50 years ago, direct U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War officially ended as the last remaining combat troops and prisoners of war returned to American soil.
It was a complex moment for the country, as the war was deeply unpopular and ended in defeat. More than 58,000 Americans died in the war, along with three million Vietnamese. Fredrik Logevall told Under the Radar that Americans were ready for the war to be over.
I had the honor of photographing George E. Smith, a Vietnam Veteran and former Prisoner of War for 614 Magazine. The Vietnam War has resurfaced in the American consciousness lately thanks in large part to the documentary by Ken Burns. The documentary tells the story of the Vietnam War through
I stood up and made a gesture of surrender, and they were all over me. Funny thing, the first thing to come off was my Seiko watch . . . then they got around to my gun and knife.” When Bill Wilson was captured by the North Vietnamese, one of
Staff Sgt. Ken Wallingford had only days left to serve in the US Army when he found himself trapped – and seconds away from being burned alive. He’d spent the previous night hiding in a bunker with another soldier at a base that had been overrun by the North Vietnamese
On 12 July 1967; Sgt. Cordine McMurray, then Sgt. Martin S. Frank, SP4 James L. Van Bendegom; SP4 James F. Schiele, SP4 Nathan B. Henry, SP4 Stanley A. Newell, and SP4 Richard R. Perricone were riflemen assigned to a search and destroy patrol operating in the Ia Drang Valley, Pleiku
Col. Kenneth Hughey, 91, walked to the podium and told of his four favorite veterans – four men from his hometown of Chic, Tennessee, one of which was his brother: Jack Hughey, Hollis Reager, John Fronabarger, and “Manboy” Boals. “Can you imagine what Hollis Reager thought when he ran out