Saigon Execution photographed by Eddie Adams, 1968: WEEKLY DISCUSSION #22.

[joe_willmore]

<p>I have multiple comments.<br>

1. The photo is powerful on multiple levels. Historically, prior to the Tet Offensive, the US administration was trying to tell the public "we're winning the war" and then the NVA attacked hundreds of cities and towns in a coordinated assault. Militarily it was a major defeat for the NVA but politically it was a victory b/c most Americans either felt major distrust for the the administration or our leaders/military feeling "if we're winning the war, how can the NVA get in to the US Embassy in Saigon? Capture Hue? How can we take so many casualties in a war that is supposed to be winding down?" Even out of the context of the Vietnam war it's powerful on it's own. One second he's alive, the next his lifeless body is falling to the street.<br>

2. Staged? All executions (even those without cameras or observers) are staged. It's the difference between being killed in combat or killed by execution (summarily or by formal process).<br>

3. I'm not sure why all the outrage about Syria. Remi Ochlik, Chris Hondros and others have done an amazing job at capturing the Syrian Civil war. The al-Assad government has deliberately targeted photojournalists to make it difficult to tell the story. The challenge with Syria is that there is no automatic or obvious "solution." No fly zones, limited or full interventions, arming rebels...they're all lousy options to one degree or another.<br>

4. Horst Faas was the bureau chief for the AP in Vietnam. He did an amazing job of cultivating new talent and letting it flourish. Eddie Adams worked for Faas. So did Nick Ut (it was Faas who fought the AP's ban on full-frontal nudity and also showing nude teens in order to get "Napalm Girl" released on the wires). The Loan execution photos were edited by Faas and went out under his direction. He was responsible for a similar set of photos by Gregg Marinovich taken in Jo-burg involving a public execution.<br>

5. As a photojournalist, you have to be focused or you can't do the work. Photographer Richard Drew (also AP) took a series of photos in NYC during 911, the most famous sequence of which is simply referred to as "The Falling Man". Powerful stuff. He was often asked how he could possibly shoot and function while that event was happening. You're so focused on your work that it adds some distance. And that's true of any photojournalism work. Otherwise you're surrounded by combat or refugees or survivors, all in shock or pain. Just like a First Responder has to focus on their job in order to function, so do photojournalists.</p>

[david_henderson]

<p>I don't want to comment on the rights and wrongs of Vietnam, the American role in Vietnam, the horrors of war, and so on. I do want to consider the composition of the photograph. Whenever I see this picture, and I've seen it quite a lot, I get fearful for the fate of the guy on the right of the picture. Will the bullet take him out too? Will he get spattered? In short for me his presence is a significant distraction. And unless you want to make a case to the effect that concerns for this chap are an integral part of the scene, I think I'd prefer a cropped version.</p>

[Landrum Kelly]

<p>Photos by Khalil Hamra, 2013 Pulitzer winner:</p>

<p><a href="http://news.yahoo.com/photos/photographer-khalil-hamra-1383955571-slideshow/">(link)</a></p>

<p>Photo number eight really gets to me, for some reason.</p>

<p>--Lannie</p>

[ken_wayne1]

<p>Thank you so very much Mark Zell for this post. I've never read many threads in the conversations section but this one is riveting and important. The photograph is amazing to me. An incredible moment of humanity frozen in time. The video is also amazing. Thank you so much for the links. I had never seen the video.<br /><br />I would also like to thank you, JDM von Weinberg, for posting the link to the Saigon girl. Your post propelled me to go and read the story of the rest of her life and it's an amazing story of tragedy and triumph. As an unwavering believer that Jesus is the Christ and that He is the answer to the world's problems I was beyond elated to read that Phan Thị Kim Phúc had become a Christian and now lives in Canada with her husband and two boys. She has always just wanted to live a normal life and it now seems she is happy and blessed in her family.<br /><br />And I'd like to thank each person who has responded. Very thought provoking responses to a very important discussion.</p>

[DickArnold]

