a hotel, youre going to be on boq, youre going to be in enlisted quarters. I said, sir, we cant function that way and thats not what our orders say. Going back to what i said originally, living reason the economy, we could we had to be together 24 hours a day. We were a mobile force ready to go. And if the enlisted men were out, i was downtown in a boq in saigon and we have orders to go do something, well, it would probably take two days to get us all together and then also we would, you know, the enlistment would have to peel potatoes that day because they had kp. Well, there goes the mission, you know . So thats why we lived on the economy. Anything that would adversely affect our performance of duty we could circumvent, then the other thing that really ticked that colonel off is we were authorized to wear and carry civilian clothes. He didnt like that. We had to be in uniform. Photo number one is why we were living together and thats what i was just saying, that we had to be together 24 hours a day. This was the villa that we lived in and we had how am i doing on time, okay . Two minutes. I got two . Ill talk fast. Im trying. We all were on tdy per diem. We chipped in and paid the rent for the house. We had some locals who did our laundry and cooked for us. And the guys would come home, have a hotcooked meal, would get a hot shower. Know toe two is my capacity as an 8500 commander. This was a typical situation at the villa. We called it the villa. It wasnt that fancy. And we my job was the welfare and safety of my men and make sure they had a roof over their head and everything was functioning. I had great ncos who made that happen. And basically, thats that was what was going on. My job every other day was to go to the warroom. We call it the warroom. It was a briefing room. Where we were i was briefed on what was going on and each of the four corps in vietnam. I would see where there would be activity then i would jot all that down. By activity i mean some place that was hot. Id put it go back to the villa, put a Team Together and thats where they would go, to that location. Many times they hitchhiked. We could periodically get them orders to be on a flight, but for the most part, thats what happened. This photo, thered be two or three more teams upcountry at this time, so this would be the number of personnel there. At any given time. There would be 2, 3, 9, 12, other guys upcountry while these guys would be back and they were always rotating. Theyd go up to three days, four days. And then as a mo pic director, my 8511 capacity, i used to get some really cushy jobs. Here im on the lawn with bob lafoon and a couple other guys. And with Vice President hubert humphrey. General westmoreland. Ambassador bunker. And Barry Zorthian who was the pr guy for saigon and vietnam at the time. This is what i call a cushy assignment. Thats my butt you can see in that know toe. The next photo is the opposite where it was not so cushy the father of helicopter warfare, flew me to d. C. , he went to the pentagon. I met him. He told me what he wanted so i went back and did a complete series on the first tier cav division. So the next photo shows me out making that film, the first air cav story. We were shooting i was on an air assault. I had i couldnt resist taking a shot, so i did, and theres some other shots that go along with that that were still trying to find. So in that particular film, i had three Motion Picture cameras shooting at one time. Three different choppers. It was a big production. That was because Lieutenant General kanard, you want helicopter in the air . Whatever you want, you got. I want this filmed, though. At one time we had 15 helicopters up there going to war doing their thing. We shot every conceivable subject in vietnam and the networks bought our footage. We put the footage on panam, twa, to get it back. For processing. The army pictorial center. Post daspo, i opened my own advertising agency, pr firm, and have done that from 73 or so to the present day. So, we are honored to have some of daspos finest photographers, still and motion men, sitting here tonight. Our next speaker is one of the greatest daspo still photographers, bob lafoon. Bob . Thats me. Im bob lafoon. [ applause ] i was born in washington, d. C. Hail to the redskins. Im retired now, fully. Live in mcdonough which is south of georgia. My basic day is playing golf. In the afternoons i end up at the jonesboro or american leg n legion, have dinner and go to bed sometime around 9 00 or earlier if possible. I enlisted in the army in 1964 and graduated from Photography School from ft. Monmouth in september of 1965. Like many of my fellow photographers i received orders for daspo, located in chapter hawaii, hawaii, hawaii. My first thought, there is a god. Beaches, surfing, bikinis and fun in the sun. I guess at the time being a soldier in the army, it evaded me. In october of 1965 i arrived aboard a troop ship at pearl harbor. What a hell of a pleasure trip that was. The majority of the soldiers aboard the ship were from the 1st Infantry Division heading onward to vietnam. Luckily i was going to hawaii. This 19yearold. Junior enlisted rookie photographer was about to get his first mini rude awakening. First awakening when i was picked up by kermit who was the youngest ranking soldier in the unit. I now had that distinction. And he began explaining while we were driving exactly what we did and where and what it was all about. My bubble immediately burst. Rim and grim were out of the question. Few weeks after a arrived. Y to, ho rotated back to vietnam for i believe his second rotation in. From october to december in 65 most of us were filming the 25th Infantry Division who was training to deploy to vietnam. My first of four rotations to vietnam started on 3, january, 