BGuthrie Photos: DC -- Natl Museum of American History -- Exhibit: Price of Freedom -- Cold War (Korea, Vietnam, etc)

DC -- Natl Museum of American History -- Exhibit: Price of Freedom -- Cold War (Korea, Vietnam, etc):

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Specific picture descriptions: Photos above with "i" icons next to the bracketed sequence numbers (e.g. "[1] ") are described as follows:
1. SIPRCO_150909_001.JPG: Veterans sought a return to normal life. They wanted to get an education, find a job, start a family, buy a home.
2. SIPRCO_150909_004.JPG: American Dream Houses: World War II veterans were ready to make the most of their hard-won peace and the nation's prosperity. The GI Bill made it possible for all returning veterans to achieve the American dream of owning a home of their own. Educational subsidies and job-finding aid helped many veterans increase their earning and spending power. And more than four million no-down-payment, low-interest mortgages helped them finance the purchase of a new house (costing about $8,000). The GI Bill fueled an unprecedented growth of America's middle class and contributed to the phenomenal spread of suburbs nationwide.
3. SIPRCO_150909_006.JPG: Coming Home: Returning veterans were welcomed home with parades, celebrations, and warm embraces. But for many, readjusting to civilian life was challenging. Some returned wounded or with permanent disabilities. Others were plagued by troubling memories of combat and the death and destruction they had witnessed in battle.
4. SIPRCO_150909_012.JPG: Housing Shortage: The GI Bill subsidized veterans' living expenses while they pursued their education, and offered low-interest mortgages to those wanting to buy homes. But veterans returned home to an acute housing shortage. Many found themselves bunking in surplus military Quonset huts until the housing industry could catch up.
5. SIPRCO_150909_014.JPG: The Baby Boom: Births in the United States jumped from 2.8 million in 1945 to 3.4 million in 1946 and 3.8 million in 1947. The number continued at high levels through the mid-1960s. The generation born during this "baby boom" shaped American life and culture for decades to come.
6. SIPRCO_150909_017.JPG: Back to School: One-third or more of sixteen million US veterans took advantage of the GI Bill's educational benefits. In 1947, veterans were 49 percent of all college enrollments and they swelled the attendance at vocational schools. The bill gave African American veterans unprecedented educational opportunities.
7. SIPRCO_150909_023.JPG: Television Western stars Dale Evans and Roy Rogers
8. SIPRCO_150909_025.JPG: Changes at Home: Major social changes in the decade after World War II including suburbanization and an emerging civil rights movement. Two postwar occurrences altered life in the United States. First, millions of Americans moved to the suburbs for the "good life" of prefabricated houses with picture windows, appliance-filled kitchens, television sets, and station wagons. Second, African Americans, many of them veterans, returned to their struggle against segregation with renewed vigor -- and won new support from the government. President Harry Truman ordered the armed forces to desegregate, and federal courts moved to integrate public schools.
9. SIPRCO_150909_031.JPG: Confrontations Abroad: A growing postwar rivalry between the United States and the Soviet Union led to a global competition known as the cold war. The standoff between the United States and the Soviet Union started after World War II. President Harry Truman defined it as freedom and capitalism versus totalitarianism and Communism. He set the precedent for a policy of containment, bolstering any ally who stood in the way of Soviet expansion. Through the Marshall Plan, he provided $12 billion in humanitarian aid to Western Europe, then struggling with postwar recovery. And when the Soviets attempted to blockade West Berlin, Truman launched an airlift that ferried supplies to the beleaguered city until the Soviets backed down.
10. SIPRCO_150909_033.JPG: My View: Winston Churchill "From Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic, an iron curtain has descended across the Continent. Behind that line lie all the capitals of the ancient states of Central and Easter Europe... all these famous cities and the populations around them lie in what I must call the Soviet sphere." -- Former British prime minister Winston Churchill, speaking at Westminster College, Fulton, Missouri, March 5, 1946
11. SIPRCO_150909_048.JPG: A Cold War Military: In 1947, the United States recognized its military and intelligence services. As the cold war with the Soviet Union began, the United States centralized the control and coordination of its military and intelligence services. The National Security Act of 1947 created a cabinet-level secretary of Defense to oversee the Departments of the Army and Navy and a newly independent Department of the Air Force. A civilian secretary administered each department, and a formally established Joint Chiefs of Staff -- composed of the service heads of each branch -- acted as military advisors. The act also created the Central Intelligence Agency and the National Security Council.
