The role of Armor in the Vietnam War. Early in the Vietnam War Pentagon Officials believed Vietnam was no place for armor. They were wrong. The tanks, Armored Personnel Carriers, self-propelled howitzers, and armored gun trucks played a vital role in defending forward fire support bases, landing zones, bridges, and convoys. Moreover, the tanks, armored infantry and armored cavalry were very effective in search and destroy and reconnaissance missions, and were a formidable force in combat assault operations. In addition to the 150 photographs, there are official after-action reports, and contemporaneous articles detailing battles between American armored fighting vehicles and the North Vietnamese Army and Viet Cong. There are photos of one of the Soviet-made T-76 Tanks that attacked Ben Het Special Forces Camp near the Laotian border, which was the only tank-to-tank battle between American and North Vietnamese tanks in the Vietnam War. Most of the 150 photographs in this 5X9 Vietnam War pictorial were made from slides.

That is why they are so sharp and the colors so true. Many of them look as though they could have been taken yesterday. I arrived in Vietnam in the summer of 1968 with an Agfa 35mm camera that I had purchased while stationed in Germany. The camera only lasted about one week in Vietnam because it was the Monsoon season in the Central Highlands, and rust from the rain and high humidity ruined it. Since the unit I was in never went into the 4th Infantry Division basecamp, Camp Enari, in Pleiku where the PX was, I spent the first half of my Vietnam tour of duty without a camera to document the extraordinary events, places, and people I encountered. Then, early in 1969, I went on R&R, and while in basecamp on my way to Hong Kong, I bought an Olympus 35mm camera at the PX. So, it was only during the last half of my tour, the first half of 1969, that I took all of the photos that I have now. Al Hogue, who was in the same mechanized infantry scout squad that I was in, also took many pictures.

Using his Canon Electro 35mm camera, his pictures were all shot during the last half of 1969. The majority of the pictures in this Vietnam pictorial were made by Al. Al has a good eye for photography and a talent for capturing a moment in time and creating pictures that say a lot. Our pictures bring back memories from more than fifty years ago and they mean a lot to us. We like to show them to our friends and family and other Veterans and tell them the stories associated with each one. Since most of the guys who served in Vietnam did not have cameras and therefore have no pictures, we decided to combine our photos to share with them and anyone else that might be interested in that extraordinary period of U.S. military history.