To fallen soldiers --- and photojournalists ...

As a minor rite of spring, I usually have posted something here on the April 30ths of later life  commemorating the fall of Saigon on April 30, 1975, some years after I returned home. Saigon after all had been my home for a year. This is the 45th anniversary of the fall.

Yesterday, April 29, was the 50th anniversary of the beginning of the Cambodian Campaign --- or invasion --- and I was in country for that, flooded in the intelligence center where I worked by material captured there and sent back to Saigon to be assessed.

This morning, I came across an article entitled "A homage to the photojournalists lost to decades of war in Vietnam." Like LIFE photographer Larry Burrows, who took this iconic photograph of Marine Gunnery Sgt. Jeremiah Purdie reaching out to a wounded friend after a firefight south of the DMZ during 1966. Burrows and three other journalists were killed on Feb. 10, 1971, when their helicopter was shot down over the Ho Chi Minh Trail in Laos.

It's impossible to overstate the importance of the raw images these men and women sent home to media outlets in awaking a generally complacent American public to the horrors of that futile war, and the cost.

Naturally, there were those who thought photographs and similar footage depicting the realities of war should not be published. You see that thread of human nature still present among those who, during our current troubles, prefer to blame the messengers and tellers of truth for our restless uncertainties. 

And here's a clip of the West Point Band and Glee Club performing "Mansions of the Lord" from the 2002 film, "We Were Soldiers Once ... and Young," as a small tribute to all who died during that dreadful time.

To fallen soldiers let us sing
Where no rockets fly nor bullets wing
Our broken brothers let us bring
To the Mansions of the Lord

No more bleeding, no more fight
No prayers pleading through the night
Just divine embrace, Eternal light
In the Mansions of the Lord

Where no mothers cry and no children weep
We will stand and guard though the angels sleep
All through the ages safely keep
The Mansions of the Lord