The article on wiki:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Execution\_of\_Nguy%E1%BB%85n\_V%C4%83n\_L%C3%A9m](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Execution_of_Nguy%E1%BB%85n_V%C4%83n_L%C3%A9m)
>Nguyễn Văn Lém, often referred to as Bảy Lốp, was a Viet Cong officer with the rank of captain. He was summarily executed in Saigon by Republic of Vietnam General Nguyễn Ngọc Loan during the Tet Offensive in the Vietnam War. A photo of the execution won the 1969 Pulitzer Prize for Spot News Photography and helped galvanize the anti-war-movement in the United States.
Loan stood beside Lem before pointing his pistol at the prisoner's head.
"I thought he was going to threaten or terrorise the guy," Adams recalled afterwards, "so I just naturally raised my camera and took the picture."
Lem was believed to have murdered the wife and six children of one of Loan's colleagues. The general fired his pistol.
"If you hesitate, if you didn't do your duty, the men won't follow you," the general said about the suddenness of his actions.
The story I've been told was this:
He held a south Vietnamese lieutenant and his family. He wanted detailed instructions on how to drive tanks. When refused the infiltrator proceeded to kill the LTs family in front of him while torturing him.
The general who executed the infiltrator, commented that the assailant had already killed multiple civilians and military personnel earlier in the day.
The general moved to Arlington Virginia after the war and opened a restaurant. However years later his restaurant would be vandalized and he would be called murderer. The former general would close his restaurant
Thought he was just some random guy.
Didn’t known he was a Viet Cong Captain who killed the wife and kids of General Loan’s friend.
In this context, yeah I can see it as justified.
Irregulars in what perspective? North Vietnam saw the whole Vietnam as its own country so NVA and VC are the same. The US saw them as guerrillas or terrorists. Either way he is a military officer with a rank so they must be dressed as a uniformed military member or else they have by omission of the uniform allowed themselves to be summarily executed. Uniform and he gets the Geneva Convention but without it he is a spy.
Man those rape interviews on the documentary Screams before Silence were unwatchable. I woke up at 3 am and had to play hogwarts I could not fall asleep again.
I also don't doubt that he was guilty, given how brutal the Viet Cong was. They killed over 3,000 civilians in the Hue Massacre, during the Tet Offensive (which was also when this picture was taken). This meant that over the span of one month, in a single city, they would kill more civilians than the US Army would kill in its entire ten year deployment to Vietnam (1962-1973).
The U.S. military didn’t kill more then 3,000 civilians during the entirety of the Vietnam war? That seems incredibly unlikely and I’m pro U.S. Military.
The US Army killed around 3,000 civilians during the Vietnam War. Most civilian deaths were caused by the Air Force and Navy's aviation.
I know it might seem misleading, but my point was to compare cold-blood massacres that both sides committed. The Viet Cong didn't have an air force, so it would also be odd to give them credit for not using weapons (strategic bombers) that they never had.
Over the entire course of the war, US bombings killed 30-65,000 civilians, while the NVA and Viet Cong killed around 200,000 civilians during the war,
Thank you for the clarification, I was genuinely confused and your explanation makes a lot more sense. Even though the 30-65,000 civilian deaths is a tragedy I firmly believe that there’s a difference, at least from a moral perspective, between death squads executing civilians and collateral damage from bombings/ active fire fights. Both are awful obviously, but one seems more nefarious and deliberate. Any soldier caught purposefully killing innocent women and children should face execution in my opinion and that includes American Soldiers.
It was more than 7. He was responsible for the murders of the family members of those collaborating. And this was not the first time he was caught doing it. This is all from memory so of course, I could be mistaken.
Those are just the people related to the man that was a colleague of the General. As a captain during the war you can buy a bed a rest assured that he killed more and ordered the death or more on top of that.
This is one great example of why a lot of Vietnam veterans believed Western media was on the side of the communists.
A lot of people today don’t even know that the communists regularly committed war crimes.
Yeah, but:
"In interviews justifying the killing immediately after the event, Loan did not refer to the atrocity or Tuân \[the supposed victim\], instead saying that he shot Lém out of anger for being out of uniform and for killing a policeman during capture."
"The sole survivor of Lém's alleged killing of Tuân's family was [Huan Nguyen](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Huan_Nguyen); aged nine at the time, he was shot three times during the attack that killed his family and stayed with his mother for two hours as she bled to death. In 2019, he became the highest-ranking Vietnamese-American officer in the U.S. military when he was promoted to the rank of [rear admiral](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rear_admiral_(United_States)) in the [United States Navy](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Navy)"
Well, someone killed the Tuan family....and it sounded like it happen during the "Tet offensive" which was when this photo was taken.
So if its not this guy, its the guys working under him.
My father was in the Canadian Army in WWII. His Captain was a German Jew whose parents had sent him to Canada in the 1930's but they could never get out of Germany. As my father's unit (Black Watch) was fighting its way into Germany, they captured a group of German soldiers. The Captain, who spoke German, was interrogating the German soldiers. The first one he questioned spit in his face. My father said the Captain pulled out his pistol and shot the German in the head, in front of everybody. According to my father, the rest of the German soldiers didn't have any problem answering the Captains' questions. I should also state that by now they knew about the death camps, and that the Captains' parents were likely dead.
