Image Detectives: Contextual Analysis

 

Prompt

Prompt

 

First Draft

In They Go…

I  – Introduction

The decades following World War II may have seen a decrease in worldwide violence, but tensions were high among the dominant world powers.  In the United States at the time, there was a widespread fear of communism and, with the “fall” of China to communism, “The Domino Theory” began to propagate; government leaders feared that, if left unchecked, eastern nations would follow China’s example and embrace communism.  Of these nations, Korea and Vietnam were of great importance, aiding the nationalists in each country in their respective civil war against the communists.  However, many of the soldiers sent to aid in these conflicts lacked agency in their decision to fight these wars, as the draft was in place at the time, binding them to the military interests of the United States.

Many news outlets covered the Vietnam War in particular, and of these outlets, the photojournalism magazine Life  lead an extensive coverage of the plight of American soldiers and the Vietnamese via editor Michael Mok and photojournalist Paul Schutzer.  In the feature article from their November 1965 issue titled “In They Go to the Reality of This War,” Life  highlights Schutzer’s photo “The Blunt Reality of War” on the cover of the issue, an image of a captured Viet Cong soldier blindfolded in a field; the image is striking, highlighting the ambiguity and lack of knowledge about the enemy American soldiers face on a daily basis.  “The Blunt Reality of War,” as well as the rest of Schutzer’s album in Mok’s article, displays what atrocities American soldiers regularly face in Vietnam and provides insight into the news media’s criticism of the U.S. government for sending these men into the turmoil ill-equipped.

This essay will analyze the message of Mok’s and Schutzer’s article and how effectively it sympathises the American soldiers in the context of the war.  To do this effectively, I will first explain the rhetoric of the United States’ government in the 1960s and how the media addressed it.  Then, I will analyze the article itself, in particular how Mok’s writing melds with Schutzer’s photos to create sympathy for the soldiers fighting the conflict.  Finally, I will correlate the context of the time period to the narrative of the album.

 

II  – The Military and the Media

The United States military was active in its control of Vietnam’s fate following French decolonization.  It helped to set up the new republican government of the country, as fears of a power vacuum leading to a communist takeover loomed across multiple administrations in American politics; in terms of the types of aid given, “…first with economic and military aid under President Dwight D. Eisenhower, then military advisers under President John F. Kennedy, then combat troops under President Lyndon Johnson, and finally by invading Cambodia under President Richard Nixon.” (Gustainis, St. James Encyclopedia  Vol. 5., pg. 49)  This endurance over multiple administrations, attempting to keep the Vietnamese government favorable in the eyes of the American government, was spurred primarily by “The Domino Theory.”  This was a theory promoted by government leaders at the time that reasoned if one nation fell to communism, several others in the same vicinity would fall successively.  This rhetoric lead to the belief that every victory would lead to containment and every loss would ultimately lead to demise; to elaborate, military intervention, in the eyes of the U.S. government, was imperative to ultimate success.  

Of course, military intervention would require a sizable task force of troops on the U.S.’s part if they were to fight in this war, so the government turned to its own citizens for infantry. However, citizens resisted and actively protested the war.  Beyond the moral and ethical ramifications of being involved in such a gruesome conflict, many felt they were being forced to fight something they had little to no say in.  The Selective Services allowed the government to enact a compulsory draft for potential soldiers out of the American population; by the end of the war, over 2.2 million soldiers had gone into Vietnam via the draft alone.  Despite resistance, there was a significant push for the war to occur, for communism was still a legitimate-enough fear in civilians’ eyes, especially with the ideals of the Domino Theory setting in.  So, the military machine of the U.S. was beginning to power on, and on March 8th, 1965, the U.S. Marines made landfall for the first time in Da Nang, Vietnam.

Journalists in the American media had long been championed at the “muck-rakers” of society, rebelling against corruption and representing the common citizen in their coverage.  Of the methods of coverage, photojournalism proved to be most effective as snippets taken at the moment of action could highlight the atrocity words would fall short of.  However, Vietnam would spur journalists to use the photo for more than extended detail of action.  As the war picked up and more coverage was required, “…photojournalists tried to use the camera as a tool of political opposition. During the Vietnam War, especially after the Tet offensive, photographers like Larry Burrows and Nick Ut took compelling and often horrifying pictures of the effects of napalm on civilian victims, the execution of prisoners, and other atrocities. Although the news media was criticized for its conservatism, photojournalists published their pictures in all the major magazines and newspapers.” (Kozol, Americans at War  Vol. 4., pg. 156)  With the camera now as a tool of protest, many publications were venerated in their coverage. Life  in particular became well-known for their coverage in their November 1965 head article “In They Go to the Reality of This War,” by editor Michael Mok and photographer Paul Schutzer.