<p>I am a Viet veteran. I worked in DC for 18 years. I was a noontime runner and would run to and then walk by Maya Lin's wall at least once a week. I have never understood why those 58,000 people had to die. I still don't understand this any more than I understand why we went into Iraq. <br>

I don't understand the high level hubris that led to our decisions to go to these wars. It is as if the US military was an irresistible video simulation that could be manipulated to satisfy these enormously self righteous egos. This is what happens when too much power devolves to too few. <br>

That picture speaks to me of the toll that that war took upon the Vietnamese people, their culture and safety. It speaks to me of dead and maimed kids. I wish that in some way it could have had an effect upon those egos that who have kept rotating through Washington lusting for their own taste of violence by thinking that force is the answer. When I enlisted Peace used to be our profession. </p>

[dan_south]

<p>This was an important photograph. Photographs of the shocking acts depicted in war are extremely important to humanity. I applaud the people who venture into dangerous places to capture such images.</p>

<p>Prize-awarding bodies and agencies award atrocity regularly. When I was in Amsterdam last year, I saw a collection of prints that had won World Press photography awards. The content was similarly devastating. People who had been hacked by machetes. Women who had been burned with acid. Children living in war torn areas. People who had been maimed by bombs.</p>

<p>After a while, it becomes too much. I find myself avoiding Pulitzer Prize-winning photographs, because the experience is too intense. It's a shame, because the message needs to get out. But there's only so much misery that an audience can endure. We begin to turn our eyes away by instinct. Turning away readers isn't the best way to get a story across.</p>

[Robin Smith]

<blockquote>

<p> I get fearful for the fate of the guy on the right of the picture. </p>

 

</blockquote>

<p>To me it is obvious he will be unaffected. apart from hearing the shot, he's some way off.</p>

<p>While the Vietnam war was ghastly, it would be a mistake to say the opposing forces were any better. The trouble is the calculation of whether to resist oppression comes down to whether it is "worth it" in terms of casualties. This is not very helpful and indeed is a consideration when starting a war. I think if we knew WW2 was going to cost 50 million lives or so then "right" perhaps should have given way to "might" (as many in the US thought at the time) - would that have been a better option? The same question came up with Iraq or Syria. Pacifism is pure but often not very helpful when the opponent cares not one iota for "right".<br>

The picture is an icon of the war and I'm not surprised the war got old very quickly for Americans once they deployed troops and realized what it entailed.</p>

[charleswood]

<p>Robin - "Pacifism is pure but often not very helpful when the opponent cares not one iota for "right"."</p>

<p>Where the phrase, in my view, "the opponent cares not one iota for "right"" aptly applied to each side in that conflict. Neither side cared one iota for losing the conflict and each participant in the conflict cared not one iota for losing their own individual life. The fundamental fact of the mutual not caring one iota doesn't make any of the combatants any less our brothers, that being also a fact. The fact of the humanity of the combatants re-emerges after each and every armed conflict as our memory of any "<em>document from human hands </em>" (MLK, Jr. quoted above) fades.</p>

[Norma Desmond]

<p>I fail to see any humanity emerging in this picture, even if it is troublingly human. If we are, indeed, discussing the photo, and not war <em>per se</em>, MLK seems antithetical to the photo, which is a representation of what happened, not what we wish would happen and not whatever better natures might emerge later on. This is the moment. And it is a moment of horror, blind retribution, and hate. Nothing close to what Dr. King was talking about, IMO.</p>

<p>When I see photos, for example, of concentration camps, even 70 years later, no humanity re-emerges and I feel no sense of brotherhood. When I look at this horrific photo of General Loan, I don't see a brother. I see a horrific and illegal and immoral act. I feel the same when I see atrocities by both sides, and there are more than enough of those to go around.</p>

