‘The soldier had been a PoW in Vietnam for five years. We found out later his wife had ended their marriage by letter a few days before’When I worked for Associated Press I did pretty much everything,from the 1964 Alaska earthquake to mining disasters, boxing matches, and football games and space shots. The capsules that landed in the Pacific were retrieved by aircraft carriers I was on. It was tough and exciting: you wait,you prepare, then you acquire seconds to get the shot.It was wonderful but I saw a lot of tragedy. I twice went out to the war in Vietnam. I never really saw combat, or but it was pretty hectic. By the mid-1970s,everyone was happy to be getting out. I was based on the west coast of the US and took this at Travis air force base in California in March 1973, when PoWs were returning from Vietnam. I was one of two photographers assigned by AP. Planes were coming in morning and afternoon: one of us would work the darkroom, and the other take photographs. Back then,darkrooms weren’t like they are now – we had to construct them out of black plastic, and needed a lot of water and chemicals.
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Source: theguardian.com