 

III  – The Narrative of the Album

The album of images displayed in “In They Go to the Reality of This War” convey a harrowing, pitiful narrative for the American soldiers in the war.  There is a perverse lack of cleanliness, as images of soldiers and Vietnamese civilians crowded together in mud and filth plaster the issue’s pages.  The soldiers are not shown without some form of grime, be it sweat or mud, on their bodies.  In such conditions, these soldiers, as well as Vietnamese have forlorn expressions, giving an ominous, depressing tone to the images and article at large.

The article itself details the events following the Third Marine Amphibious Force’s storm of Cape Batangan.  Upon making landfall, the Marines engage in a firefight with the Viet Cong snipers, and in the midst of battle are approached by a woman with her child.  The child is described thus: “It is a little boy, wounded in the arm by machine-gun fire–evidently when the jets made their strafing runs.” (Mok, pg. 57)  The remainder of the article follows the Marines as they seek out the remaining Viet Cong, intimidated by the locals as though the enemy could be among them.  In one notable instance, a soldier forces a Vietnamese mother to drink well-water to test if its poisoned; the interaction goes thus: “Drink!” he commands in English.  She doesn’t understand.  Now he screams… The mother clasps her baby tighter and stares fixedly at the ground.” (Mok, pg. 61)

The highlighted image, “The Blunt Reality of War,” is significant to the article because it signifies the soldiers only triumph in their first mission.  After being fired on and brought to their knees, the soldiers capture their enemy after much tribulation and tag him, displaying him on camera like a prize.  After much turmoil, all the men can show for their sacrifice is a single captured soldier.

 

IV  – Works Cited

• Gustainis, Justin. "Vietnam."  James Encyclopedia of Popular Culture , edited by Sara Pendergast and Tom Pendergast, vol. 5, St. James Press, 2000, pp. 49-52. Gale eBooks , https://link.gale.com/apps/doc/CX3409002592/GVRL?u=newpaltz&sid=GVRL&xid=983781b7. Accessed 20 Oct. 2019.

• Kozol, Wendy. "Photojournalism." Americans at War , edited by John P. Resch, vol. 4: 1946-Present, Macmillan Reference USA, 2005, pp. 156-158. Gale eBooks , https://link.gale.com/apps/doc/CX3427300412/GVRL?u=newpaltz&sid=GVRL&xid=15d96312. Accessed 20 Oct. 2019.

• “The Military Draft During the Vietnam War.” Omeka  RSS , 2015, michiganintheworld.history.lsa.umich.edu/antivietnamwar/exhibits/show/exhibit/draft_protests/th e-military-draft-during-the-.

• Cruz, Ralph De La. “Few Will Remember U.S. Entered Vietnam War 48 Years Ago Today.” Dallas News , Dallas News, 27 Aug. 2019, dallasnews.com/opinion/2013/03/08/few-will-remember-u-s-entered-vietnam-war-48-years -ago-today/.

• Schutzer, Paul. “In They Go to the Reality of This War.” LIFE – THE BLUNT REALITY OF WAR IN VIETNAM , 25 Nov. 1965, pp. 53–63.

Reflection

I believe I am on the right track with this piece in splitting the composition into different sections, as it is making it easier to focus on broader topics in reference to the image opposed to a more restrained  “one topic per paragraph” style.  However, due to time constraints, I was unable to add a proper conclusion, as well as get across all the points I wanted to make in some of the sections.  For the final, I hope to greatly expand and expound upon all my points and finish this essay, properly and strongly.

Final Draft

In They Go…

I  – Introduction

The decades following World War II may have seen a decrease in worldwide violence, but tensions were high among the dominant world powers.  In the United States at the time, there was a widespread fear of communism and, with the “fall” of China to communism, “The Domino Theory” began to propagate; government leaders feared that, if left unchecked, eastern nations would follow China’s example and embrace communism.  Of these nations, Korea and Vietnam were of great importance, aiding the nationalists in each country in their respective civil war against the communists.  However, many of the soldiers sent to aid in these conflicts lacked agency in their decision to fight these wars, as the draft was in place at the time, binding them to the military interests of the United States.