<p>If I wanted a photo that showed some hope and humanity relative to war, and that might make me think of Dr. King's message, <a href="http://timelifeblog.files.wordpress.com/2013/01/01_84608.jpg?w=740">THIS</a> photo by Burrows might be one I'd choose or <a href="http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2010/10/17/article-1321359-0BA79DE5000005DC-150_634x470.jpg">THIS</a> photo, which is one of several in his diary, of a Japanese Tourist Board officer helping Jews escape from Germany. In both, I see brotherhood.</p>

[charleswood]

<p>Fred I was trying to identify a theme common to photos such as the one under discussion, the theme of dehumanization. So no, I'm not talking about war <em>per se</em>.</p>

[Norma Desmond]

<p>Sorry, Charles, if that's the case, I don't think I'm understanding the point about humanity re-emerging. If King is saying that when we distance ourselves from such a photo, the humanity of our enemies can re-emerge (and it's hard to tell whether this is what he meant from the short quotes supplied), then it's a rare occasion where I might disagree with Dr. King. First off, it's the kind of photo (and the kind of memory) that doesn't really fade even with distance. And secondly, even if the photo (and memory) does fade, the lack of humanity portrayed would never allow me to call the perpetrator of the act in this picture my brother. There, I may well differ with Dr. King who might have been able accommodate his feelings of reprehensibility toward the act in a way to still embrace the soul of the person committing it. I'm, perhaps, not that good a man . . . and don't necessarily want to be.</p>

[dhbebb]

<p><em>I fail to see any humanity emerging in this picture, even if it is troublingly human.</em><br>

The insight into the human condition which I get (and which I was keen to emphasize in my first posting) was that police officers wrongly but understandably behave differently towards criminals who have assaulted or killed brother officers or their families. By the same token, when it became apparent during WWII that the Waffen SS had shot captured Allied advance paratroopers in France after D-day, or that in the Pacific Japanese soldiers were pretending to surrender to US troops but walking up to them with grenades wedged into their armpits, the Geneva Convention was disregarded by Allied troops and no prisoners were taken. I have never seen pictures of these incidents, which is why the Eddie Adams picture is such a valuable historical document, disturbing as it is. It is important for people who have never been near a battlefield to have some understanding of what goes on.</p>

[charleswood]

<p>By re-emergence of an enemy's humanity I meant the eventual normalized relations between formerly warring nations, e.g. USA v CSA. I agree with David as to Loan at least to this extent: that's what people do in those circumstances.</p>

[AJHingel]

<p>If war crimes and crimes against humanity are what "people do in those circumstances", then surely I can see, that Eddie Adams image of the execution of a Vietcong prisoner can serve as a invitation to some of finding their ways back to the world of civilization. <br>

<br>

</p>

[dhbebb]

<p><em>If war crimes and crimes against humanity are what "people do in those circumstances"</em><br>

This is in no way a statement of approval, merely one of fact, as confirmed by many conversations I have had with WWI, WWII and Vietnam vets and serving and retired police officers and the many filmed interviews I have seen.</p>

[AJHingel]

<p>I have heard the exact opposite, David, but maybe we just talk to different people. Where I come from such acts are fiercely prosecuted when ever they are taking place and when ever possible. Some are hidden, as we all know, exactly because they are internationally recognized crimes. People defending them are guilty of criminal acts too in most countries. <br>

So again, Adams image is a clear denouncement of such crimes as normal business during war. No excuses are acceptable. </p>

[Robin Smith]

<blockquote>

<p>It is important for people who have never been near a battlefield to have some understanding of what goes on.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>Agree David. It is pretty well documented but not talked about. It is easy to be "above it all" when your life is not on the line. Finding that thread of humanity when it is justified must be very difficult at times. This photo does not show finding this thread at all. I think part of the shock was the unexpectedness of it in the original video which appeared I think before the still image (not sure about that) and perhaps compounded by the fact that the executed man was in civilian clothes and so seemed "innocent". Of course this is perhaps what makes many civil wars (or which Vietnam was one - with Western/Communist proxy backing) and guerilla wars so particularly awful - your enemy may be your neighbor and the sense of treachery that goes with it leads to dire consequences.</p>