How Do People View Combat Cameras

The Vietnam War was the nation'due south starting time televised war. Inside hours, combat footage of immature Americans in uniform in the jungles of South Vietnam could be seen in living rooms across the state. Amid those capturing the footage was Corporal William T. Perkins Jr., a twenty-year-former Marine deployed to Vietnam as a gainsay photographer.

Armed with a Bell and Howell 16mm motion picture camera and his personal 35mm nevertheless camera, Perkins documented the actions of his fellow Marines as they supported and defended the Southward Vietnamese people confronting the communist Viet Cong and Northward Vietnamese forces. For his heroism in protecting those Marines, Perkins became the only gainsay lensman ever honored every bit a recipient of the Medal of Honor.

On a boat with waves in the background, a young man with blonde hair holds a video camera to his face. He wears a military vest and pants with bare arms. In front of him--the subject he is filming--is a gun or other military equipment on the boat. An operator's forearm is visible holding/manipulating the gun or equipment.

Built-in on Baronial 10, 1947, Perkins grew up hearing rich stories of his family's military service in the Civil War and Globe State of war II. Afterward Perkins expressed an interest in photography, his father bought him a Kodak camera that he used to larn about the hobby while a member of his loftier school photography social club. Afterwards graduation, in 1965, Perkins enrolled at Los Angeles Pierce College to study photography. Restless and patriotic, the following yr Perkins enlisted in the Marine Corps.

Black and white portrait of a young man wearing a military uniform with a white hat. He has a smile, square chin, young face, and attractive eyes.

During kicking army camp, Perkins expressed a desire to be a Marine photographer. Subsequently receiving this consignment, to his chagrin, he found the piece of work as a still lensman at Marine Corps Supply Center, Barstow, California, ho-hum and unfulfilling. "All I practice is take photos of the general in parades," he told his family, as his father recalled years afterward.

That autumn, Perkins requested assignment to the U.S. Regular army Point Center at Fort Monmouth, New Jersey, to receive training in motion picture photography. His headquarters agreed, just with a caveat: Perkins could attend the school, only his follow-on assignment would likely include service in the Democracy of Vietnam. Undeterred, Perkins headed east and eagerly immersed himself in the fine art. "I can't believe how lucky I am to be doing exactly what [I desire] to be doing," he wrote home to his family.

Two photos. A young man with short blonde hair is indoors operating a film video camera. He wears a uniform. He looks into the viewfinder in one image and adjusts a setting in the second image.

On July 17, 1967, Perkins arrived in the Commonwealth of Vietnam. The following day in Phu Bai, the Marines assigned Perkins as a photographer with Service Visitor, Headquarters Battalion, 3d Marine Partition (Reinforced), and issued him a Bong and Howell 16mm Filmo move pic camera and a .45 automatic pistol. The Bell and Howell proved Perkins's primary weapon in the field, supplemented with his personal 35mm still camera. Almost weekly, Perkins mailed his family rolls of his motion-picture show, taken throughout the Marine bases in the northern provinces of South Vietnam.

Beneath are examples of photographs Perkins took during his travels in and around the northern provinces of the Republic of Vietnam in August and September 1967, paired with words he wrote home in letters to his family.

Two photographs of military equipment. The first has a background with trees and mountains. The second has a background seen from a helicopter--a rocky, green, mountainous landscape.

Three children (probably boys), who are barefoot, stand in front of a building with a hut-style thatched roof. The entry way in front of them is made of wood. A garden on both sides of the boys.

Photo taken on the water, a calm river. Thre small canoe-style boats in the water around one much larger boat with wide netting around it held up by wooden poles. About 12 people total in the boats.