12. SIPRCO_150909_051.JPG: America's "Superbomb": In 1952, the United States detonated a thermonuclear hydrogen bomb. Within a year, so did the Soviet Union. In January 1950, five months after the Soviet Union successfully exploded an atomic bomb, President Harry Truman authorized the development of a thermonuclear "superbomb" -- a device 1,000 times more powerful than the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima. A secret study prepared for the president warned that if the Soviets were to develop an H-bomb before the Americans, "the disk of... Soviet pressure against all the free world, or an attack against the U.S., will be greatly increased."
13. SIPRCO_150909_053.JPG: The Soviets' Atomic Bomb: In 1949, the cold war became a nuclear arms race when the Soviets detonated an atomic bomb. United States military and intelligence services knew that the Soviets were developing an atomic bomb but assumed it was years in the future. They were shocked when air-monitoring stations in Alaska detected "positive radioactive evidence of a recent explosion" -- a Soviet atomic test that occurred on August 29, 1949. The American public was stunned. In an understatement, a secret report prepared by the Pentagon noted: "The United States has lost its capability of making an effective atomic attack upon the war-making potential of the USSR without danger of retaliation in kind."
14. SIPRCO_150909_058.JPG: Nuclear Fallout: The explosion of a Soviet atomic bomb added impetus to government investigations of subversives and anti-Communist panic. In 1950, the United States revealed the spies had been passing secrets about its atomic weapons program to the Soviet Union for nearly a decade, giving the Soviets, in the words of their weapons program chief, "exactly what we have been missing." The Federal Bureau of Investigation arrested Klaus Fuchs, a Manhattan Project physicist, and several others -- including Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, who were executed in 1953 for "conspiracy to commit espionage." The legitimate search for spies evolved into a witch hunt led by Senator Joseph McCarthy for Communists and other "disloyal" Americans.
15. SIPRCO_150909_069.JPG: Allied "Reds": North Korean leader Kim Il Sung launched the invasion of South Korea in an attempt to reunify the nation under Communism. The Soviets supported his decision with economic and military aid. A few months later, when their border was threatened, the Communist Chinese joined the fight as well, sending more than a million troops.
16. SIPRCO_150909_071.JPG: In Retreat: When North Korean troops crossed the 38th parallel, the two countries' dividing line, South Korean troops scattered in disarray, and civilians streamed south. US reinforcements initially failed to stem the tide, and the North Koreans pushed the coalition allies into the southeast corner of the peninsula, near Pusan.
17. SIPRCO_150909_073.JPG: The Korean War, 1950-1953: The United States went to war to contain Communist expansion fostered by the Soviet Union. After Japan surrendered Korea at the end of World War II, the Soviet Union and the United States agreed to oversee separate occupation zones. When North Korean forces poured into South Korea on June 25, 1950, President Harry Truman interpreted the invasion as an attempt by Moscow to expand its domain and test Western resolve. He committed American troops and rallied support in the United Nations, establishing a coalition of sixteen nations to mount a counterattack. Three years of brutal fighting left Americans divided over the war. An uneasy truce split the Korean peninsula into a Communist north and democratic south.
18. SIPRCO_150909_075.JPG: Sweltering Heat: Summers in Korea were intolerably hot and humid. Troops tried in vain to stay cool -- and dry. Even at rest, they could be soaked in sweat, muddied and waterlogged from slogging through rice paddies, or drenched in monsoon rains.
19. SIPRCO_150909_078.JPG: Getting Behind the Lines: Airborne infantry were inserted behind enemy lines to conduct espionage, take airfields, and engage enemy fores. In Korea, the Fairchild C-119 "Flying Boxcar" dropped troops, supplies, and heavy equipment -- including trucks, artillery, and even bridge spans.
