Cambodian Incursion

 

  


American Base Camp on the Vietnam/Cambodian Border 1970

In the spring of 1970, when Nixon sent troops across the Cambodian border, in what was called the Cambodian Incursion, he asked for photo documentation of ammunition cashes to appease congressional critics.  Just back from R&R in Hawaii where I had gotten married only a week before, I received a call from military headquarters asking that all available photographers be sent into Cambodia.  My motion picture news team was covering a story on a Navy ship in the South China Sea, keeping busy while I was on R&R, so without giving it a second thought (after just getting married) I got on a plane for Pleiku and then a chopper to a base camp near the Cambodian border.

Combat photographer preparing photograph captions, Pleiku.
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Combat photographer preparing photograph captions, Pleiku.

Once in Cambodia, there wasn’t much to see.  At the site of an ammunition cache American troops who had been there for days, had already left.  The weapons cache was about to be reduced to rubble.  After photographing the explosions from the air we moved on.

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