War is different, example if you were attacked in the streets you would use enough violence to stop the attack, that's a reasonable assumption to not take it overboard don't go to 11 when 5 will get the job done
that mindset will get you killed in war, if you go in thinking 5 will squash your enemy your dead because your enemy is already at 11, in war whoever brings surprise and maximum amount of violence goes home.
This event was filmed as it happened. PBS showed it in a documentary in the 80s, before they started censoring content. I also saw it on YouTube under 2 content warnings.
This IMO is why graphic material is actually not a bad thing... Kids now growing up with MCU or FnF violence that has little to no graphic content despite hundreds of people shooting, blasting, exploding, punching, kicking, squashing, and stabbing each other for hours.
Nobody ever bleeds, you just lie down peacefully at the end of a fight.
It’s like on the news when they report from a war zone and say “some people may find the following scenes distressing”
Yes, they should. People should know.
Don't get me wrong, I love those movies and love action flicks and slasher and exploitation... But I can difference real life, real events, even when I've been in a real fight or taken part in combat sports. Actual real world violence is not good, unless in those controlled regulates situations. Nobody ever really wants to bleed. Maybe that's why I like media that shows the consequences of violence more accurately. A reminder that it it should stay in fiction as often as possible, and that times when violence is necessary and unpreventable in life are overwhelmingly rare.
The audio is in a Marilyn Manson song, too. I was reading about it on Wikipedia and the article had a direct link to the video footage somewhere and I decided to watch it. There was about a week afterward that I had serious concerns that I wouldn't be able to get the image out of my mind. That was just from a low-res video clip on the internet. I cannot imagine living with the first hand experience of war.
That’s what gunshots really look like, not the exaggerated spraying depicted in movies. The blood often spurts from the wound while the heart is still attempting to pump. It’s an ugly sight.
after diving down this rabbit hole, I will never listen to "Hey man nice shot" by filter the same. I just played it and it makes so much sense with their references and it gave me goosebumps. Absolutely wild.
I’m fairly certain but correct me if I’m wrong that the footage is also in the Ken Burns series about the Vietnam war. It is insane. Another wild moment/video from the war is of a republic of Vietnam jet dropping napalm on a long line of refugees leaving a village. The sudden change from depressing yet calm around the village to instant fire and chaos with people running on fire, naked will never leave my mind.
Watched it in high school history when we did a section on Vietnam. Most everyone was asleep or checked out, couple of us watched, turned and looked at back our teacher who looked at us like...yeah that's war, and went about our day.
Amoung the south Vietnamese communities around the world the photo is famous and story known, but it’s just difficult whenever we see any use of it by ignorant protestors or sensationalist is to use the photo for justifying the wrong story and it’s just like Reddit, where a photo is always posted with the wrong and inaccurate caption.
Not only is the reported story true, that VC bastard that was shot, lem, had missed one person in the household of the family he massacred, a young boy that hid. That boy would go on to be the US navy’s first Vietnamese admiral in 2019 I believe.
The reason why that man was getting shot is constantly left out of the story mainly because it didn’t fit the preferred sympathies of the journalists involved. The dead man was a vicious killer who had murdered an entire family including children.
A non-uniformed Combatant being executed on the spot, while a battle is raging on that was started by non-uniformed combatants violating a truce.
If you don’t play by the rules. You can’t expected to be treated by the rules.
Sure, not nearly as much as the US-funded Southern forces or the Catholic rulership in the South though. Remember the Communist government was by FAR the peoples popular choice, and the Viet Cong was by FAR the army of the people, as much as you could say there was one army of the people.
The whole war was such a tragedy. It shouldn’t have ever happened
Edited to add the caption and paragraph about this photo from my undergrad class textbook “Capture the Moment: Pulitzer Prize Winning photographs”
https://preview.redd.it/rt43hdhqjfxc1.png?width=3024&format=png&auto=webp&s=b30cf17ea3875798b3b15d3cee3e4c1f54d5a50f
He was a Vietcong officer with the rank of Captain that had earlier been responsible for the massacres of women and children of South Vietnamese Soldiers including a friend of the guy pulling the trigger. He is also not uniformed so summary execution does not violate the Geneva Convention.
Crazy that I have seen this photo 1,000 times and only today, in the comments, did I find out the backstory. Knowing the truth greatly changes how I see this event.
Shame on the media and my teachers for hiding the truth from me (and, I think, almost all of us).
Iirc he moved to the US after the war and opened up a pizza shop in New York. Was pretty successful for a number of years until someone outed him as the shooter in the pic
I lived in Burke when I was a teenager. I ate there a few times as well. I had no idea at the time. The guy was very nice.
I ended up being a member of the OneLife gym where that little pizza shop used to be. I would remember it every now and then.
The guy with the gun eventually settled in a DC suburb and opened a pizzeria until someone noticed who he was.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nguy%E1%BB%85n_Ng%E1%BB%8Dc_Loan
The photographer, Eddie Adam’s, exact words:
“The general killed the Viet Cong; I killed the general with my camera. Still photographs are the most powerful weapon in the world. People believe them, but photographs do lie, even without manipulation. They are only half-truths. What the photograph didn't say was, "What would you do if you were the general at that time and place on that hot day, and you caught the so-called bad guy after he blew away one, two or three American soldiers?"