1966. As we began to rotate into vietnam, other teams were rotating back to fort shafter. Two team members rotating back were Sergeant First Class jackie yam gucci and tom sharow. Early in november 1965 they were with Lieutenant Colonel moore filming the brutal battle. Any the i my baptism of fire in photography came in 1966 during operations crimp, buckskin, and van buren. We were asked to share some of the photos we took during our rotation. So i selected a couple of them. The first photo you see was taken on 23 january, 1966 during operation van buren. I was with soldiers of the 327th infantry, 101st airborne division. We landed in a cold landing zone that day. Soldiers in the first wave established a perimeter around the lz to protect fellow soldiers on different waves. Shortly after this was taken we all moved out. The next photograph, this is was taken also during operation van buren. This is chaplain captain bruno mosadi, father mosadi and his assistant flew in and provided mass for the soldiers. If you look at the photographs, capfort is to the fathers left and kneeling down. Unfortunately jack was killed in action much later on may 4, 1956. To 12966. Father mosadi died in the late 90s. I was in connection with his wife for many years. He immediately switched to jungle fatigues. Israel the next photograph depicks a couple of publications that did use the photo. My grandfather, who lived in frederick, maryland happened to see the photo on the front page of the washington stunned star on 10 april, 1956. It was used on easter sunday. Rarely did any commercial publication give us a credit line, they happened to give me one, very rare. The next photograph was taken 8 january, 1967 during operation cedar falls. I was with c Company First battalion, the bob cats of the 25th Infantry Division. The company was being used as a maneuver force to chase charlie into a trap. Soldiers were dismounted and primarily chasing the vc on foot. It was a hot and dirty day. Towards the end of the day, while on a break, this exhausted soldier and i climbed in the back of an armored personnel carrier to rest. I loved the way the sunlight came through the hatch, and i quietly took a shot of him while he was sleeping. The next photo was taken 6 october 1967 at a vietnamese refugee village. Near camp bernard. The 344th detachment a fifth special forces group sent a medical Civic Action Program team to the village to conduct a sick call. I noticed many of the village children had major taken one of their jeeps and laughingly took the shot. The next photo was taken on 10 november 1967 in the village of thuangau. As a goodwill gestures, members provided lunch and sundry items to the villagers. Le here you see Staff Sergeant ul maple and a small vietnamese girl laughing at some of the events going on. I also believe there was a helicopter coming in at the same time, i think thats why she was really smiling. The children in all these pictures are now in their early 50s. I can only hope they all survived and are having good productive lives. My final selected photo was taken on 21 november 1967. This was my last shoot for daspo in vietnam. So needless to say, it was one of my favorite photo. In the lead is pfc Fred Greenleaf with the 199th light infantry brigade, also known as the red catchers. Behind greenleaf is daspo photographer dan bauer seen with a 16 millimeter on his shoulder. This was taken near cat lie. I never saw an actual print of this picture until two months after i returned to the civilian world. It was used as the cover of family weekly magazine, a sunday supplement for many major newspapers. Didnt know it, never got a credit line. You can see what operation rang dong was like. However dan bauer and i were extremely lucky. While we were photographing the 199th, fellow cameraman, Staff Sergeant albert tumacal and dan peterson drew the short straw. They were photographing a brutal assault on hill 875. My last built of luck came in march of 1968. I was honorably discharged and went home. Fortunately i missed the tet offensive. I owe a large debt of gratitude to all the officers who mentored me along the way and had my back. I was an amateur among professionals. Alternate all daspo cameraman we also owe a debt of gratitude to the soldiers who protected and helped sustain us while we were with them in the field. Ill turn it over to carl hanson who replaced me when i left. [ applause ] thank you, bob. That 19yearold up there is from an eastern montana farm community, where he learned to dock sheep, castrate calves, summer falo. Dry field. Stack bails of hay. He was also one of 208 young men who went to vietnam to photograph the vietnam war for daspo. Many went on to prestigious careers in the military and as civilians. Ones i am aware of became hollywood cameramen, a National Geographic photographer, International News reporter for cnn, International Corporate advertising producer, new York Advertising executive, then myself, i made moves through photography up the ladder, finally spending 25 years as a neighbor here as a Natural History photographer at the smithsonian institution. My career began as an 18yearold High School Graduate at that small eastern montana town. I enlisted in the army with a promise of a 14week schooling in cinematography in new jersey. Because i graduated at the top of my class in cinematography, not high school, i got a prestigious assignment to the unit in hawaii, whoopie, sun, surf, girls, im 18 years old, at a unit known as daspo. Once there i learned i was going to spend a very good part of my next two and a half years in vietnam. Once in vietnam, we would be sent out to a base camp anywhere in the country. From the dmz in the north to the rice paddys and canals in the very south wherever our team officer, like william san