Taking pictures and film of the pentagon and u. S. Congress. The work of these units frequently found its way into the u. S. Media at the time and have been used in many books and museum exhibits since then. Next, from the National Archives in washington, d. C. , five vietnam war veterans who served in the special Photographic Office share images and film while discussing their combat experiences in documenting the war. This is about 90 minutes. Now, ill ask all of the Vietnam Veterans or any United States veterans who served on active duty in the u. S. Armed forces at any time from november 1, 1955 to may 15, 1975, to stand and be recognized. [applause] as you leave, we will present each of you with a pin. The United States of america vietnam war is an initiative and the last event of thanks. Last veterans day we opened our Current Special exhibition remembering vietnam. If you havent already, i hope you will take some time to go through it before it closes on january 6. Its an exploration of the vietnam war featuring interviews with american and vietnamese veterans and civilians with firsthand experience of the events as well as historic analysis. Its a fascinating selection of newly discovered and iconic original documents, photographs, film footage, and artifacts that illuminate 12 critical episodes in the war that divided the peoples of both the United States and vietnam. The visual imagery of remembering vietnam relies on the talents of many photographers who risked their own safety to capture the story of war in pictures. Tonight well hear from some of them and learn their own stories. Its my pleasure to welcome lee reynolds to the stage. Hes the Strategic Communications officer for the u. S. Army center of military history here in washington. Previously he was senior manager of the University Studios hollywood tour from 2014 to 2016 and now works as an independent contractor, as an actor, screen writer and creatorproducer. His more than 20 Years Experience in the Entertainment Industry as an actors screen writer, playwright, stage manager, military technical adviser, producer an director, ladies and gentlemen, please welcome lee reynolds on the panel. Mrauz[applause] thank you to all of you coming out to attend event. The event. Im lee reynolds, Strategic Communications officer for the u. S. Army center of military history and ill be moderating the event this evening. The center of military history is responsible for the recording, the official history of the army in peace and war. While advising the army staff on historical matters. Our core responsibilities are to educate the force and the public, to inspire americas men and women to serve, and to preserve our army heritage. I invite you to visit our website at history. Army. Nil. For more information about our commission responsibilities, about the museums we manage and about the publications that we provide. Were proud and honored to support the 50th commemoration of the vietnam war with this evenings Panel Presentation about the department of the army special Photographic Office or daspo for short. It was authorized by president kennedy in 1962 and closed down in 1974 following the end of the vietnam war. It was charged with providing documentary films and quality photo products showing the armys operations worldwide. They would report directly to the army chiefofstaff. Three detachments were created. One in europe, covering operations there. One in hawaii covering operations throughout the pacific theater, and one in panama, to cover operations in central and south america. Tonight well focus on the pacific daspo office and vietnam specifically. The daspo teams made up in part by the men you see on the stage tonight would carry stateoftheart equipment in the day, out into combat, and often by themselves, and would embed in army units in the field. They went where civilian journalists either couldnt go or wouldnt go. The results, as you will see tonight, captured on film through their lenses, were some of the most iconic pictures and films of the vietnam war. These images were not just used by the army. They could be seen in newspapers, magazines, and films throughout the United States and the world. Now, at the end of the presentation tonight were going to have about 10 minutes for questions and answers. Hopefully on way in yall were able to get some index cards and pencils to write down your questions. We have assist ants on each side. They will collect the cards during the presentation and well use those to guide the q a period. If you need an index card or pencil just let one of our assistants know. I would like to introduce dr. Erik villard. Hes the digital historian for the center of military history and the armys principle vietnam war historian. Hes the author of a new book called staying the course, october 1967 to september 1968. Hell be available in the lobby after the event to sign copies of the book and his book will be available for purchase. Ladies and gentlemen, dr. Villard. [applause] thank yall for coming. Those of you who are tuning into the live stream and those who will see this afterwards, this is a really exciting event. Something thats been in the works for a while, and im just pleased to be here with these great photographers. I was hired at the u. S. Army center of military history to write the book which became staying the course, which is the Third Operational combat history in the vietnam war series. And it was published about a year ago. In fact, we had the opening book event here, in the National Archives. In the course of doing the research i came to really value the photographic archival history. The images, the film from the vietnam war, helping me to understand what i was reading in the text. And being a visual person anyways, i suppose, i gravitated towards it, and about four or five years ago, in fact, i created a