I PROTEST!
Khe Sanh, Vietnam

VG+. TRADE PAPERBACK. (NY: New American Library, 1968). First printing. Unpaginated, profusely illustrated with photographs.

Barbara Baker Burrows writes: "Tucked up in the northwest corner of South Vietnam, the U.S. Marine outpost at Khe Sanh's proximity to both Laos and the DMZ, supply routes for the enemy's men and materiel, was the very reason for its existence. The military leadership had determined that this was where the enemy had to be stopped. Intelligence estimated that six thousand Marines faced a force of 40,000. Comparisons were made to the situation which had led to the French defeat at Dien Bien Phu fourteen years earlier. ~~~ For months Khe Sanh dominated the news from Vietnam, later sharing the headlines with the pivotal 1968 Tet offensive. In a still unresolved debate, one side argues that Khe Sanh was just a 'feint' to draw troops away from South Vietnam's urban areas which were the targets of Tet. Whatever the truth, Khe Sanh was important. President Johnson had even had the Pentagon build a table model of the Khe Sanh plateau for the White House basement Situation Room. ~~~ Through weeks of incoming bombardment, the encircled Marines fought back, while unprecedented American air power pounded the besieging North Vietnamese. Almost 500 Marines were lost, perhaps twenty times as many of the enemy. ~~~ Inside the camp, along with the explosions, the heroism and the death, Duncan also caught the pain and even a tenderness. The enduring effectiveness of his work is not in some photographic illustration of 'body count', a concept David so vehemently abhorred, but in the faces and, closer still, in the intensity of a soldiers' eyes. Their stare alone can tell the story of the horrors of war. ~~~ I'm one at heart, David said of the Marines. I know their character from the past. There's something kind of marvelous about them; it's their simplicity, their generosity, their casual sharing of everything they have. The signature photographer of the Korean War was back with his beloved Marines, and the pictures show it: His last frames from Khe Sanh, grainy gravure black and grays of helicopters carrying out the dead.

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In 1943 David Douglas Duncan was commissioned a second lieutenant in the U.S. Marine Corps. His early assignments included commanding a photo lab in an aviation unit near Honolulu. Not destined to remain in the rear echelon, he soon found himself covering guerrilla warfare behind Japanese lines in the Solomon Islands. He then covered Marine Corps combat aviation units on Okinawa and other islands. ~~~ By the end of World War II Duncan was a decorated lieutenant colonel (Legion of Merit, Purple Heart, two Distinguished Flying Crosses, and three Air Medals). One of his final photographic assignments as a Marine was covering the Japanese surrender on the battleship USS Missouri. ~~~ In September 1950, after the 1st Marine Division landed at Inchon, Duncan covered the attack to recapture Seoul and the subsequent movement inland. He was the personification of the word 'embedded' decades before the word became popular in journalistic circles. ~~~ He shared foxholes and rations with Marines as they drove the North Koreans from Seoul and moved inland. Life magazine published many of his photos that portrayed the pitfalls and perils of combat. His photos also made the cover of Life and were published in the book This Is War? (Little Brown and Co., 1990), which won the United States Camera Gold Medal award. ~~~ The battle for Khe Sanh in Vietnam lured dozens of correspondents and photographers. Most of them flew in, put a 'Khe Sanh' dateline on their work, then left immediately. Duncan spent more than a few hours at Khe Sanh. His graphic photos appeared in Life magazine. As a result of his visit he published his antiwar book, I Protest, filled with somber combat photos.

Originally published at $1, now long since OUT OF PRINT. An important book, scarce in this condition.

$30.00