Many news outlets covered the Vietnam War in particular, and of these outlets, the photojournalism magazine Life lead an extensive coverage of the plight of American soldiers and the Vietnamese via editor Michael Mok and photojournalist Paul Schutzer.  In the feature article from their November 1965 issue titled “In They Go to the Reality of This War,” Life highlights Schutzer’s photo “The Blunt Reality of War” on the cover of the issue, an image of a captured Viet Cong soldier blindfolded in a field; the image is striking, highlighting the ambiguity and lack of knowledge about the enemy American soldiers face on a daily basis.  “The Blunt Reality of War,” as well as the rest of Schutzer’s album in Mok’s article, displays what atrocities American soldiers regularly face in Vietnam and provides insight into the news media’s criticism of the U.S. government for sending these men into the turmoil ill-equipped.

This essay will analyze the message of Mok’s and Schutzer’s article and how effectively it sympathizes the American soldiers in the context of the war.  To do this effectively, I will first explain the rhetoric of the United States’ government in the 1960s and how the media addressed it.  Then, I will analyze the article itself, in particular how Mok’s writing melds with Schutzer’s photos to create sympathy for the soldiers fighting the conflict.  Finally, I will correlate the context of the time period to the narrative of the album

 

II  – The Military and the Media

The United States military was active in its control of Vietnam’s fate following French decolonization.  It helped to set up the new republican government of the country, as fears of a power vacuum leading to a communist takeover loomed across multiple administrations in American politics; in terms of the types of aid given, “…first with economic and military aid under President Dwight D. Eisenhower, then military advisers under President John F. Kennedy, then combat troops under President Lyndon Johnson, and finally by invading Cambodia under President Richard Nixon” (Gustainis 49).  This endurance over multiple administrations, attempting to keep the Vietnamese government favorable in the eyes of the American government, was spurred primarily by “The Domino Theory.”  This was a theory promoted by government leaders at the time that reasoned if one nation fell to communism, several others in the same vicinity would fall successively.  This rhetoric lead to the belief that every victory would lead to containment and every loss would ultimately lead to demise; to elaborate, military intervention, in the eyes of the U.S. government, was imperative to ultimate success.  

Of course, military intervention would require a sizable task force of troops on the U.S.’s part if they were to fight in this war, so the government turned to its own citizens for infantry. However, citizens resisted and actively protested the war.  Beyond the moral and ethical ramifications of being involved in such a gruesome conflict, many felt they were being forced to fight something they had little to no say in.  The Selective Services allowed the government to enact a compulsory draft for potential soldiers out of the American population; by the end of the war, over 2.2 million soldiers had gone into Vietnam via the draft alone.  Despite resistance, there was a significant push for the war to occur, for communism was still a legitimate-enough fear in civilians’ eyes, especially with the ideals of the Domino Theory setting in.  So, the military machine of the U.S. was beginning to power on, and on March 8th, 1965, the U.S. Marines made landfall for the first time in Da Nang, Vietnam.

Journalists in the American media had long been championed at the “muckrakers” of society, rebelling against corruption and representing the common citizen in their coverage.  Of the methods of coverage, photojournalism proved to be most effective as snippets taken at the moment of action could highlight the atrocity words would fall short of.  However, Vietnam would spur journalists to use the photo for more than extended detail of action.  As the war picked up and more coverage was required, “…photojournalists tried to use the camera as a tool of political opposition. During the Vietnam War, especially after the Tet offensive, photographers like Larry Burrows and Nick Ut took compelling and often horrifying pictures of the effects of napalm on civilian victims, the execution of prisoners, and other atrocities. Although the news media was criticized for its conservatism, photojournalists published their pictures in all the major magazines and newspapers” (Kozol 156).  With the camera now as a tool of protest, many publications were venerated in their coverage of the war.  Life in particular became well-known for their coverage in their November 1965 head article “In They Go to the Reality of This War,” by editor Michael Mok and photographer Paul Schutzer.

 

III  – The Narrative of the Album

The album for “In They Go to the Reality of This War” opens with a set of images of soldiers storming a Vietnamese beach.  Based on a lack of bloodshed in these images, the raid appears to be a success for the soldiers.  Then, readers are blindsided with an image of a Vietnamese mother holding her limp, bloodied child, and the “reality” rears its ugly head.  While in the successive images the child is shown to survive, the readers learn, along with the American soldiers, just what is at stake in this war; even though the conflict is primarily between the American Marines and the Viet Cong guerillas, both are fighting in civilian territory and the likelihood of innocent civilian casualty is high.  Given these stakes, the soldiers in the next few images take on a more serious tone, shown with guns drawn and constantly around defenseless natives.  Both the soldiers and natives share a similar expression of discomfort and uncertainty, as though they know it will be a long road ahead to driving the enemy away.  While it is shown they capture one Viet Cong, they are aware, as indicated by the final image of them sleeping, that there are hundreds more in the country, and each one will present new risks in the attempt to capture.