facebook base group, vietnam war history org as a way to reaching out to families and getting more information and one of the draws, i think, of this group, was these great photos that i was finding at the National Archives. I was going up to college park and digitizing these, and, you know, i had seen a lot of photos but a lot of these i had never seen before and it was such a revelation. Over the course of digitizing these photos, certain names popped up again and again. Lethune, atchison, you know, and hanson and others. And when i formed the Facebook Group and began putting out these photos, which i would digitally enhance, you know, photo shop and some other programs, so this photo you see behind you is the current generation of these photos where i put the pixie dust over them, take out the dings and scratches and adjust the color, these guys were around. And so they became members of the group and so i got to know them and they remain members of the group. Its such a wonderful thing to be able to post photos, and say, hi, bob, what were you doing that day when you took that shot . Oh, yeah, we were this, that, and the other. As a result of that kind of dialogue, i thought, this is something we need to share with everyone. The world need to know about these guys and hear the stories behind the photos. Thats where the idea behind this came. So we worked together and again i want to give a special thanks to our executive director of the center of military history, charles jr. Who believed in this vision, and supported us and made this all happen. So tonight youre going to hear from five of the top photographers for the vietnam war and i say this as the beginning of an ongoing project. Again, im posting these photos on my social media feeds and you also will find them on the center of military history social media feeds, so i encourage you to follow ose things and learn more about it. But tonight, were going to hear from these five individuals, and im going to run the slide show fomost of them until we get to the final one, but without further adu, i would like to turn over to our first speaker, bill, who will tell us a bit about the kind the history of daspo, and what it took to herd this group of wildcats, keep them in line when they were doing their thing in vietnam. Thank you, erik. Im bill and i was a captain with daspo, and i started with the United StatesArmy Photographic agency, in the pentagon as a Second Lieutenant and worked my way into daspo, and i left there january 1, 1970 to start the new year as a civilian. My mos is an 8500 and an 8511. Whats that . 8500 is a pictorial unit commander and 8511 is a Motion Picture tv director. And in those capacities, i wore a couple of different hats. Well get into that in a moment. But to talk about the origin of daspo, as legend would have it, around 1961 or 1962, general david geoe george decker, im sorry, who was the chiefofstaff of the army at that time, would go to briefings over at the white house with jfk, and the other chiefs were there also, air force, navy, et cetera, and every time decker would go there, he would walk out and he would be furious because he would say, deputy, you know, every time we go in there, hes mouthing off with his photographs and his movies, and he puts us to shame. And i want to do something just like he does. And i want it done now. Of course, curtis was affectionately called iron. But he wanted to compete with le may. So a delta force concept was developed with decker and his staff, and he wanted an elite special ops unit and im going to read to you what they really tried to create, and which they did. Im going to read it because i dont want to miss something. He wanted a Rapid Response team. He wanted the team to be full time. He wanted the teams to be highly mobile. He wanted them unincumbered by red tape, security clearances and travel orders. He wanted everybody to have a secret or top secret clearance. Cover worldwide military subjects. He wanted quality, still, and Motion Picture products. He wanted us to have the best equipment. And always tdy into the countries that we went to, and we were told to live the economy, and also, it was special missions that were to be ordered by the deputy chiefofstaff for operations, right out of the pentagon. Thats who we worked for. Thats where our budget came from and the units that they developed were for the pacific, panama, and europe, as lee said, but europe, the deal was, if its going to the pacific, local commands could not take charge or have anything to do with our unit except perhaps give them an office on the base. And so, europe said no, were not going to do that. The pacific said fine. Use your pack. Hands off. Same in panama. Fine, let them come in. Europe said no. So europe never did get a team and it ended up going to conus and thats where it stayed. The objective was Central Control over the assignments, supplies, training, and the disposition of the work product. It got sent where it should go. The action officer to put all of that together was major arthur jones. He was at the pick center. He put a Team Together. Ill be brief. He did a lot of developing with it. He wanted an acronym. They came with daspo. Department of the army special photo office. He cherry picked the photographers that would go into the initial units. They got them from the pick center, and through the course of time, they would go out and try to find enlisted men and officers who had backgrounds in photo. In my particular case i was found by Lieutenant Colonel walter halleran, who found me at fort gordon, georgia, going through the officers communication course. I had three years background in Motion Pictures because i worked for a studio in chicago and ended up having to take my commission from Loyola University in 1965, and he found me and he put me in the pentagon. I thought, boy, this is really