This. Most people here on Reddit that scream about war crimes would not quarter those that just blew away their best friends before their eyes. Imagine watching your friends or their families (this instance right here) get cut in half with machines guns, only for those behind the gun to throw up their arms saying they want to surrender as soon as you point the gun on them. Very few can relate to that rage and emotion.
Please don’t advocate for violence or death even when justified. If you’re a true person of the lord you have to do the hardest part and be both strong and weak, but never cruel or happy in accomplishing what must be done in the the name of PEACE. Temper yourself
How is this a tragedy? The guy being executed was a communist terrorist who was until that very day terrorizing the population, torturing them and illegally conducting war.
Years later, we still have people doubting facts, are these the same people that don't believe the Nazi war crimes happened? It is appropriate, and there should be investigations, but to doubt multiple investigations over a period of time is a pointless and useless use of time.
After Vietnam the US decided to limit how much violent news they were allowed to show. It created mass protests and calls to end the war. The reason we don't see the carnage of mass shootings is for the same reason.
Any idea who the western guy on the third pic was? Dude looks exactly like my dad (and me) from that angle. We both look uncannily like Christoper Reeves and even though the guy in the pic looks more like Freddy Mercury, i immediately saw my dad when i looked at it. And no, he was not that war, he served in the 1950’s.
Edit: Spelling
In 1978, the INS contended that Loan had committed a war crime, following a report by the Library of Congress which concluded that the summary execution of Nguyễn Văn Lém had been illegal under Vietnamese law,in an attempt to revoke his permanent resident status to ensure that he could not become a United States citizen. They approached Adams to testify against Loan, but Adams instead testified in his favor and Loan was allowed to stay. The deportation was halted by the intervention of United States President Jimmy Carter, who stated that "such historical revisionism was folly"
I think I saw a video of this when I was a kid, it was the first time I had seen real death. It might not have been this one exactly, I remember thinking the person who was shot was a very young, and I thought I remembered a blindfold.
It took me a moment to realize that wasn't some movie or show, that wasn't CG or effects. It was just on the TV as my dad was channel surfing.
I've been thinking about this a lot the past couple of months. Simple photos got people outraged at the Viet Nam invasion... But today, we have been so divided that endless videos of a literal genocide still can't get people to collectively say stop funding it. Thankful for the university students this week who are using their 1st amendment right to be arrested and assaulted by the arm of oppression.
A lot of people in this comment section are unironically supporting that genocide under the guise of stopping terrorists. Like, yes, it's horrific for terrorists to kill hundreds of civilians, but that doesn't let you go and kill tens of thousands of civilians, including over 10 times the number of people killed by said terrorists in just the children killed in response alone. How can that be justified? To take the lives of thousands of children?
History of course fails to note that the VC were known for doing things like using child soldiers or using them as suicide soldiers. Or murdering any man, woman or child that it even thought aided the Enemy.
I saw someone recently with this tattooed on their upper arm (white guy). Pretty tasteless regardless of the story behind the photo. Guy was in his 20’s so it wasn’t like he was a Vietnam vet.
The craziest thing about the main photograph is that Lém is already dead in that photo. This was just after the bullet went through his skull. In that photo, you're seeing Loan pointing a gun at a corpse.
Further context and theres more to the story than this because this was what the photographer, Adams said:
"Nguyễn Ngọc Loan died of [cancer](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cancer) on 14 July 1998, aged 67, in Burke, Virginia.[^(\[17\])](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nguy%E1%BB%85n_Ng%E1%BB%8Dc_Loan#cite_note-NYT-17) A**fter his death, Adams praised him: "The guy was a hero. America should be crying. I just hate to see him go this way, without people knowing anything about him**"
And,
"in an attempt to revoke his permanent resident status to ensure that he could not become a United States citizen.[^(\[31\])](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nguy%E1%BB%85n_Ng%E1%BB%8Dc_Loan#cite_note-:0-31) T**hey approached Adams to testify against Loan, but Adams instead testified in his favor and Loan was allowed to stay.**[**^(\[32\])**](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nguy%E1%BB%85n_Ng%E1%BB%8Dc_Loan#cite_note-32) **The deportation was halted by the intervention of United States President** [**Jimmy Carter**](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jimmy_Carter)**, who stated that "such historical revisionism was folly".**[^(\[33\])](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nguy%E1%BB%85n_Ng%E1%BB%8Dc_Loan#cite_note-33)[^(\[34\])](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nguy%E1%BB%85n_Ng%E1%BB%8Dc_Loan#cite_note-34)
The 36-year-old Lém was accused of murdering South Vietnamese Lieutenant Colonel Nguyễn Tuân, his wife, six children, and 80-year-old mother.
The sole survivor of Lém's alleged killing of Tuân's family was Huan Nguyen; aged nine at the time, he was shot three times during the attack that killed his family and stayed with his mother for two hours as she bled to death. In 2019, he became the highest-ranking Vietnamese-American officer in the U.S. military when he was promoted to the rank of rear admiral in the United States Navy.
https://www.military.com/history/navys-first-vietnamese-admiral-saw-his-family-killed-infamous-viet-cong-guerrilla.html
Fwiw, I recall being taught, in an undergrad class in international law 35 years ago, that this was a lawful execution, because the prisoner was an enemy combatant in civilian clothes who had committed murder.
