Street execution of a
Vietcong prisoner taken by Eddie Adams1968, for many Americans certain
photographs came to symbolize the brutality of Vietnam War. One was
Adam’s picture of a South Vietnamese police chief, Colonel Nguyen Ngoc
Loan, shooting a Vietcong prisoner in the head point blank range in the
streets of Saigon. It was in the midst of the wild street fighting
during the Tet offensive, when the Vietcong were sweeping through the
cities of South Vietnam. The picture won a 1969 Pulitzer Prize for
Adams, who took it for the Associated Press. Ironically, he later
became a friend of Loan’s and often attempted to explain the context for
the brutal act that the picture alone could not provide: Vietcong
guerrillas had recently massacred a South Vietnamese colonel, his wife
and six children in their home.
Vietnam with Love
2011
Tommas Titus Kurniawan
