During the Vietnam War

Photograph:  0309.jpg 

A young officer uses a mud puddle as both sink and mirror as he shaves at the An Khe base camp of the 1st Cavalry Division. (Hodierne)

This photograph depicts the life the soldiers (officers) lived during the Vietnam War. It illustrates how this officer uses any resource around him to help satisfy his needs. As the photograph shows this officer uses the mud puddle water to shave himself and at the same time he uses the mud puddle as a mirror to look at himself and see how that shaving is going.

This photograph demonstrates that the life during the Vietnam War was not easy for the soldiers. In the photograph you can visualize the bad conditions they (soldiers) live at the An Khe base camp. Everything is muddy and I cannot imagine how they manage to live in those horrible conditions, every time they came out of their tents they get dirty, every time they go inside their tents they get dirty the things inside. Getting dirty is just one of the things I cannot stand, and to be honest I do not think no one stands being dirty all the time, especially if you are moving all around a place all day; first thing you want to do is get in the shower, but for these soldiers get in the shower was not an available option they only could use the resources around them like the mud puddle, even though the water in it was not clean.

Background info. 

Name: Jose Sanchez

Rank: Capt. First, three bars of the same length.

Location: An Khe base camp of the 1^st Calvary Division.

23 years old, been in the Army for five years. Capt. Sanchez is waiting to hear orders for the next move they will do.

What will stick with me about this photograph is that it gave me a chance to look back in the times during the Vietnam War and I get like an idea of how an Army soldier lives in battleship, although I already had kind of an idea but with this photograph I realize that now a days we have more technology and now the life of a soldier is a lot of different then how soldiers used to live during wars like in this case Capt. Sanchez that lives at the AN Khe based camp.