hamel, in charge had heard units were engaging with the enemy. The camera you see on my neck, though i was trained as a cinematography, i also cross trained in daspo as a still photographer. Thats a rolly twin lens 120 film camera. Thats what we used. Its a difficult camera to use even anywhere, but in combat its very difficult. You get 12 exposures to a roll of film and then you had to change film. Its paper backed film. Thats a prism head on it. If you wanted to take a picture you had to stand way up high or you would turn the camera upside down maybe and take a picture. A difficult camera to use. The equipment i have in the tripod case and other case is my Motion Picture buddys equipment that he would take. We almost always travelled as a twoman team, a still photographer and cinema to. Once at the base wed find a platoon or company that was headed into Indian Country and ask to accompany them. Wed stay with that unit until we ran out of film or they returned to base camp. Not all of our not all of our assignments involved combat. Heres an exposure from a shot from the beginning of tet. We were in july, and the base we were at came under attack at night. The rockets started this was a rocket attack. Auto thats thats my cinematographer grap graph chuck abbott. The rockets started to m come in, we took off running to a bunker at the other end of the tent. By the time we got to the far end of the tent that rocket landed in the tent where my bunk was at and exploded. I was thrown to the ground, hurt my shoulder. Chuck was hurt by shrapnel. On the right you can see the effects of a rocket. 4 the next day when they came to remove the remains of the rocket they explained to us that the vc, when they were carrying it down the trail, they would take out the explosives to make it lighter so they didnt have to carry as much weight and thats what saved our lives. Otherwise we would have been nottwodead soldiers. Not a lot of our experiences were combat. This happens to be operation mcarthur. One of my combat missions i was on. But my toughest assignment i ever had in vietnam was a training film on the operation of the military mortuary during time of war. I was a still photographer on that project but i participated on all aspects of the production. The lighting, et cetera. This was filmed in the saigon mortuary. This was the mortuary known as graves registration. Bodies were identified and 12 prepared for return to the United States after they were retrieved from the battlefield. I worked on this project for nearly two weeks. The cinematographer i works with worked on it for many more weeks. I never seen his film, nor do i want to. One mission went from bad to worse. It was with a company of mostly new incountry soldiers on their first combat mission. They were sent as a blocking force to a battle. Dock to. As i remember it, the first day we were humping in line through a very thick jungle along a narrow ridge. I was hanging back about 50 yards from the point men in the patrol. And when the point man saw something in the jungle and opened fire. Several others opened fire at the same time. After they opened fire i heard an explosion. One of the troopers behind the point man fired an m 79 grenade launcher in the direction they were shooting. An m 79 grenade is fired by a grenade launcher and it must make 7 revolutions before it is activated and can explode. This guy did not understand that, did not do a good job or whatever, it went out, hit a tree, came back, bounced off and killed two more men. The patrol retreated to a wider spot in the ridge to clear a landing zone to get a medivac helicopter in. They were used det cord and they were blowing trees to blow the trees down so the helicopters could come in, this was very thick jungle. While they were doing that, one of the trees was blown down, fell on another soldier and killed him. After the medivac came in, removed the dead and injured. We were order to dig foxholes. My partner and i didnt have tools so we tried to scrape indentations in the ground to sleep in using my knife. After a while of futile effort, it was hard ground, we were exhausted and only had a few inches of indentation in the ground and decided to lay there and cover ourselves with our poncho liners and try to go to sleep. But we couldnt sleep because there was an air force ark light operation going on a few miles down the ridge from us. An ark light operation is when flights of b52 bombers are dropping their loads of 500 pound bombs. It was an incredible sound display even though it was out of site. Then there was silence for a few minutes only before one very loud explosion. One 500pound bomb had gotten hung up in the bombay of a b52 and when they shook it loose it landed on our perimeter killing two more of our soldiers. The next morning the dead were helicoptered out and we humped into the area the b52s had ark lighted. It was amazing to me to see how much Destructive Force can be absorbed by the jungle. These were 500pound bombs and the jungle just eliminated you could not really see very much damage. My teammate and i exited the Operation Zone the Operation Zone when the resupply helicopter was brought in. In daspo we seldom knew what happened to our film once it was sent to the pentagon for processing, though wed occasionally get critique sheets for our review. And for years after, decades even, wed be shocked when we stumbled on a print in national magazines, books, in my case as the cover of two books on vietnam. I stumbled upon one of my more popular photos used in National Museums three times with exhibits related to the vietnam war. We never got credit, except in one in my case in one we never got credit, except once in my case. When my wife and i first moved to washington d. C. , we were invited to dinner at the home of a