20. SIPRCO_150909_080.JPG: "Frozen Chosen" In Korea -- traditionally known as Chosen -- winters were brutal, with fierce winds, stinging sleet, drifting snow, and frozen group. Solders bundled up, often using their ponchos for shelter, but the cold was penetrating. "You get cold to the bone," recalled an American soldier. "It's hard to thaw out."
21. SIPRCO_150909_085.JPG: Korean Battlefields: As rival armies pushed each other up and down the Korean peninsula, President Truman stood his ground. North Korean armies drove South Korean and U.S. troops into the peninsula's southern reaches. Then UN forces under the command of Douglas MacArthur turned the tide and battled their way north, pushing North Korean troops to the Yalu River. A ferocious Chinese counteroffensive drove UN troops south again. Meanwhile, General MacArthur and President Truman came to a standoff. At issue was the popular general's repeated defiance of the civilian president. In 1951, when MacArthur lobbied to expand the war into China, even at the risk of world war, Truman fired him.
22. SIPRCO_150909_087.JPG: My View: Harry S. Truman "I fired him because he wouldn't respect the authority of the President. That's the answer to that. I didn't fire him because he was a dumb son of a bitch, although he was, but that's not against the law for generals. If it was, half to three-quarters of them would be in jail." -- President Harry Truman, from Plain Speaking, by Merle Miller, 1974
23. SIPRCO_150909_089.JPG: My View: Douglas MacArthur "It seems strangely difficult for some to realize that here in Asia is where the Communist conspirators have elected to make their play for global conquest... We must win. There is no substitute for victory." -- General Douglas MacArthur, 1951
24. SIPRCO_150909_095.JPG: The Air War: Late in 1950, the US Air Force began to deploy fighter jets in Korea. Flying from aircraft carriers and bases, the nimble jets provided air superiority against enemy aircraft and support for ground troops. Coalition jets clashed with Communist-piloted MiG fighters in airspace nicknamed "MiG Alley," along the Yalu River.
25. SIPRCO_150909_097.JPG: Landing at Inchon: While UN forces prepared to push north from Pusan, US troops made a daring amphibious landing at the port of Inchon in September 1950. They poured onto the beach, then threatened the enemy from behind. The North Koreans retreated north rather than risk being trapped in a closing vise.
26. SIPRCO_150909_099.JPG: Banner carried by Corporal George Munson, US Marine Corps, 1950
27. SIPRCO_150909_102.JPG: Identification Banner: Some US troops carried small banners with pictographs that identified them as UN forces. If they were separated from their units, they could show the banners to non-English-speaking locals to ask for assistance. Many of the banners -- modeled after official "blood chits" that promised rewards in exchange for the safe return of downed pilots -- were produced for sale to American GIs by enterprising South Korean artisans.
28. SIPRCO_150909_105.JPG: The Missile Race: Soviet and American scientists and engineers raced to develop long-range ballistic missiles with payloads that could not be intercepted. Cold war planners on both sides recognized the strategic important of rocket-launched nuclear warheads that could reach a distant continent. Engineers and technicians worked on propulsion and guidance systems for intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs). In 1957, the Soviets tested the first successful ICBM, then used it to launch a small satellite, Sputnik, into Earth orbit. The United States sent a satellite of its own aloft a few months later, using a smaller, mid-range missile as a launch vehicle. The first US ICBM was deployed in 1959. As the two rivals raced to outmatch each other, their nuclear arsenals grew.
29. SIPRCO_150909_107.JPG: American Atlas ICBM: The United States successfully launched its first ICBM, the Atlas, in 1959. Equipped with nuclear warheads, the missiles could travel more than 6,000 miles. Soon they were replaced by more accurate Minuteman missiles that were quicker to launch and propelled by solid fuel.
30. SIPRCO_150909_112.JPG: Soviet R7 ICBM: In 1957, the Soviet R7 was the world's first ICBM, a ballistic missile that could travel an intercontinental distance -- 3,000 miles or more -- along a suborbital trajectory. The liquid-fueled launch vehicle had inertial and radio-controlled guidance systems and carried a warhead in a heat-shielded reentry pod.
31. SIPRCO_150909_116.JPG: German V2 Rocket: After World War II, both the United States and the Soviet Union used captured German technology and the expertise of relocated German scientists to jump-start their rocket programs. Germany had developed the first liquid-fueled rockets in the 1930s, and launched more than 1,300 V2 rockets against London during the war.
