Echoes of Vietnam
I felt I had said everything I had to say about the debate over the recent AP photograph of a dying Marine in Afghanistan, when a sharp-eyed editor at my new home Military.com pointed out its similarity to a 1965 Life magazine cover, which also stirred up controversy for its gritty depiction of the reality of war.
The dramatic photograph, taken by Life magazine photographer Larry Burrows, shows helicopter crew chief James C. Farley shouting to crew as wounded comrades James Magel and Billy Owens lay dying at his feet.
The story behind the photograph can be heard on the blog USMC81
I also wanted to paraphrase a few comments I got from former colleagues who generally agreed that withholding the AP photo was not an effort to sanitize war, but to spare his family additional pain.
Still some were questioning if there wasn’t a double standard. One cited a CBS 60 Minutes piece with an embedded reporter, that showed graphic images of enemy casualties. Is that okay? As long as they’re “bad guys?”
Another asked what to me is the key question: Do the wishes of one family outweigh the potential or assumed benefit to American society as a whole from seeing this photo? That really IS the question. And in this case I believe the reality could be conveyed without this painful image. But I also understand, as one reporter said to me privately, what happens on the battlefield is not a private matter. It’s very public.
The Life magazine photo was arguably more important, journalistically speaking. It brought the reality of war home to a generation of Americans who did not have the internet, or 24/7 cable news. And it didn’t stop the war. 160,000 U.S. troops went to Vietnam after its publication, and 58,195 died.
Tags: Vietnam Afghanistan Photographs