friend i hadnt seen in over 30 years, since we graduated from high school. We no sooner got seated in their living room when one of her grade school aged daughters got all excited and asked her mom if she could show me, now, and her mom said yes. So the young girl ran to her bedroom and returned with her School History book, opened to a page about the vietnam war. And there was a black and white picture i had taken nearly 30 years earlier, and surprisingly it had a photo credit, photo by pfc carl hanson. I cant tell you how proud it made me feel to see the pleasure in this young girl the pleasure this young girl took in knowing that the combat photographer was a friend of her family. So with that ill turn this over do you want to the last one . Yeah. This is the last couple of pictures. And then ill turn it over to my friend ted acheson. Who was a cinematographer. My name is ted acheson. I was born in flint, michigan. And i was in college in wisconsin and i was a junior in 1966. And uncle sam kept changing me from 2a, 2s to 1a, 1a was being able to get drafted. So i was drafted. And they let me finish off my first semester of my junior year. And i was brought in and they would ask me if i wanted to take another year and get a school, which sounded pretty good to me. So i did that. And the school that i was able to get was Motion Picture Photography School. And some of the all of us went to the same school, but different avenues. So january of 1967 i went in for basic training and went to hawaii, just like these guys, thinking wow, this is great. After the army i served from 1967 to 19 end of 1969. After the army, i went back to school, finished my undergrad, went to grad school, and then hi a 40year career producing and directing National Television commercials for the auto industry. Between 1962 and 1974, we served in a unique unit. And before i go any further, id like to clear something up about our villa. You saw pictures of that earlier. In 2000, we had a daspo reunion in sigh gone. And we found the villa after searching the streets for half a day. They changed all the street names to vietnamese names after the war in 1975. We had quite a time finding it. My wife was with me, this was in the year 2000. I took her to the villa. She heard her whole life about this villa. So i showed her the villa. She says, thats a villa . There was no waterfalls, but to us it was a palace. So, you know, why daspo was so successful is it had been created and organized, as bill talked about, to work outside the control of local u. S. Army command in host countries we operated in. We were designed to work only for the department of defense and pentagon. We didnt take grip and grin photography. We had passports that were allowed us in and out of countries. And we also had id cards that we could just about take any flight we wanted to First Priority in vietnam. P even with all the support, it didnt help when we needed to speak to a general officer. A First Sergeant or a command Sergeant Major was a hell of a firewall for them. We usually succeeded in meeting the general that we came to speak with. A retired colonel asked me one day, he said, how did an e4, e5 handle this . I said it was part bravado and part naivety. We go and meet a general, the first thing i would do is salute and shake his hand. He was happy to have us there to show us how great his unit was. So hed ask the Sergeant Major anything we want. So that was extremely helpful. Our officer in charge set our talked to the contact host, tell them we were planning on coming up there. But we worked between two worlds. The grunts that were who sweated in the bush and the rear echelon clerks who worked in air conditioned offices. Looking back, it was it wasnt difficult to be proud of what we accomplished. Much of which daspo accomplished has become part of the visual history of vietnam. That prior picture of mine was me in a place called caison, that was a pretty modern camera i was carrying, compared to this which is like a tank. And then you you can hit a vc with this and hed be in bad shape. You could wind it and it would shoot, what, 33 seconds or Something Like that, and you had to wind it again. Stop and wind it. So that was you know, it took about 3 minutes of film or Something Like that. Like civilian photographers and reporters who made a reputation for themselves covering their careers in combats, military photographers were just merely doing our job. On may 6, 1968, i was with the 101st airborne, 2nd of the 17th. And they were on an operation and they were told they were going in to clear out a village, and it was a some straggling vc in that village. And they needed to have them cleared. Auto well, unfortunately we ran into two regiments of mva and there was a speck 4 patterson that was with us. And speck 4 patterson ended up receiving the medal of honor. We killed 55 mva in the first five minutes. We fought from about 4 30 until 2 00 a. M. In the morning. I had a 16 millimeter air flex that was battery powered. We were trained to at least get a shot that was 10 to 12 seconds in length. And you had to stand up and get that shot, and you were exposing yourself and you have to get another shot like that and another to build a sequence, and another and another. But you were exposing your body and not moving is an eternity under fire. Its amazing to me, under the most arduous of conditions we were all in that you would still frame the scene and were worried about composition. But it was instinctive. We did it. We were able to pick the correct focal length and we imagined how the shot was going to be for the next scene, all at the same time. Even under combat conditions we were all doing this instinctively. Want me to run the clip . Just a minute. When you were trying to change your film during