32. SIPRCO_150909_122.JPG: In the late 1950s, the Soviet Union and the United States targeted each other's capitals for nuclear attack.
33. SIPRCO_150909_124.JPG: Target: Washington: To prepare the public for potential nuclear attack, the federal government conducted an elaborate civil defense campaign. A hydrogen bomb dropped on Washington, DC, would destroy everything within three miles of the Capitol and unleash deadly radioactive fallout. Little could be done to protect the public in the event of an attack on any targeted city. But federal officials held out the hope of survival, encouraging Americans to ready fallout shelters and practice duck-and-cover drills in schools. In 1955, the Civil Defense Administration staged the first of several nationwide drills in which schools and workplaces -- even the White House -- were evacuated in response to mock nuclear attacks.
34. SIPRCO_150909_127.JPG: Fallout Shelters: Public fallout shelters, in sturdy municipal buildings with windowless hallways or basements, were stocked with canned water and food, blankets, and chemical toilets. The possibility of protection helped prevent public panic.
35. SIPRCO_150909_130.JPG: Nuclear Brinksmanship: The standoff between the United States and the Soviet Union over nuclear missiles in Cuba was a turning point in the cold war. When President John F. Kennedy learned that the Soviet Union was deploying nuclear missiles in Cuba, he demanded they be withdrawn and indicated his willingness to risk nuclear war if they were not. US ships blockaded Cuba, B-52 bombers loaded with nuclear weapons flew in holding patterns just beyond Soviet airspace, ready to attack. The crisis abated only when the Soviets agreed to remove the missiles and the United States quietly removed similar medium-range missiles from Turkey. In the aftermath of the faceoff, the superpowers continued to develop nuclear weapons but also sought ways to avoid a nuclear exchange.
36. SIPRCO_150909_137.JPG: First Steps into Vietnam: Determined to stop Communist expansion, the United States became increasingly involved in Southeast Asia. During World War II, the United States supported Vietnamese nationalist Ho Chi Minh in his struggle against the Japanese. But after the war, when he sought assistance from Communist powers to win independence from France, the United States opposed him as an agent of Communist expansion. A 1954 cease-fire agreement partitioned the country into a Communist north and anti-Communist south. President Dwight Eisenhower sent military advisors and $1 billion to support South Vietnam. President John F. Kennedy increased the number of advisors and tripled US financial support.
37. SIPRCO_150909_139.JPG: Vietnam War 1956-1975 Americans fought a protracted and divisive war against Communist expansion in Southeast Asia.
38. SIPRCO_150909_154.JPG: War in Southeast Asia: The war consumed Vietnam, a country not twice the size of Florida. North Vietnam was a target of repeated US bombings, but South Vietnam was the setting for bombing, defoliation, and most of the fighting. The war also spilled over into Laos and Cambodia. Vast, widely dispersed armies and guerrillas confronted each other in mountains, central highlands, and river deltas; in dense jungles, fields of ten-foot-high elephant grass, and marshy mangrove forests; and in hamlets of thatched-roof huts, rice paddies, and city streets.
39. SIPRCO_150909_162.JPG: Inserting Troops: Huey transports carried thousands of troops into battle, seven to twelve infantrymen at a time. The choppers could fly low and slow, dodge enemy fire, hover just above ground level at the outskirts of hamlets or fields of elephant grass, or drop into newly cut jungle clearings barely larger than the sweep of their rotors. The transports were nicknamed "slicks" because they were unarmed except for an M60 machine gun in the doorway. Often they were accompanied by Huey gunships armed with external machine guns, rockets, and grenade launchers.
40. SIPRCO_150909_164.JPG: 091: This Huey served in Vietnam. Later it was the centerpiece of a film and national tour designed to heal the wounds of a divisive war. Nearly 4,000 Bell UH-1 helicopters, nicknamed Hueys, served during the war. This Huey, with tail numbers 65-10091, was deployed to Vietnam in 1966 and served with the 173rd Assault Helicopter Company, known as the Robinhoods. It returned to the United States and continued to fly until 1995, when it was decommissioned and acquired by the Texas Air Command Museum. In 2002, the 091 starred in a documentary film and a tour of reconciliation and remembrance that brought Vietnam veterans and their stories to people across the nation.
