"Vietnam became part of my DNA; everything that has happened to me since has been informed by that experience. I was 24, and my first year as a combat photographer was so intense, and there were so many close calls, I really never figured to see 25. When I celebrated that birthday in Saigon, I felt that every one after was a bonus. So far that windfall has added up to an extra 43 years! I have tried to use them well.
I returned to the states in mid-1973 to work for Time magazine. One of my early assignments was the Watergate melee, and I was also assigned to photograph House Minority Leader Gerald R. Ford after Vice President Spiro Agnew resigned in the fall of that year. A portrait that I took of Ford ran on the cover of Time when Nixon announced that he would replace Agnew as the new vice president. Time then assigned me to cover Ford full-time. When Nixon resigned, and Ford replaced him, he asked me to be his chief photographer. With that job came total access, not just to the president and his family, but to everything that was going on behind the scenes. It was quite an honor, wildly exciting and one of the most professionally and personally rewarding times of my life.
On March 3, 1975, six months into the Ford presidency, South Vietnam began to unravel when the North Vietnamese army attacked the Central Highlands city of Ban Me Thuot. After a few days of heavy fighting that saw thousands of casualties, particularly among the civilian population, that key city fell to the North Vietnamese. This was the beginning of the end for South Vietnam."
http://www.politico.com/magazine/gallery/2015/04/inside-the-final-days-of-vietnam/002202-031457.html?ml=po#.VUURHvl_Okp
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