On Oct 11, Perkins joined the men of Charlie Company, First Battalion, Outset Marine Regiment, for Functioning Medina. The operation intended to detect, fix, and destroy enemy North Vietnamese Army (NVA) bases in the Hai Lang National Forest. The following twenty-four hours, NVA forces ambushed the Marines in a shower of grenades and bullets. As the ambush intensified, other Marines established a defensive perimeter where they cleared fields of fire and prepared a landing zone to fly out the 11 wounded and one killed and bring in reinforcements. Medevac helicopters arrived that afternoon and Perkins filmed the entire operation.

Only as the last helicopter flew off from the immigration in the dusk'south fading light, all hell broke loose. Three NVA companies assaulted Charlie Company on two sides. Enemy boom and fragmentation grenades rained down upon the Marines from NVA soldiers who tied themselves loftier up in the trees on the perimeter border. Green tracers of the enemy weapons slashed across the American lines as friendly red tracers answered dorsum, the roar of battle punctuated by screams of the wounded. Enveloped by darkness, Perkins took upward a position by a log on the edge of the landing zone perimeter together with Marine Corporal Fred Boxill and Lance Corporals Michael Cole and Dennis Antal.

Black and white photo taken from a low position on the plant-covered ground. Military personnel huddle around the opening of a helicopter with blades spinning, loading someone in. Behind them, a young man in uniform is filming or photographing the scene.

Enemy fire was relentless. Suddenly, an enemy grenade appeared in the air, silhouetted against the flash of some other explosion. Antal saw the grenade falling, as did Perkins. Propping himself up on his arms, his Bell and Howell still strapped to his breast, Perkins cried out "incoming grenade" equally the explosive landed behind the log, three anxiety from the huddled Marines. Perkins dove at the grenade, kicking Antal in the process, and tucked it securely beneath his chest. The grenade exploded, the blast lifting Antal in the air as shrapnel wounded both him and Boxill.

Equally a fellow Marine treated the two wounded men, a navy corpsman arrived to bank check on Perkins. When Antal asked, "Is he all right?" the corpsman shook his head. Every bit dawn broke on October 13, 1967, eight Marines—including Perkins—lay dead, 39 men were wounded, and 40 enemy lay dead scattered in and effectually the landing zone perimeter.

Photograph of a film camera. Viewfinder and film reel are visible. It appears to be worn and hard-used, perhaps slightly destroyed in some areas.

In a private anniversary at the White House on June xx, 1969, President Richard M. Nixon presented Corporal Perkins's posthumously awarded Medal of Accolade to his parents, William and Marilane Perkins. The citation accompanying the decoration proclaimed how Perkins,

in a valiant human action of heroism, hurled himself upon the grenade absorbing the impact of the explosion with his own body, thereby saving the lives of his comrades at the toll of his own. Through his infrequent backbone and inspiring valor in the face of sure death, Corporal Perkins reflected great credit upon himself and the Marine Corps and upheld the highest traditions of the The states Naval Service. He gallantly gave his life for his state.

Black and white posed photo taken outside the White House. A woman holds a Medal of Honor in a frame. She wears white and stands beside a man in a suit. Around then, President Nixon and others.

Fifty years later on his heroic deed, Perkins's deportment are not forgotten. In the Medal of Accolade department of the museum's exhibitionThe Cost of Liberty: Americans at War, visitors will be able to view Perkins's posthumously awarded Medal of Honor and Majestic Heart first in early November 2017. These decorations accompany Perkins'south Bell and Howell photographic camera, begetting the scars of an enemy grenade and dirt from the Hai Lang Forest. The photographic camera is on loan to us from the National Museum of the Marine Corps; this display is the offset fourth dimension the photographic camera and Medal of Honor have e'er been presented together. They'll exist on display here for at to the lowest degree a year. Perkins's films from his fourth dimension in Vietnam remain preserved for viewing at the National Archives in College Park, Maryland. His footage captures the faces and actions of his fellow Marines, images preserved past a selfless young man whose love of country and photography made him a national hero.

Photograph of Medal of Honor. Blue ribbon with a square-shaped section with many gold stars. Medal is a gold star with anchor and beautiful, intricate image engraved in it, including a robed woman.