41. SIPRCO_150909_166.JPG: The Final Journey: Number 091 made its last flight on March 19, 2004. The Huey flew over the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington DC, circled Arlington National Cemetery, then landed on the National Mall near the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History.
42. SIPRCO_150909_176.JPG: 1962 U.S. Troop Strength 11,000
43. SIPRCO_150909_179.JPG: The Vietnam Era: The war in Southeast Asia was America's longest military conflict. It polarized the nation politically and socially. When President Lyndon Johnson sent thousands of air and ground forces to Vietnam in 1965, most Americans supported him. As casualties mounted and the draft expanded, antiwar sentiment grew. In 1968, the Tet Offensive -- a widespread Communist assault -- deepened disagreements over the war's conduct and meaning. Even veterans and some in active service questioned America's involvement. In 1970, President Richard Nixon began to withdraw American troops, but expanded the war in Cambodia and Laos, resulting in widespread protests at home. US forces left Vietnam in 1973 and South Vietnam fell to the Communists in 1975.
44. SIPRCO_150909_182.JPG: 1966 U.S. Troop Strength 181,000
45. SIPRCO_150909_184.JPG: Green beret, U.S. Army Seventh Special Forces Group Helmet, Army of the Republic of (South) Vietnam Ranger Group
46. SIPRCO_150909_186.JPG: "Limited Partnership" The Kennedy administration bolstered the anti-communist South Vietnamese with limited military support. Among the first Americans deployed to Vietnam were US Special Forces, including those nicknamed Green Berets. Highly trained volunteers, these elite troops served as advisors to the Army of the Republic of (South) Vietnam and directed the earliest counterinsurgency efforts against the Vietcong.
47. SIPRCO_150909_193.JPG: Kent State: On May 2, 1970, the governor of Ohio dispatched more than 900 National Guardsmen to quell antiwar protests at Kent State University. There, and at campuses nationwide, students and outsiders were protesting the just-disclosed US invasion of Cambodia. During a campus confrontation on May 4, twenty-eight guardsmen opened fire: four students were killed and nine wounded. The incident fueled vehement protests and student strikes; hundreds of colleges and universities canceled exams and graduations and sent students home.
48. SIPRCO_150909_196.JPG: 1972 U.S. Troop Strength 24,000
49. SIPRCO_150909_198.JPG: "Gotta Get Out" As the war dragged on and home-front protests became more widespread, many troops in Vietnam -- often unwilling draftees -- became increasingly disillusioned with the war. Many modified their uniforms or ignored military regulations; some sported peace signs. And they adopted as their mantra a popular song by the Animals, "We Gotta Get Out of This Place (if it's the last thing we ever do)."
50. SIPRCO_150909_202.JPG: US M1 helmet with camouflage cover on which a solder tracked the months remaining in his tour of duty.
51. SIPRCO_150909_204.JPG: POW/MIA Reminders: In the early 1970s, thousands of Americans donned simple bracelets engraved with the names, ranks, and dates of loss of US soldiers who were prisoners of war or missing in action in Vietnam. The bracelets helped draw attention to the plight of POWs and MIAs and their families, and gave many Americans a way to show their support for US troops.
52. SIPRCO_150909_207.JPG: POW and MIA bracelets, many worn by family members
53. SIPRCO_150909_211.JPG: An Airmobile War: The helicopter was key to army air mobility, a tactic devised in Vietnam for fighting a war without front lines. Helicopters flew patrols, attacked enemy positions, delivered supplies, carried troops into combat, and retrieved the wounded and dead. They made possible a new tactic of ground warfare: air mobility. Ground troops were lifted into widely dispersed locations to engage the enemy, then extracted and redeployed. These maneuvers were part of broader strategies: initially, attrition -- killed so many of the enemy that they would lose their ability to fight; then later in the war, pacification -- winning over the local populace by nation building. Ultimately, both failed.