combat, 100 foot roll, you were trying to put that in the camera. When you were trying to put it in the camera, you had sweat coming out of you like you wouldnt believe. Sweat is running into your eyes trying to effectively get the film in. That was really very, very difficult to do under those conditions. I think you had to run the film on ill show you what we what i ran into that day. Patterson appears in this film . Yes, patterson who medal of honor. Riders on the storm into this house were born like a dog without a bone riders on the storm theres a killer on the road his brain is swerving like a toad take anymore holiday take a long holiday let your Children Play if you give this man a ride sweet memory will die yeah and there is sergeant patterson. And here is his paperwork for the medal of honor that had to be submitted. His platoon sergeant was wounded. I had photos of him. And i had captions. After 43 years, i tracked down the platoon sergeant and i had a picture of him standing next to a tree where he was wounded in in the stomach. And i actually located the guy, and he lived 45 minutes from me and we didnt know that. So i found most of his members that was with us that day, and we still get together. I got wounded about a half hour after that. And at nighttime we couldnt film. And like i said, we were fighting until 2 00 a. M. In the morning. And i picked up a weapon that night and used it. Dick, why dont you tell them about your experience. [ applause ] like 1. 8 million men in our generation, i got drafted. I was 23 can we go to the next picture . Yeah, go there. Yeah. There it is. Okay. Sorry, i didnt realize i had to do that. Like 1. 8 million men in our generation i got drafted. I was 23. I had just seen my first pictures published in National Geographic magazine, i wanted to be a photo journalist. So when i got drafted to daspo, i was thrilled, i was going to be a photo journalist. As you see the assignments took us all over vietnam to photograph virtually every aspect of the war from the dnz in the north to the delta in the south. One of my most memorable assignments occurred in august of 1967. I flew into the heart of the macon delta to photograph the mobile marine force, a joint army navy unit comprised of elements of the 9th Infantry Division and the navy support boats. They were participating in a search and destroy mission 40 clicks southwest of saigon, known as the killer swamp. The killer swamp was a miserable place. Where the mud and the water made it incredibly difficult to move around and the brush hid not only the enemy, but the snakes. Between patrols in the swamp we chugged up and down canals, scanning the shore looking for enemy soldiers who might be trying to blow us out of the water. On foot and in the boats we felt like sitting ducks. And thats an awful, awful feeling. I was with these guys for three days. And i was rattled. Those guys did it for a year. Imagine what that did to their minds. On a hot afternoon in march of 1968, 35 miles northwest of saigon, i photographed m 60 tanks, infantry men who were trying to clear entrenched units keith kong viet kong. From one of the vc base camps. And i couldnt believe how loud it was. The roar of the tank engines, the boom of their big guns, the rattattat of the machine guns, it was disorienting as i was darting from tree to tree. I was so focussed on photographs i didnt think about the danger until the guy to my left got hit. That afternoon there was one kia and four wounded. Well, buddies were there for the wounded and that made all the difference. That day, as it does every day in combat. But i recently learned there could have been two kia that day. Not long ago a vet, who was also there that day, a guy name robert sidarko contacted me after seeing a picture from this fire fight i posted on eriks vietnam war history Facebook Page and he told a chilling story. At one point during the fighting all of the units had been ordered to pull back to bring in an air strike. Since i was on foot and operating as we did, alone, basically, i had no idea that an air strike was headed our way. And then suddenly i was startled by an apc that came roaring up behind me. And one of the guys yelled at me, for christ sake get in here now. One of the men in the apc spotted me and said to the driver, that nut case, that photographer, hes out there we got to go get him. Well, if that guy had not seen me and if the driver had not turned back, who knows what would have happened. On another assignment to photograph the first air cav Recon Mission up north i encountered another facet of the fighting we faced in vietnam. The mission was to locate a large force of enemy troops that the intelligence guys thought was moving through the area. We started on a ridge, but soon plunged into elephant grass. So thick we couldnt see more large force of enemy troops that the intelligence guys thought was moving through the area. We started on a ridge, but soon plunged into elephant grass. So thick we couldnt see more than 3 feet in any direction. I got to tell you something, thats spooky. Finally we broke out onto the valley floor. Still didnt see the enemy. But it sure felt like they were nearby. The tension never let up. What made the patrols so difficult was not knowing who was a friend and who was a foe. Ordinary life seemed to be going on, kids tending their water buffalo, women watering the fields. But the men, what about the men . Were they farmers, or were they fighters . Or were they both . We just didnt know. And in spite of intense interrogations they never talked. It was only on the chopper flying out of the valley that i figured out that the vietnamese were caught in an impossible bind. Anything they said could bring retribution down on their family members or friends. But their silence