a well greased organization. They know what they are doing. No change of commands, no marching bands. You guys dont shoot that. Youre going to do documentaries, training films, combat. Not a Public Information officer or office type ounit. Then lastly, special orders with a license to steal that we were accused of at one time in okinawa. We were on a Top Secret Mission, never told anybody about it. I wont even talk about it tonight. I happened to open up a book. In the middle of the page it was written by the author of the puzzle palace, top secrets or whatever the name of the book was and this was this whole field in the name of the book all about our Top Secret Mission ill read a few lines, we were to take military aircraft. If there was no aircraft available could you take a private airline, pan ham, twa, to get to southeast asia. If that wasnt available you could take a foreign flag. You could rent a ship, a naval boat. You could do anything you wanted to accomplish your mission. If anything would deter us, we could circumvent the problem and do what he wanted. We could rent cars, trains, planes, anything we wanted to. Total freedom to move around. This is what really irritated that colonel. In okinawa. The utilization of government quarters and mess is not required. When we walked in there he said youre not going to a hotel. Youre going to be in the enlisted quarters. I said, sir, we cant function that way. Thats not what our orders say. Going back to what i said originally, living on the economy, we had to be together 24 hours a day. We were a mobile force ready to go. And if the enlisted men were and i was downtown in saigon and we had orders to do something it would probably take us two days to get us altogether. And then also, we would, the enlistment would have to peel potatoes that day because they had kp. This goes the mission, you know. So thats why we lived on the economy. Anything that would adversely affect our performance, we could circumvent. The other thing that ticked that colonel off, thats why we lived we were authorized to wear an carry civilian clothes. He didnt like that. We had to be in uniform. Photo number one is why we were living together, and thats what i was just saying. That we had to be together 24 hours a day. This was the villa that we lived in, and we had how am i doing on time . Two minutes. Ill talk fast. Im trying. We all were on tdy per diem so we chipped in and paid the rent for the house. We had some locals who did our laundry and cooked for us. And the guys would come out and they would have a hot cooked meal and they could get a hot shower. Photo two is in my capacity as an 8500 commander. This was a typical situation at the villa. We called it the villa. It wasnt that fancy. My job was the welfare and safety of my men, and make sure they had a roof over their head and everything was functioning. I had great ncos who made that happen. And basically, thats what was going on. My job every other day was to go to the war room. We call it the war room, it was a briefing room, where i was briefed on what was going on in each of the four cores. I would see where there was activity and i would jog that down. By activity, i mean someplace that was hot i would go back to the villa, put a Team Together and thats where they would go to that location. Many times they hitchhiked. Periodically, we could get them orders to be on a flight, but for the most part, thats what happened. This photo, there would be two or three more teams up country, at this time, so this would be the number of personnel there at any given time. Two or three, nine, 12 other guys up country, while these guys would be back. They were always rotating. They would go up to three or four days. And then, my 8511 capacity, i used to get some really cushy jobs. Here im on the lawn with bob and a couple of other guys. With Vice President humphrey. General westmoreland, ambassador bunker, and the p. R. Guy for saigon, vietnam, at the time. This is what i would call a cushy assignment, im directing, and thats my butt you can see in the photo. The next photo is the opposite, where, this was not so cushy. This is the first movie we made for Lieutenant General kinard, father of helicopter warfare. I went to d. C. , the pentagon and met him. I went back and did a complete series on the division. We were not allowed to shoot. Officers were not allowed. These guys were the pros. Why should we be screwing that up . So the next photo shows me out making that film, and i was shooting, we were on an air assault, and i couldnt resist taking this shot, so i did. And there are some other shots that go along with that that were still trying to find. In that particular film, i had three Motion Picture cameras shooting at one time. Three different choppers. It was a big production, and that was because Lieutenant General kinard said, you want helicopters in the air . Whatever you want, you got. I think at one time we had 15 helicopters up there going to war doing their thing. We shot every conceivable subject in vietnam, and the networks bought our footage. We put the footage on panam, twa, to get it back, the army picket pictorial center. I opened my own advertising agency, p. R. Firm, and di that from 1973 or so to the present day. So, were honored to have some of daspos finest photographers. Motion men sitting here tonight and our next speaker is one of the greatest daspo still photographers, bob. Bob thats me. Im retired, live in mcdonagh, which is south of georgia. In the afternoons i end up at the jonesboro legions. I enlisted in the army in 1964 and graduated from photography story in september of 1965. Like many of my fellow photographers i received orders for daspo pacific located at hawaii. Hawaii. My first thought, there is a god. [laughter] beaches, surfing, bikinis and fun in the sun. I guess at the time being a soldier in the