54. SIPRCO_150909_214.JPG: Flying the Huey: Two pilots and a crew chief responsible for maintenance and real-time repairs kept the Huey in the air. A pilot used three controls: a stick in his right hand to tilt the rotor disc and move the helicopter in the desired direction; a collective pitch lever in his left hand to change rotor-blade pitch and cause the "bird" to climb or descend; and a pair of antitorque foot pedals to control the direction the helicopter faced. Flying required a continuous and ever-changing series of control movements, especially when hovering.
55. SIPRCO_150909_217.JPG: Removing Casualties: Rapid combat-casualty evacuations flown by daring "Dustoff" crews -- pilots, medics, and crew chiefs -- extracted nearly 400,000 wounded from battle zones during the course of the war. Helicopters made it possible for the wounded to be on a surgeon's table in a hospital within an hour. Crews commonly put themselves at great risk, flying in and out of intense fighting. They repeatedly witnessed the horrible realities of war. During a mission, the air would be permeated with what one soldier described as "the sickeningly sweet redolence of fresh blood." Medical Personnel: Medics in the field were the first to treat the wounded. Often targeted by enemy snipers, they worked frantically to save lives and ready casualties for evacuation to surgical hospitals. Once there, doctors -- and more than 10,000 women who served as nurses -- saved 97 percent of the wounded.
56. SIPRCO_150909_232.JPG: Resolute Resistance: American POWs in Vietnam struggled to survive horrid conditions, physical pain, and psychological deprivation, often for years on end. They exercised as best they could. Some played mind games to keep themselves sane, making mental lists of building imaginary houses, one nail at a time. They drew strength from one another, secretly communicating via notes scratched with sooty matches on toilet paper, subtle hand gestures, or code tapped out on their cell walls.
57. SIPRCO_150909_235.JPG: American POWs in Vietnam: Americans were held as prisoners of war in North Vietnam, and in Cambodia, China, Laos, and South Vietnam. From 1961 to 1973, the North Vietnamese and Vietcong held hundreds of Americans captive. In North Vietnam alone, more than a dozen prisoners were scattered in and around the capital city of Hanoi. American POWs gave them nicknames: Alcatraz, Briarpatch, Dirty Bird, the Hanoi Hilton, the Zoo. Conditions were appalling. Prisoners were variously isolated, starved, beaten, tortured, and paraded in anti-American propaganda. "It's easy to die but hard to live," a prison guard told one new arrival, "and we'll show you just how hard it is to live."
58. SIPRCO_150909_241.JPG: POWs in the Public Eye: During the Vietnam War, American prisoners were a focus of public attention as never before. Over 4,000 Americans were captured during World War I more than 130,000 were taken prisoner during World War II; 7,000-plus were held in Korea. The American public knew little of their plight. But Americans were painfully aware of the 726 who were prisoners of war in Vietnam. The North Vietnamese paraded them in a sophisticated propaganda campaign to erode public support for the war. POW families launched awareness campaigns, and the media gave the POW situation extensive coverage. At war's end, 661 returned home. Some Americans believe that thousands more "missing in action" were left behind.
59. SIPRCO_150909_249.JPG: 20th-Century Prisoners of War: World War I -- 4,120 captured / 3,973 returned World War II -- 130,201 captured / 116,129 returned Korea -- 7,140 captured / 4,418 returned Vietnam -- 726 captured / 661 returned
60. SIPRCO_150909_255.JPG: The Tap Code: American POWs risked torture and interrogation to communicate secretly with each other using code conveyed by visual signals or tapped out on the walls of their cells. The code was based on two-number combinations that represented each letter. It enabled prisoners to establish a command structure, keep a roster of captives, and pass information. "Our tapping ceased to be just an exchange of letters and words; it became conversation," recalled former POW James Stockdale. "Elation, sadness, humor, sarcasm, excitement, depression -- all came through."
61. SIPRCO_150909_257.JPG: Resolute Resistance: American POWs in Vietnam struggled to survive horrid conditions, physical pain, and psychological deprivation, often for years on end. They exercised as best they could. Some played mind games to keep themselves sane, making mental lists or building imaginary houses, one nail at a time. They drew strength from one another, secretly communicating via notes scratched with sooty matches on toilet paper, subtle hand gestures, or code tapped out on their cell walls.
