Vietnam War - Photos that moved the most

The Vietnam War is framed by some as a brutal civil war and by others, a bloody climatic chapter in a century-old struggle for independence. Irrespective to this, it is remebered as decade of detrimental agony, witnessed by the world through a camera lens. 

With the prolifertaion of the portable camera towards the end of 1960s, photography within combat zones became liberalised, widely publicised and openly criticised, earning Vietnam the name the ‘Television War’ . The camera became witness to a moment, the photograph physical proof of this. Cultural theorist Susie Linfield writes on the power of photograph, presenting us in short with physical cruelty and our vulnerability to it. The vulnerability is something that every human being shares and the cruelty is something that shatters our very sense of what it means to be human[1]. The visual offers an immediacy, where imangtion is no longer rewuired. It has the power and capability to trascend socio-poltical and geographical barriers, robbing the public of the alibi of ignorance. Vietnam stands as a defining moment in history, where photography fueled global anti-war sentiment and helped shape the outcome of the war.. This article explores four compelling images of war and the power they retained-  examining the universality of suffering through their individual narratives.

 In traditional conventions of war photography - pre-dating Vietnam, soldiers were often photographed in one of two constructs, hero or perpetrator. Photographed here, injured Marine Jeremiah Purdie locks eyes with fallen comrade as he moves toward his aid. This image was pivotal in challenging contemporary conventions in American media of foreign policy in action’[1].

The sustained eye contact between these two men, against the disarray, serves as powerful testament to comradre, found even in the most hostile of zones - a tale as old as time in military photography. However, what is unconventional is Purdie. This photography was taken in 1966, at the height of the civil rights movement. Black Americans had only recently been given voting rights a year prior and Vietnam became the first war where the US military had offically desegregated. According to historian Daniel Lucks,  many black soldiers perceived the military as a vocational opportunity as well as an incentive to enlist to prove on the battlefield that they were worthy of their newly acquired civil rights’[2] . This reality is affirmed by Purdie himself, admitting he joined the marines during the Korean War as it was the “only service that would take a black man”.

Titled Reaching Out, this image forces viewers to reckon with the sacrifice of Black Americans who fought for a country that, at the time, denied them basic civil liberties. This image has gone on to be one of the most indelible images of the war.Photographed on a hillside saturated in mud south of the demilitarised zone, this wild and decimated landscape bears testament to the environmental brutality of Vietnam that was grossly underestimated. This was taken after the battle of Mutter Ridge, where the US forces had been grossly underprepared, terrains like this often ended with men “ground up like meat” with this image ‘an emblematic illustration of the “quagmire” that the Vietnam War had become in American perceptions’[3]. Burrows' was one of the first photographer in the war to use colour, bringing with it a realisim to the war. The soldier, photographed limp—engulfed in the camouglage of mud- offered up to the land as a kind of sacrifice.

Purdie, surrounded by other young men is 19 in this photo, the average age of US veterans nationally. These were ordinary men, who had barely stepped into adulthood, their fates now bound to the terrain they fought on—prompting difficult questions about the moral justification of conscription. In Linfields own words; ‘the photograph singles out the individual from the mass and confronts us with the particularly, and terrible loneliness, of suffering’[4]. Seen literally with the shock-stricken vacant of the fallen soliders face, something he recalls as a ‘ dead stricken gaze many combat soldiers acquired as if they had seen the gates of hell’[5]. And the unseen. Purdie’s wife tells of his retrun and how he “tried to bury his memories of the war. But he, too, had nightmares…often woke up screaming. It was only three years ago that Purdie, after counselling from a PTSD specialist, began to talk about his experiences during the war. He said the counsellor had liberated his fears, finally convincing him that he hadn’t abandoned his comrades when he was flown out of the battle.”

“Today we are committed to a worldwide struggle to promote and protect the rights of all who wish to be free” - John F. Kennedy

A camera captures a moment and the photograph becomes the proof of moment so when ‘barbarous assaults happen they are no longer private property of state who committed them’[6]. In American foreign policy rhetoric, soldiers were upheld as symbols of democracy—defenders of freedom. The reality became a lot more nuanced. During the war gendered and sexual violence against Vietnamese women reached staggering levels. To this day, the majority of survivors have seen no formal recognition, reparation, or accountability.

This photograph was taken of a local woman who have been dancing on a viewing stand for US officers, a common entertainment to make money during wartime conditions. She lies partially exposed in a what seems like a living room. There is something so instrustive about this image to view let alone partaike, witness. The two uniformed US soliders lear over in an awfull animalistic way as one of solidrrs tries to kiss a omwna, as she turns her head.Captioned ‘In a society where women are traditionally revered for their poise and purity, the wartime conditions effectively dehumanized them’ this reveals how war blurred the lines between combat and civilian life. The dynamic of two uniformed men over one unarmed woman reflects a power imbalance—and hints at complicity. The woman’s identity is erased; her body becomes the focal point, her presence reduced to entertainment.