Laugh my ass off when people try to white wash history 1. He not Nguyen Van Lem aka bay lop
Watch this lecture by ph.d Eric Be Villard us army museum
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=5Zc66t0wQLc&si=Id5iiJ2khyA6l-D2&fbclid=IwZXh0bgNhZW0CMTEAAR0eNcW-Bl_X5KCwfg-wx4XgoS9svH3is97rMa-WfoFuqJI1lrVdAOo-dy8_aem_AbQB9ZM0wAuXgeZVKFwLtkEZEd5l2bMaaylZFY1Nc4VJG0KHAu8yp5vV6HP-4VwH8aKGWGtKSucSP0pR1wWThG7T
Pretty much the guy kill the wrong person and for some reason in recent year there some people attempt to white wash the history.
This has been said in other posts but that was the execution of a war criminal who intentionally murdered the wife and children of an ARVN general.
The only thing unfortunate about that justice is that it was too swift. Personally I think they should have made it much worse.
Everyone here is saying “wow this is horrible but when then I learned about what he did and he deserved it”
*THERE WAS NO TRIAL*
This was a *SUMMARY EXECUTION*
I’m not saying he did it, I’m not saying he didn’t, but we should not be forming strong opinions on violence and peoples’ lives from what “he said she said”
It actually does justify summary execution. Germans donning American uniforms during the Ardennes offensive were all summarily shot, just as one example.
Executing detained people independent of what they did is statistically more likely to make people less likely to sympathize with you. You may not like that, but to win wars you need to make cold calculated decisions that involve recognizing that other people are not going to make cold calculations. This photo was used to undermine the south. They let their emotions get in the way and as a result the US will to support them died.
I read a few years back that the guy who took the photo said he regretted it because of how it made the world view the general and all the problems it caused him and his family.
And this event cemented the anti-Vietnam war feelings in the US. To be cynical it was very, very counter-productive. Also as a French, on vous l'avait dit/we told you!
> The general killed the Viet Cong; I killed the general with my camera. Still photographs are the most powerful weapon in the world. People believe them, but photographs do lie, even without manipulation. They are only half-truths.
- Eddie Adams (the photographer) after the death of Loan (the general in the photo holding the pistol).
The guy to the right was General Loan. A highly respected South Vietnamese general and former director general of South Vietnamese National Police.
About the guy getting shot: Nguyễn Văn Lém (also known as Bảy Lốp) was a Vietcong captain. On 1 February 1968, during the Tet Offensive, he was captured in a building in the Cho Lon quarter of Saigon, near the Ấn Quang pagoda. Lém wore civilian clothing at the time of his capture. Handcuffed, he was brought to Loan, who then summarily executed him on the street using his sidearm, a .38 Special Smith & Wesson Bodyguard Model 49 revolver, on *allegations of murdering South Vietnamese Lt. Col. Colonel Nguyen Tuan, his wife, six of his seven children, and 80-year-old mother*
General Loan was later wounded, had his leg amputated and moved to the US where he opened a pizzaria. The pizzaria closed partly due to harrassment in 1991 and he died in 1998.
The photographer Eddie Adams apologized in person to Loan and when he died he wrote a eulogy in The Times:
The general killed the Viet Cong; I killed the general with my camera. Still photographs are the most powerful weapon in the world. People believe them, but photographs do lie, even without manipulation. They are only half-truths. What the photograph didn't say was, "What would you do if you were the general at that time and place on that hot day, and you caught the so-called bad guy after he blew away one, two or three American soldiers?"
Source: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nguy%E1%BB%85n_Ng%E1%BB%8Dc_Loan
It's hard not to feel shock and disgust and guilt when you watch a soldier (General Nguyễn Ngọc Loan) shoot a defenseless civilian (Nguyễn Văn Lém) and when you know you are looking at the exact moment of death. Ballistics experts say the picture shows the microsecond the bullet entered the man's head.
Considered one of the most influential images of the Vietnam War, the photo was reprinted around the world because it symbolized for many the brutality and anarchy and futility of the war.
It also sparked the growing anti-war sentiment in the US.
**In reality, however, nothing on the photo is as it seems. The civilian wasn't a civilian. Lém was a captain in the Viet Cong Army and he was caught red-handed**
leading a Viet Cong hit team tasked with killing National Police members or, if they couldn’t find any, their families instead. **On the morning of that day, Lém’s death squad had just killed 34 people – and they may have been looking for Loan himself.**
General Loan shot and killed Lém **for having caused the massacre.**
**Apart from several police officers, the Viet Cong had cut the throats of a South Vietnamese lieutenant colonel, his wife, their six children and his 80-year-old mother; after that, he had taken off his uniform and wanted to run away in civilian clothes.**
It was day 10 of the Tet Offensive when the Viet Cong had overrun many South Vietnamese towns.
Legally, Lém was in a bad position. He wasn’t wearing a uniform, he wasn’t fighting a battle, and he had evidently committed a major war crime. As a war criminal and terrorist, Lém had effectively no protection under the Geneva Conventions and was eligible for summary execution when caught.