put us in a hell of a bind too as one of the rifflemen said, dick, there is no more hellish dilemma we face out here than taking aim at somebody and not knowing if theyre a friend or foe. Do you pull the trigger or not. And what if youre wrong . How do you live with that . F for most of my tour if vietnam i felt the majority of the south vietnamese wanted our help but on the 14th of january, vietnamese launched simultaneous attacks on major cities stloo you the country including saigon ted offensive had been under way. When i learned they were able to get a thousand men without our knowing it, i realized we had not won the hearts and minds of the people if the people were not with us, no matter how many enemy soldiers we killed the light at the end of the tunnel was never going to get any closer. We came to vietnam with the best of intentions and put everything we had into the fighting but it is now clear we werent making life better for those we were trying to help. Women and children were getting caught in the cross fire. Their homes and lives were being destroyed. I know this is hard stuff to look at and listen to, but if were to appreciate what the men and women who are out there fighting for us today are doing for us, we have to understand what combat is doing to them. They put their lives on the line. They stare terror down. They stare terror down. They stare terror down. And they and they lose lu buddies in battles and then they come home where they have to square what they had to do as warriors to stay alive with what theyre now expected to do to be alive as they try to reach out and connect with family members and friends. Let me tell you something, thats not so easy. Ptsd can be a bear. Its been 50 years since i returned from vietnam but the war is still with me, appearing like a ghost. Ah, thank you. Its been 50 years since i returned from vietnam but the war is still with me, appearing like a ghost in pictures i capture every day with my phone. When i look at the handle on a lid to a street sewer and feel like im peering deep into my psyche. When i see a face in the swirlful walnut grain and recall the guilt i felt when i pushed civilian values aside. When i see a wool hat run over in the street with an ear phone cord curling out of it, unplugged, and recall the loneliness of being unplugged from family members and friends. Or when i see an ice formation in a fountain that reminds me of armies of men who have down through the centuries marched off to war into the terrifying darkness of combat. I think one of the best ways that we can honor our vet from past wars i think one of the best ways we can all honor our vets from past war and the soldier whos are fighting for us today, and that is, to treat every day as its veterans day and to take a couple minutes each day to appreciate what theyre doing for us and to try and understand what theyre going through, what it is doing to them, and what we can do to support them. And i hope you never forget that once word gets in here and gets in here, it never leaves. Once war gets in here and gets in here it never leaves. Id like to thank you for this opportunity to share our stories with you. [ applause ] [ applause ] wed like to honor two of our dasbro brother whos didnt make it home, kill in action. Kermit yoho and rick ryan. All these gentlemen worked with one of these fellas and miss them very much. Id also like to thank david ferrero, Charles Bowery jury, and our guests, keeping with our thing about getting credits we want to thank joe williams the photographer for taking photographs. Thank you. He plau he. Thank you. Yes. I have a few questions here. How did you protect your ds 7bzing 5edsed ds sds ss frlg ooh sbhfrl frptds sthsz extraordinary oovshtds raw tsds kwlafb k4zer abouts 9sds 6r79s reds b9sz kpoi r5u9sds. I had film all over 8g9ss routsds 9sds its ds 9sds 9ss frlg ooh sbho fw auto sbhosz in sfwtsz sd sz its shl. 5u9sds 29sdssing be r9sds sh kpfrlg 12w49sds the sds kpa r5i9sds. Test. We still had plastic bags back then we could tie them in, hopefully not get sunk in the river, but it protected the film. Last couple days weve been going through the archives record, possessions of our film that we havent seen in 50 years. And i was noticing in my Motion Picture film that a lot of it was heat damaged. Or some of it. Shouldnt say a lot of it. But you could see from roll to roll it wasnt processing. Some damage took film from heat. Or humidity. I dont know which. So our film did keep damaged by the environment. We carried it in heat, through the rain, and humidity and we did the best we could to protect it. It was wrapped in metal cannisters and taped in plastic bags when we could. It did get damaged. Actually to follow up. Im just curious, how did you make sure the right roll of film had the right caption type up. Was there ever a risk it would get separated. Still or film. They were numbered. Yeah. We had 12 shots per roll. 120. The opening shot wed usually have a slate and wed shoot the slate and then wed have like a little green memorandum notebooks wed carry and youd write on there roll 1, photograph 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6. Doing it that way. And then it would get married up with that roll of film when it went up for process. Did any of you keep those notebooks. Yeah. Yeah . No. No. All right. Well move on to the next question. What was done with sensitive photos. So if theres something that maybe the military didnt want to get out, what did you do with those kinds of photos. Were you ever directed by any units not to take pictures. I can address the classified issue. When the rolls came back, no one in vietnam was censoring or whatever because the rolls were back to get processed. Either red stone or pick center in long island city, new york. And it was at that point, not so much at red stone, but at the pick center where you might see some classifications going. Or actually it was probably coming out of the pentagon on the fifth floor where if something was too sensitive it would get classified. The other part of that story is i was doing a job with what was the group that had the tanks. 