20 Years After The Fall : Recollections of five Times Orange County Edition staffers on how the Vietnam War shaped their lives. : Infantry to Photographer--a Changing View of the War

Don Kelsen, 47, Times Staff Photographer

I was an absolutely petrified kid from Whittier who had been drafted into the Army in June, 1968, and by Thanksgiving was out beating the bush in an infantry rifle squad with the 101st Airborne near Phu Bai.

I was the absolute opposite of a reckless war hero. I let anyone who wanted to listen know that I was a photographer and I wanted to serve out my time with a camera, not an M-16.

My fire team leader, Jack, got a job in the rear when the division chaplain asked him if he knew anyone with journalism abilities. Jack said he did. But instead of telling the chaplain about me, Jack left to write a battalion newsletter that was sent out to the troops with the mail.

One day he showed up and told me his stories were starting to go out to the division newspaper and that he needed a photographer.

My life changed that day from being a grunt in the field eating C-rations, having two hot Cokes a day, mail whenever it came and clean fatigues once a month to a routine where I was able to more or less manipulate my own destiny.

Jack and I would get on a chopper and follow one of the companies for a few days, then send the photographs to the photo lab at Camp Eagle for publication in the division newsletter and occasionally Stars and Stripes.

We were able to bounce around and I saw more of the country and Army operations than I would have seen if I were just in Charley Company.

Nearing my 21st birthday, I was supposed to photograph an operation near the Laotian border: a combat assault into a North Vietnamese Army base camp in triple canopy, jungle so thick it obscured the sky.

But as the helicopters were leaving the mountaintop firebase, I said to myself, “It’s my 21st birthday, I’m not going!” Instead, I spent my birthday with my friends eating the cake my mother had sent me.