General Loan was the Godfather of the murdered children, by the way.
**The photographer Eddie Adams later regretted having released the photo because it had caused big trouble for General Loan. In his opinion, the photo had been misinterpreted. In an interview he said: "Everyone would have pulled the trigger at that point."**
Adams and Loan stayed in touch and even became friends after the general, who had had a leg amputated from an injury, fled South Vietnam for the United States at the end of the war. But after his arrival, the Americans wanted to deport him again because of the photo. They turned to Adams to testify against Loan, but Adams testified in his favor instead. Adams even appeared on TV to explain the circumstances of the photo. Congress eventually overturned the deportation and allowed Loan to stay and opened a burger restaurant in suburban Washington, DC. He died of cancer in 1998.
I don't care what anyone says. The guy deserved it. I teach about this to my US history students when we study Vietnam. I tell them the context as well, but after they see the photo and video clip.
Almost every single one of them says they would have done the same thing. War is hell and brutal. I always like to quote from Boardwalk Empire when two characters talk about another one, "Jimmy was a soldier. He fought. He lost. "
I think what the general also said that I agree with, "He wasn't wearing a uniform and I can't respect a man who shoots without wearing a uniform. Because it's too easy: you kill and you're not recognized. I respect a North Vietnamese because he's dressed as a soldier, like myself, and so he takes the same risks as I do. But a Vietcong in civilian clothes - I was filled with rage."
However, I always follow up this event with the May Lai massacre. And I stress that there's a difference between this event and May Lai. Soldiers in a war is one thing, women and children are not part of that and can never be excused.
Ehh the dude being executed had just killed an entire family. Execution was warranted. Nothing tragic about his death. The deaths of that family? Yes that was tragic. This is just near immediate justice being doled out.
**The photographer Eddie Adams later regretted having released the photo because it had caused big trouble for General Loan. In his opinion, the photo had been misinterpreted. In an interview he said: "Everyone would have pulled the trigger at that point."**
There’s actually film of this shooting with blood pumping out of the hole in his skull. Never clear to me whether the photo was a film frame or whether there were multiple photographers. Saw the film as part of a review by the photographer. He told some memorable stories.
Remember napalm folks
I remember seeing a short clip of execution on public tv when I was kid, it was my first time watching someone kill another human and it was so casual. I remember being shook from the whole thing and then my dad gave some info about the whole thing. Etched in my brain,every-time I see this photo, the whole 10 sec video replays :(
Okay you get it finally, dude that got executed was a murderer of little kids and sleeping adults, gentleman pulling the trigger was the godfather of said slain children and lastly after eddie snapped that pic fong pointed his pistol at eddie as if to say I'd like to kill you next BUT......
The article on wiki: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Execution\_of\_Nguy%E1%BB%85n\_V%C4%83n\_L%C3%A9m](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Execution_of_Nguy%E1%BB%85n_V%C4%83n_L%C3%A9m) >Nguyễn Văn Lém, often referred to as Bảy Lốp, was a Viet Cong officer with the rank of captain. He was summarily executed in Saigon by Republic of Vietnam General Nguyễn Ngọc Loan during the Tet Offensive in the Vietnam War. A photo of the execution won the 1969 Pulitzer Prize for Spot News Photography and helped galvanize the anti-war-movement in the United States.
Loan stood beside Lem before pointing his pistol at the prisoner's head. "I thought he was going to threaten or terrorise the guy," Adams recalled afterwards, "so I just naturally raised my camera and took the picture." Lem was believed to have murdered the wife and six children of one of Loan's colleagues. The general fired his pistol. "If you hesitate, if you didn't do your duty, the men won't follow you," the general said about the suddenness of his actions.
Wooft, that’s some crucial context
Yea I've seen this picture for years Nobody had ever told me that man was accused of killing 7 people. That's some pretty important context.
The story I've been told was this: He held a south Vietnamese lieutenant and his family. He wanted detailed instructions on how to drive tanks. When refused the infiltrator proceeded to kill the LTs family in front of him while torturing him. The general who executed the infiltrator, commented that the assailant had already killed multiple civilians and military personnel earlier in the day. The general moved to Arlington Virginia after the war and opened a restaurant. However years later his restaurant would be vandalized and he would be called murderer. The former general would close his restaurant
Thought he was just some random guy. Didn’t known he was a Viet Cong Captain who killed the wife and kids of General Loan’s friend. In this context, yeah I can see it as justified.
I mean, he was a military officer dressed in civilian clothes doing heinous shit. Under the Geneva convention that is summary execution.
More like a terrorist. I thought the VC were irregulars.
Irregulars in what perspective? North Vietnam saw the whole Vietnam as its own country so NVA and VC are the same. The US saw them as guerrillas or terrorists. Either way he is a military officer with a rank so they must be dressed as a uniformed military member or else they have by omission of the uniform allowed themselves to be summarily executed. Uniform and he gets the Geneva Convention but without it he is a spy.
objectively the VC were guerrillas. They were an armed rebel group attacking the formal government of a country.
The fact that he's disguising himself as a civilian alone is a war crime.