1st and the 69th. The 69th. Yeah, i believe that was the unit general pattons son was commanding. Oh, you mean the 11th army yeah. Okay. And when i got there and we discuss what did i was going to film he was not happy about it. Because he had brought in his chair ins. He wanted to prove they were great tanks. Well, congress didnt feel they were living up to what they wanted to do. They couldnt climb over berms. Radiators sucked in all of the fo foliage. Tanks would stall. Things like that. He sent an officer out with me to make sure what i was doing was, you know, he wasnt happy. So i took a repsupply out there and the guy he sent with me didnt even know i left. One another thing were discussing today is our two cameramen who were trained with the colonel moored and the take yot story. And what was he. You tell the story better than i do. Go ahead. Well. One man was wounded in the throat. And there was a chief surgeon of the division happened to be along. And he did a battle field take yotomy. Cut the guys throat, stuck a straw in there. The cameraman filmed it. When they got back to the villa and the film was processed, like a week later all hell broke loose at the pentagon. This is the kind of stuff we dont want you filming. An american tv might see this. This might get out. Well, after a few physicians saw that footage it was horray, because now they could show other medics and doctors how to do this type of thing. In the field. And these guys now were treated like kings after that. We have a couple questions asking about the ratio of black and white photos to color photos and who decided whether to shoot in black and white or color. Ill answer that. We were shooting color negative films so it could be printed in color or black and white. Who would decide whether to print it in black or white. I wouldnt know. Id say the pentagon, yeah. Why wouldnt they want it all in color . Oh, i think there are situations where the black and white is infantly more powerful than color and more dramatic. And newspaper didnt have color capacity. The stars and stripes back then were basically black and white. Why 6 by 6 versus 35 millimeter . I think they wanted the larger image. And, you know, at that when we first started when i was there we were shooting with a rolly and i did not have a pen prism, which means everything was going the other way. You were shooting like this. Its the worlds worst combat camera you could have. I mean, you got to stand up. You know. So. But it did give a better, you know, was a bigger piece of film so a more higher resolution. And then a question about the relationship between daspo and civilian journalists and maybe even other Public Affairs officers, what was your relationship with the civilians and knowing that you were going some place thats maybe they couldnt, did they ever ask you to take pictures of srn things . I never i could address the a cameraman that i had when i was in 221st once, thank god i got out of there, and then i went to daspo but during that time i had a cameraman there keith k with cbs prior to coming into the service and he was at the care of a hotel in saigon and i saw him periodically. And bill plant for cbs was a correspondent, good friend of mine. So id see him downtown once in a while. And keith always said, you guys really get to go anywhere you want, and it really ticks us off that you can go and get that done. And then, you know, later on, the war came along if iraq and afghanistan. Keith was still active. And all of the journalists wanted to be embedded. And keith warned them. He said, you dont want to be embedded. Because once you are, they control you. 100 . And you cant go anywhere but to be with them. And you can only shoot what they want. And just be careful. Well, what happened . They all got embedded and then they all complained. We have no freedom. Interesting question here, what is the most spectacular scenery you encounter while on tour as a photographer in vietnam . Beaches. Yeah. Beaches and the east coast. Id say, flying into cason, i flew in there, general abrams kicked the other pilot out. He controlled the aircraft. We were going down this river that one of the most spectacular things i saw. I mean, it looks like shangrela. Right near cason. You have to pull up the chopper and go in. Where it was, it was a huge water fall and it was spectacular to see that in the jungle. In at that a quarter of mile away it was a moon scape. The other comment wed make, this would be a great country to visit if there wasnt a war going on. I thought the highlands were beautiful. I was in hand low valley with the mountain side. Scenicwise it was a photographers wonder up there. I thought it was a beautiful country up in there until rainy season hit. You mentioned some of the equipment you had and some of the challenges you had with it, did you ever supplement the equipment you were issued with any of your own. Any what . Of your own equipment. Yes. I bought i blue 16millimeter camera off of the bbc and it had a battery on it. And it also had a nice zoom lens on it. And i would not take this out, nobody knew, i would use my blue. And i could run it for the full three minutes and then change it. And less weight than this. Yeah. It was a great camera. But if someone had probably seen me in the hierarchy of our unit they probably would have been a little upset. Not me, ted. As soldiers going out to the front lines, being in these combat areas, was there