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Context is important. Have the stones to do what needs to be done.

Eddie Adams wasn’t trying to make a statement when he took the photo, which went on to win a Pulitzer. In fact, he resented how people interpreted it without knowing the full context. Most Americans had no idea who Nguyen Van Lem was or what he did.

South Vietnamese Police Chief Nguyen Ngoc Loan was Lem’s executioner and a friend of the colonel he had murdered. He later immigrated to the U.S. and faced deportation due to being accused of war crimes, but Eddie Adams always vouched for him and apologized for taking the photo.

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FA71kbJUYAIhTlO?format=jpg&name=small

The sole survivor of the family Nguyen Van Lem murdered was Huan Nguyen, who was only nine at the time. He later immigrated to the U.S. and went on to become the highest ranked Vietnamese-American officer in the military when he was promoted to the rank of rear admiral in the US Navy.

Context is important. Have the stones to do what needs to be done. Eddie Adams wasn’t trying to make a statement when he took the photo, which went on to win a Pulitzer. In fact, he resented how people interpreted it without knowing the full context. Most Americans had no idea who Nguyen Van Lem was or what he did. South Vietnamese Police Chief Nguyen Ngoc Loan was Lem’s executioner and a friend of the colonel he had murdered. He later immigrated to the U.S. and faced deportation due to being accused of war crimes, but Eddie Adams always vouched for him and apologized for taking the photo. https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FA71kbJUYAIhTlO?format=jpg&name=small The sole survivor of the family Nguyen Van Lem murdered was Huan Nguyen, who was only nine at the time. He later immigrated to the U.S. and went on to become the highest ranked Vietnamese-American officer in the military when he was promoted to the rank of rear admiral in the US Navy.

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[–] • 0 pt

Never learned gook, sorry.

[–] • 0 pt

"Know your operational environment."

"Giết Việt Cong." = "Kill Viet Cong.

[–] • 0 pt

Some savage shit on both sides. I don't know that the Diem gang was any better for the villagers than the VC ultimately. We should have let them fight that shit out and not wrecked our economy funding that shit-storm. That was one VC who had it coming.

[–] • 1 pt

When I got to my first SF ODA, over half the guys on my first team were all multiple tour VN vets. Those were the guys that taught me the trade and I thank God every day for that because that's why I'm still alive now.

I still remember my first team sergeant (who had done multiple tours with MACV-SOG) telling me one day that he knew for sure by his second tour that we had no goddamm business sticking our noses into what was essentially a regional domestic dispute that would have worked itself out one way or the other without any effort on our part. And he was right. We do business with VN right now.

That was how I knew back in 2002, we had no business spending any American blood or treasure trying to bring peace and liberal representative democracy to Afghanistan, a people who in their entire history have never known either, needed them or seemed to have any desire for them. It was a fool's errand from start to finish and some of us knew that twenty years ago.