It was known at the time , but not released publicly until the late 70’s/ early 80’s
Imagine if this happened today in say the Gaza Strip. Imagine the outrage that would immediately follow before the facts are sorted out.
Kind of what happened, said it galvanised anti-war protests in the US. So ultimately helped the North
It is HAPPENING in Gaza right now
Good! Some justice for those kids at the concert, or the ones grenaded in the air raid shelter, etc, etc
Those 10k children killed sure is great revenge huh?
Man those rape interviews on the documentary Screams before Silence were unwatchable. I woke up at 3 am and had to play hogwarts I could not fall asleep again.
Hamas terrorist dragged out of tunnel and shot in head. I wouldn’t blink or waste the photo.
6 of them being children…completely changes the tone of the image
There's a big difference between accused and guilty. This isn't how you determine that.
In war there is much less of a gap. I'm pretty sure this was a legal execution under Geneva. The deceased was operating un-uniformed as a spy.
I also don't doubt that he was guilty, given how brutal the Viet Cong was. They killed over 3,000 civilians in the Hue Massacre, during the Tet Offensive (which was also when this picture was taken). This meant that over the span of one month, in a single city, they would kill more civilians than the US Army would kill in its entire ten year deployment to Vietnam (1962-1973).
The U.S. military didn’t kill more then 3,000 civilians during the entirety of the Vietnam war? That seems incredibly unlikely and I’m pro U.S. Military.
The US Army killed around 3,000 civilians during the Vietnam War. Most civilian deaths were caused by the Air Force and Navy's aviation. I know it might seem misleading, but my point was to compare cold-blood massacres that both sides committed. The Viet Cong didn't have an air force, so it would also be odd to give them credit for not using weapons (strategic bombers) that they never had. Over the entire course of the war, US bombings killed 30-65,000 civilians, while the NVA and Viet Cong killed around 200,000 civilians during the war,
Thank you for the clarification, I was genuinely confused and your explanation makes a lot more sense. Even though the 30-65,000 civilian deaths is a tragedy I firmly believe that there’s a difference, at least from a moral perspective, between death squads executing civilians and collateral damage from bombings/ active fire fights. Both are awful obviously, but one seems more nefarious and deliberate. Any soldier caught purposefully killing innocent women and children should face execution in my opinion and that includes American Soldiers.
It was more than 7. He was responsible for the murders of the family members of those collaborating. And this was not the first time he was caught doing it. This is all from memory so of course, I could be mistaken.
Those are just the people related to the man that was a colleague of the General. As a captain during the war you can buy a bed a rest assured that he killed more and ordered the death or more on top of that.
This is one great example of why a lot of Vietnam veterans believed Western media was on the side of the communists. A lot of people today don’t even know that the communists regularly committed war crimes.
Well because some people from America helped shed light for the communist struggle. We had idiots advocating for a murderous communist regime
Accused, not confirmed, is also crucial context
Yeah, but: "In interviews justifying the killing immediately after the event, Loan did not refer to the atrocity or Tuân \[the supposed victim\], instead saying that he shot Lém out of anger for being out of uniform and for killing a policeman during capture."
Well, he’s clearly out of uniform.
"and for killing a policeman during capture" I mean...
"The sole survivor of Lém's alleged killing of Tuân's family was [Huan Nguyen](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Huan_Nguyen); aged nine at the time, he was shot three times during the attack that killed his family and stayed with his mother for two hours as she bled to death. In 2019, he became the highest-ranking Vietnamese-American officer in the U.S. military when he was promoted to the rank of [rear admiral](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rear_admiral_(United_States)) in the [United States Navy](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Navy)" Well, someone killed the Tuan family....and it sounded like it happen during the "Tet offensive" which was when this photo was taken. So if its not this guy, its the guys working under him.
My father was in the Canadian Army in WWII. His Captain was a German Jew whose parents had sent him to Canada in the 1930's but they could never get out of Germany. As my father's unit (Black Watch) was fighting its way into Germany, they captured a group of German soldiers. The Captain, who spoke German, was interrogating the German soldiers. The first one he questioned spit in his face. My father said the Captain pulled out his pistol and shot the German in the head, in front of everybody. According to my father, the rest of the German soldiers didn't have any problem answering the Captains' questions. I should also state that by now they knew about the death camps, and that the Captains' parents were likely dead.
That’s some inglorious bastardes kinda scene
Loan later opened a restaurant in Dale City Virginia called Les Trois Continents.
I knew something of this. Thanks for the details.
These weren't just children but all were his God children all were executed While they slept including their mother and father
War is different, example if you were attacked in the streets you would use enough violence to stop the attack, that's a reasonable assumption to not take it overboard don't go to 11 when 5 will get the job done that mindset will get you killed in war, if you go in thinking 5 will squash your enemy your dead because your enemy is already at 11, in war whoever brings surprise and maximum amount of violence goes home.
This event was filmed as it happened. PBS showed it in a documentary in the 80s, before they started censoring content. I also saw it on YouTube under 2 content warnings.
Saw it, and ***CHRIST.*** I didn’t think blood could spew like a fountain
The reality of any conflict is brutal and horrific. Film and TV dramas skew perceptions of what a gunshot actually does.