ever a time first of all, what weapons did you carry and were there ever times you have to put down your camera. I think within of you mentioned that earlier. Talk about some of these times where you had to become just a rifle. I carried well, i get you can call it carried a weapon, dont know if you would or not, i had a. 45, rarely cleaned it. I would have been better throwing it than shooting it. To me it was extra weight. I always felt, you know, if we got into a situation, you know, where where i had to protect myself, if it was that bad of a situation i was pretty sure there would be weapon laying around somewhere i could pick up. So. 45 to me was extra weight, really didnt want to carry it. I stopped carrying my. 45. We were all issued a. 45 pistol and i carried mine all the time. There was only once i pulled it, that was because when we were in the field with these units were werent actually part of the group of combat soldiers, we were there by ourselves, the two of us, if we were separated we were there by ourselves. They didnt really worry about us. We werent part of their team. We were a photographic team. We were going through a village and vc were popping out of spider holes taking pop shots at us and team was going through the village and got spread out and i had to change film. Took three minutes. I got up. I couldnt see another american soldier anywhere. All of a sudden im totally by myself and i dont see anybody. I got scared and i pulled my. 4 5 out and started looking for somebody else to pop out of a spider hole. But thats the only time i pulled a weapon. One time i was with the marines and we went, i just happened to go civil action patrol camp had been over run and everybody killed in it except for one soldier taken prisoner. We were going out to check it out. And the marines were not let me go out there except unless i had a flat jacket on, a helmet, and an m16 and my. 45, they wouldnt even let me on trukt to get out there. I had a time i pulled my. 45. I was with the firstair cab, we were doing a search, kind of destroy before that became popular, to make a bad statement. But it was a Search Mission and we surrounded this village at 4 00 in the morning, whatever it was. Anyway we did our thing and searched the village and we were taking a break, i dont me, it was like 9 00 in the morning, sun was up of course, and there was a brama bull sitting over under a tree and he had about three or four other cattle with the herd ander to some reason he didnt like me. He looked at me and started charging. We had rice paddies all around the place. I said whys he coming after me. The other guys stayed. You know. And i pulled my. 45 and im running and got that baby behind me because im going to put him down. Then he stopped. And then ten minutes later hes charging me again. So that was the only time i pulled my. 45. One final question for the evening. The question is, you mentioned there was a daspo reunion in 2000 in vietnam. Did of you go back and see vietnam again or for any of you who have returned to vietnam since the war what are your impressions post the war . Ive been back twice, once with the reunion and then again i was looking at doing some production work over there, and i was trying to see who was available and how much it was. So when i first went back it wasnt the place that i was at in 1968 and 1969. I couldnt relate to the place. It was like going to laos or going to thailand. The economy in the south was starting to take off. The people were extremely kind to us. Only about a third of the people that were alive in 2,000 even had any memory of the war was alive at that time. So they didnt people of vietnam didnt see us as the invaders any longer. They saw us as business partners, and it was really a good thing for a couple of our guys because they really had some ptsd problems, and it was now a community of people that wanted us there with open arms. And i never saw any animosity towards an american there. That really concludes our event this evening, but ladies and gentlemen can we get a round of applause for our veterans here this evening . [ applause ] on behalf on behalf of the u. S. Army center of military history i want to thank our cosponsors in the National Archives and all of our veterans here this evening and all of you for attendance tonights event. For more information on the armys role in vietnam please visit our website at history. Army and please join us in the lobby where the veterans will be able to speak to and dr. Vilard will be there to sign copies of his book and we do copies for sale. Thank you very much and have a great evening. The president s from Public Affairs available now in paper back and ebook. Presents biographies of every president organized by their ranking by noted historians from best to worst and features perspectives into the lives of our nations kechief executives and leadership styles. Visit our website, cspan. Org the president s and order your copy today. Wherever books and ebooks are sold. The Tuskegee Airmen were the first africanamerican Fighter Group sent into war in world war ii. Some of these veterans talked about their experiences from world war ii and the korean war. So its with great pleasure i now introduce our panel of american icons, the Tuskegee Airmen. The moderator of our panel is mr. Ron jackson. Hes a Third Generation military man whos currently a tour guide at the u. S. Capitol, but formerly a proud paratrooper in the 82nd airborne division. Im from North Carolina so were exceptionally proud of the 82nd and their actions over at fort bragg. We like to tell people we work really hard to live up to that so without any further ado mr. Jackson youre on. Thank you very much. Thank you and good morning. Welcome to the william j. Mcgowan theater, and were here