The album of images displayed in “In They Go to the Reality of This War” convey a harrowing, pitiful narrative for the American soldiers in the war.  There is a perverse lack of cleanliness, as images of soldiers and Vietnamese civilians crowded together in mud and filth plaster the issue’s pages.  The soldiers are not shown without some form of grime, be it sweat or mud, on their bodies.  In such conditions, these soldiers, as well as Vietnamese have forlorn expressions, giving an ominous, depressing tone to the images and article at large.

The article itself details the events following the Third Marine Amphibious Force’s storm of Cape Batangan.  Upon making landfall, the Marines engage in a firefight with the Viet Cong snipers, and in the midst of battle are approached by a woman with her child.  The child is described thus: “It is a little boy, wounded in the arm by machine-gun fire–evidently when the jets made their strafing runs” (Mok 57).  The remainder of the article follows the Marines as they seek out the remaining Viet Cong, intimidated by the locals as though the enemy could be among them.  In one notable instance, a soldier forces a Vietnamese mother to drink well-water to test if its poisoned; the interaction goes thus: “Drink!” he commands in English.  She doesn’t understand.  Now he screams… The mother clasps her baby tighter and stares fixedly at the ground” (Mok 61).  These instances all give the article a sense futility, as though the soldiers are already failing in their mission to protect the innocents in the war.  Try as they might, they lack knowledge of the territory, an effective resource in the Viet Cong’s grasp; despite the good intentions of the American soldiers, the Viet Cong would be more personable and hero-like than these stranger, Americans invading their shores.

This lack of success on the part of the American soldiers in this raid is what makes “The Blunt Reality of War” such an effective photo within this album.  It shows the little triumph of the Americans over the Viet Cong enemy.  These soldiers, some of which were sent by force, entered an unknown environment and were assaulted by a faceless enemy in cold blood.  Try as they might to relate to the locals, language and cultural barriers remain unbroken.  However, they prevail in capturing an aspect of the enemy, a single guerrilla possibly responsible for the deaths of several locals.  The soldiers, in their first dark hour, prevail over the enemy and, from the stress, one takes a smoke-break in the background of the shot.  The image is one of triumph over the unknown, yet a grim reminder that the war in Vietnam is only at its beginning.

 

IV  – Conclusion

The Vietnam War, as seen through the lens of Mok and Schutzer’s Life article, was truly a time of confusion and fear.  Moreover, it was a time when the lives of soldiers mattered little.  They could be sent off by the thousand to some foreign killing field and never see their homeland again; the government that sent them there would care little and the public, against the war, would only see the soldiers going as perpetrators of violence, monsters of war.  Mok and Schutzer, however, show that these soldiers are human, and should be valued.  They get scared, confused, angry, and tried.  They simply are there to do their jobs, and help people to the best of their abilities.  What the government, and even some citizens lacked was care, care like the soldiers tried to show the Vietnamese, and care like Mok and Schutzer showed the soldiers laying down their lives for their nation.

 

V  – Works Cited

Cruz, Ralph De La. “Few Will Remember U.S. Entered Vietnam War 48 Years Ago Today.” Dallas News , Dallas News, 27 Aug. 2019, www.dallasnews.com/opinion/2013/03/08/few-willremember-u-s-entered-vietnam-war-48-years -ago-today/.

Gustainis, Justin. "Vietnam." St. James Encyclopedia of Popular Culture, edited by Sara Pendergast and Tom Pendergast, vol. 5, St. James Press, 2000, pp. 49-52. Gale eBooks, https://link.gale.com/apps/doc/CX3409002592/GVRL?u=newpaltz&sid=GVRL&xid=983781b7. Accessed 20 Oct. 2019.  

Kozol, Wendy. "Photojournalism." Americans at War, edited by John P. Resch, vol. 4: 1946-Present, Macmillan Reference USA, 2005, pp. 156-158. Gale eBooks, https://link.gale.com/apps/doc/CX3427300412/GVRL?u=newpaltz&sid=GVRL&xid=15d96312. Accessed 20 Oct. 2019.  

Mok, Michael. “In They Go to the Reality of This War.” LIFE - THE BLUNT REALITY OF WAR IN VIETNAM, photography by Paul Schutzer, 25 Nov. 1965, pp. 53–63. 

“The Military Draft During the Vietnam War.” Omeka RSS, 2015, michiganintheworld.history.lsa.umich.edu/antivietnamwar/exhibits/show/exhibit/draft_protests/th e-military-draft-during-the-.