62. SIPRCO_150909_267.JPG: Grunts: The infantryman -- the "grunt" on the ground -- carried on his back everything he needed to fight and live in the "boonies." Most Americans in Vietnam served as support troops and saw little combat, but "grunts" still faced difficult conditions. Extreme heat, humidity, and frequent rains wreaked havoc with their standard-issue gear. Cotton uniforms rotted and boots became waterlogged. Many infantrymen modified or even abandoned their gear. Some adopted captured enemy equipment. They prized their flop hats, extra socks, ponchos, and multiple canteens. These things made the going a bit easier as they worried about the sorry state of their feet, enemy fire and booby traps, and going home.
63. SIPRCO_150909_274.JPG: Ho Chi Minh Trail: The North Vietnamese dispatched troops and tons of supplies along the Ho Chi Minh Trail, a series of rough roadways and footpaths that led through the highland jungles of Laos and Cambodia to South Vietnam. Civilian porters pushing overloaded bicycles transported everything from boxes of ammunition to bags of rice.
64. SIPRCO_150909_280.JPG: Enemy Soldiers: The North Vietnamese Army and Vietcong insurgents in the South waged both conventional and guerrilla warfare. The North Vietnamese and Vietcong followed the ancient principles of guerrilla war: when the enemy attacks, retreat; when the enemy digs in, harass; when the enemy is exhausted, attack. They employed modern weaponry, including Soviet- and Chinese-supplied aircraft, antiaircraft artillery, and surface-to-air missiles. They used improvised weapons, such as recycled US explosives, homemade rifles, trip-wired booby traps with crossbows, concealed nail-studded boards, even excrement-coated bamboo punji sticks that could pierce a boot.
65. SIPRCO_150909_297.JPG: The Berlin Wall Falls: For over forty years, the United States and the USSR competed in ideological, economic, and military spheres. Then the Soviet Union collapsed. In 1987, President Ronald Reagan stood at the Berlin wall and declared that the free world had bested Soviet Communism. "Freedom is the victor," he said. "Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall." The governments of the USSR and its satellite nations were wobbling -- undercut by four decades of opposition to what Reagan called the "evil empire," and internal political and economic reforms begun by Soviet president Mikhail Gorbachev. The Berlin wall fell in 1989. Communist regimes in Eastern Europe toppled, one after the other. The Soviet Union broke into independent nations in 1991. America's cold war rival had disintegrated.
66. SIPRCO_150909_301.JPG: The Wall: The Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, DC, has become a place where Americans honor those who died, and reflect on their feelings about the war. "The Vietnam Memorial is a place where something happens within the view," said Maya Lin, who designed the wall that bears the names of men and women killed or missing in Vietnam from 1956 to 1975. Veterans seek our the names of their buddies; families and friends look for names of loved ones. They mourn, remember, come to terms. Many leave flowers or letters or treasured keepsakes. Others, not searching for a name, find a sense of the enormity of the sacrifices made in Vietnam.
67. SIPRCO_150909_307.JPG: The Berlin Wall: East Germany built the wall in 1961 to seal off Communist East Berlin from the free West. Concrete slabs, wire-mesh fences, barbed wire, trenches, dog runs, watchtowers, and searchlights stretched for ninety-six miles through the city. On November 9, 1989, the East German government reopened its border. Thousands of Berliners flocked to the wall to greet long-separated family and friends. In their exuberance, people climbed the wall and celebrated by breaking parts of it with hammers and chisels.
68. SIPRCO_150909_310.JPG: Fragment of the Berlin wall
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2015 photos: Equipment this year: I mostly used my Fuji XS-1 camera but, depending on the event, I also used a Nikon D7000. I retired from the US Census Bureau in god-forsaken Suitland, Maryland on my 58th birthday in May. Yee ha! Trips this year: a quick trip to Florida. two Civil War Trust conferences (Raleigh, NC and Richmond, VA), and my 10th consecutive San Diego Comic-Con trip (including Los Angeles). Ego Strokes: Carolyn Cerbin used a Kevin Costner photo in her USA Today article. Miss DC pictures were used a few times in the Washington Post. Number of photos taken this year: just over 550,000.
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