Not only did Vietnam witness endemic sexual abuse but too wide scale human suffering. A flood of photographic evidence of civilian casualty in the Vietnam and neighbouring Laos and Cambodia surfaced during the war.

Elaine Scarry notes ‘the body is our primary truth, our inescapable fate…the violation of the human body... has a visceral, irrational and irrevocable quality about it’[10] , sexual violet

This photograph taken by Griffins reveals the immediate effects of the domestic sphere being caught in the crossfire of conflict. The use of black and film colour here, sets a tone of bleakness, drained of colour and emotion, this subject sitting alone adds to this idea of suffering alone in silence. Strikingly, the victims face is completely bandaged up, presenting a faceless subject, no expression or facial features are present, crafting a personal disconnect with the subject, instead creating an apocalyptic, unknown environment, unsettling and discerning to viewer. However, a sentiment of personal intimacy is captured from the singular hand, the sagging and wrinkling of the skin on the thin wrist, infers old age, attaching a vulnerability to the subject, inflicting suffering onto the vulnerable sectors of society.  The disproportionally large tag photographed contrasted against the delicate, bony wrist furthers a vulnerability and innocence of the victim. The tag has labelled the subject ‘Vietcong’ – sympathisers, something US soldiers commonly did to justify means of barbarism to innocent people, deflecting blame and guilt. The materialism of the label itself, hanging from a living being, highlights the human detachment and loss of humanity war causes. The placement of the hand in this photo contributes to this idea of shame and many Vietnamese people felt or were confronted with after facial disfigurement, and many unable to fix their injury due to vulnerable healthcare system and systemic poverty. Facial disfigurement swept across Vietnam during the war due to guerrilla warfare and shocking means of barbarism of people caught in the crossfire and bombs that still go off today.

To forward the argument, photography invited a deeper understanding of the detrimental human impacts of the Vietnam War, the long-term impacts of the war must be discussed. The ‘nineteen million gallons of chemical defoliants across Vietnam, to destroy the foliage that guerrilla-fighters were using for cover’ [11] had detrimental, long-term impacts on Vietnam. This harrowing image taken by Philip Jones Griffins was photographed in 2003, returning to Vietnam 27 years after the war ended, as disturbingly shown, these impacts of the war are still visually prevalent, inflicting disproportionately onto innocent children born to a mother or father exposed to Agent Orange. The mother pictured was ‘begging on the streets of Phnom Penh. They were from Svay Rieng Province’[12] these places are over 80 miles apart from each other highlighting the not only physical suffering that is visual in her child, but the emotional and financial suffering, unable to afford basic needs she has migrated, another bog thing her child is under but he financial suffering as no victim of the Vietnam war were given money back, many become refugees. Furthermore, from displacement and refugees, poverty follows. The mother’s helpless expression, resting her hand on her head, is a familiar expression of grief, she looks overwhelmed, distraught, and futile. The circle of people surrounding her comprised of both adults and children, observing the child as an artefact, or maybe looking in sorrow, tied to issues of shame of giving birth to a child with physical deformities. ‘ The poisonous dioxin TCDD, found in these chemicals, has been responsible for the deaths of an estimated 500,000 individuals, causing debilitating diseases in over three million people, close to all the casualties from the war itself.’[13]and children are still being born with birth defects today, this image is so striking in understanding the human impact because as Linfield argues ‘photographs bring home to us a reality of physical suffering with a literalness ad irrefutability that neither literature nor painting can claim’[14]  This is a physical representation of impacts of war and they are extremely shocking for both the people in the photo and to the audience. The subject is a baby, which links into this idea, children, helpless beings, are inevitably susceptible to this. The baby pictured is suffering from ‘hydrocephalus’, which means an abnormally large head, is extremely harrowing, lying in an environment of helplessness outside the street floor as doctors could not treat and the mother could not afford treatment. This baby was ‘never given a name’[15] showing the shame and disbelief of the mother felt and ‘died in February 2003, four months after this picture was taken’[16]. These two photographs, together, reveal the short-term and long-term suffering the Vietnam War inflicted on many, and how this suffering is still ignored and prevalent in Vietnam today.

Stringing these sources together, as a thread, these sources serve a purpose of very loudly revealing the true cost of war, which cannot be unfettered or diminished and is still very much felt by the Vietnamese people and us soldiers today. With the recent emergence of the social history in twentieth century histography, approach the Vietnam war has been re-assessed, beforehand it had primary focus on the military, gov, finance- a top-down approach but with the aid of photographs the domestic sphere and solider relation sphere has been reassessed to understand on a deeper level the complexities and suffering of overlooked among marginalised groups within society. This war, like no other, was fought in a domestic setting on the doorsteps of innocent people. Photographs stand as contextual evidence but also a present-day deterrence.