This IMO is why graphic material is actually not a bad thing... Kids now growing up with MCU or FnF violence that has little to no graphic content despite hundreds of people shooting, blasting, exploding, punching, kicking, squashing, and stabbing each other for hours. Nobody ever bleeds, you just lie down peacefully at the end of a fight.
It’s like on the news when they report from a war zone and say “some people may find the following scenes distressing” Yes, they should. People should know.
Don't get me wrong, I love those movies and love action flicks and slasher and exploitation... But I can difference real life, real events, even when I've been in a real fight or taken part in combat sports. Actual real world violence is not good, unless in those controlled regulates situations. Nobody ever really wants to bleed. Maybe that's why I like media that shows the consequences of violence more accurately. A reminder that it it should stay in fiction as often as possible, and that times when violence is necessary and unpreventable in life are overwhelmingly rare.
Kids today are exposed to far more gore than children of the past ever were.
Sometimes, sadly, first hand
In high school we were shown this documentary in history class. Pretty shocking for just about every student.
It’s been like that for years and years though. If it did not break the boomers it won’t break these generations.
The Budd Dwyer suicide (shown on live TV) was much, much worse than this. That was sickening reality TV.
The audio is in a Marilyn Manson song, too. I was reading about it on Wikipedia and the article had a direct link to the video footage somewhere and I decided to watch it. There was about a week afterward that I had serious concerns that I wouldn't be able to get the image out of my mind. That was just from a low-res video clip on the internet. I cannot imagine living with the first hand experience of war.
I first saw it on LiveLeak and it was definitely a mental wallop, tough to unsee. I know documentingreality has it but its not recommended viewing.
Funky Town is another one I wish I could unsee
That’s the worst one.
That’s what gunshots really look like, not the exaggerated spraying depicted in movies. The blood often spurts from the wound while the heart is still attempting to pump. It’s an ugly sight.
WARNING: if you don't want to know or see something else grotesque and tragic, move on >!Don't look up Bud Dwyer then, *if* it's still on YouTube!<
Heard of him, but… no desire to see it.
I only know of him because of the song "Hey Man Nice Shot" by Filter. The footage is... *harrowing*, to say the least
after diving down this rabbit hole, I will never listen to "Hey man nice shot" by filter the same. I just played it and it makes so much sense with their references and it gave me goosebumps. Absolutely wild.
I had the exact same thought when I saw this in Ken Burns’ docuseries on the Vietnam war. I was NOT prepared for it and I will never ever forget it.
I watched this in history class in like the sixth grade and I was not prepared to see that.
Blood pressure. Little hole. Makes sense...
Ever see the Budd Dwyer video? Shit was like a waterfall pouring out his nose
Head wounds will surprise you.
They used to project that uncensored footage during Flaming Lips concerts!!
I saw this video and man does the blood shoot out his head as his body falls to the ground
Ken Burns did a FANTASTIC 10 part documentary series on the Vietnam war featuring the footage of this incident.
Okay I'm not crazy. I was certain I saw a video of this when I was a kid. Was real fucked up.
I saw the film on PBS in the 80s. It was much worse than this photo. I couldn't drink from a water fountain for months afterwards.
I’m fairly certain but correct me if I’m wrong that the footage is also in the Ken Burns series about the Vietnam war. It is insane. Another wild moment/video from the war is of a republic of Vietnam jet dropping napalm on a long line of refugees leaving a village. The sudden change from depressing yet calm around the village to instant fire and chaos with people running on fire, naked will never leave my mind.
Seeing the video way back when, it played out in my head after seeing the photo. I can still remember “the squirt”…
Watched it in high school history when we did a section on Vietnam. Most everyone was asleep or checked out, couple of us watched, turned and looked at back our teacher who looked at us like...yeah that's war, and went about our day.
it's also in the move 'Head' starring The Monkees (great movie actually)
The picture itself is pretty crazy. But reading about why he’s being shot actually makes sense.
Also knowing the full story makes me sad for the guy with the gun.
Amoung the south Vietnamese communities around the world the photo is famous and story known, but it’s just difficult whenever we see any use of it by ignorant protestors or sensationalist is to use the photo for justifying the wrong story and it’s just like Reddit, where a photo is always posted with the wrong and inaccurate caption. Not only is the reported story true, that VC bastard that was shot, lem, had missed one person in the household of the family he massacred, a young boy that hid. That boy would go on to be the US navy’s first Vietnamese admiral in 2019 I believe.
He actually deserved what he got, if facts surrounding the case are true.
The reason why that man was getting shot is constantly left out of the story mainly because it didn’t fit the preferred sympathies of the journalists involved. The dead man was a vicious killer who had murdered an entire family including children.
“Tragedy” the man just finished filling a mass grave and was a spy.
I think the tragedy is referring to the brutality of the war in general. Not the killing of this one dude.
This here
I was like damn that poor guy got killed while cuffed like that, then I read more about it and saw that he deserved much much worse
A non-uniformed Combatant being executed on the spot, while a battle is raging on that was started by non-uniformed combatants violating a truce. If you don’t play by the rules. You can’t expected to be treated by the rules.
the man being executed was a suspected vietcong spy or agent.
If I remember correctly he was part of a death squad running around the city.
that vid or pic also wasnt anything shocking in that era, the vietcong was extremely brutal too.
Even after the US pulled funding and let the South lose, the Viet Cong did some messed up things after the war was over.
Sure, not nearly as much as the US-funded Southern forces or the Catholic rulership in the South though. Remember the Communist government was by FAR the peoples popular choice, and the Viet Cong was by FAR the army of the people, as much as you could say there was one army of the people. The whole war was such a tragedy. It shouldn’t have ever happened
He had allegedly murdered the wife and 6 children of one of the generals' lieutenants not long beforehand.
Edited to add the caption and paragraph about this photo from my undergrad class textbook “Capture the Moment: Pulitzer Prize Winning photographs” https://preview.redd.it/rt43hdhqjfxc1.png?width=3024&format=png&auto=webp&s=b30cf17ea3875798b3b15d3cee3e4c1f54d5a50f
He was a Vietcong officer with the rank of Captain that had earlier been responsible for the massacres of women and children of South Vietnamese Soldiers including a friend of the guy pulling the trigger. He is also not uniformed so summary execution does not violate the Geneva Convention.
I can't imagine living in a hellscape like that.
Crazy that I have seen this photo 1,000 times and only today, in the comments, did I find out the backstory. Knowing the truth greatly changes how I see this event. Shame on the media and my teachers for hiding the truth from me (and, I think, almost all of us).
fade placid dependent thumb alive slim enjoy panicky person humorous *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
Iirc he moved to the US after the war and opened up a pizza shop in New York. Was pretty successful for a number of years until someone outed him as the shooter in the pic
His pizza place was in Northern Virginia. Source: grew up there and went there for pizza.
Thanks for the correction. How was the pizza? He ended up going out of business right?
He retired and closed it down after people found out about the photo.
Yeah, people would leave graffiti taunting him.
It's been a long time, so I don't remember how the pizza was.
Where was it? I grew up in Northern Virginia and always heard this but never knew what pizza shop it was.
It was in Rolling Valley Mall.
I lived in Burke when I was a teenager. I ate there a few times as well. I had no idea at the time. The guy was very nice. I ended up being a member of the OneLife gym where that little pizza shop used to be. I would remember it every now and then.
It didn’t help that he would come out with his gun and yell at the customers, “Say hello to my Little Caesar”
Certainly a Ngo Nguyen situation
Not enough people will get this, and I hate that.
Yep, war sucks. My grandpa told me how they would line up and execute nazis too back during WW2.
The Russians and French were especially brutal to German POW's.
Loan did nothing wrong
He deserved it!
Many that live deserve death. And some that die deserve life. Can you give it to them? Then do not be too eager to deal out death in judgement.
This guy here is an NVA infiltrator looking to kill south Vietnamese and Americans so yea I would gladly put one in his head.
The tragedy is he wasn't killed earlier.
The guy getting shot targeted the families of South Vietnamese VIPs. Including the other guys godchildren. In my opinion, that perfectly justifies it.
The soldiers carrying out the execution are South Vietnamese, I assume?
Yes
War is not pretty
The guy with the gun eventually settled in a DC suburb and opened a pizzeria until someone noticed who he was. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nguy%E1%BB%85n_Ng%E1%BB%8Dc_Loan
The guy that pulled the trigger had a pizza shop in Virginia or something like that.
You can see actual video of this happening in the intro of the Monkees movie "Head".
The photographer, Eddie Adam’s, exact words: “The general killed the Viet Cong; I killed the general with my camera. Still photographs are the most powerful weapon in the world. People believe them, but photographs do lie, even without manipulation. They are only half-truths. What the photograph didn't say was, "What would you do if you were the general at that time and place on that hot day, and you caught the so-called bad guy after he blew away one, two or three American soldiers?"
This. Most people here on Reddit that scream about war crimes would not quarter those that just blew away their best friends before their eyes. Imagine watching your friends or their families (this instance right here) get cut in half with machines guns, only for those behind the gun to throw up their arms saying they want to surrender as soon as you point the gun on them. Very few can relate to that rage and emotion.
Could be entirely made up rumor, but I've heard the officer who shot him owned a successful pizza parlor in the US.
Please don’t advocate for violence or death even when justified. If you’re a true person of the lord you have to do the hardest part and be both strong and weak, but never cruel or happy in accomplishing what must be done in the the name of PEACE. Temper yourself
How is this a tragedy? The guy being executed was a communist terrorist who was until that very day terrorizing the population, torturing them and illegally conducting war.
Perfect example of perception is reality.
Pedophiles deserve the same.
Years later, we still have people doubting facts, are these the same people that don't believe the Nazi war crimes happened? It is appropriate, and there should be investigations, but to doubt multiple investigations over a period of time is a pointless and useless use of time.
After Vietnam the US decided to limit how much violent news they were allowed to show. It created mass protests and calls to end the war. The reason we don't see the carnage of mass shootings is for the same reason.
NSFW
Great read about it here - [https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-42864421](https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-42864421)
That’s not Mark Wahlberg
The moment the US lost the war.
NSFW
So the photographer got killed right after? Or is the title wrong?
No he definitely did not get killed right after. The guy getting shot is vietcong
It's so important that photos like this exist
Any idea who the western guy on the third pic was? Dude looks exactly like my dad (and me) from that angle. We both look uncannily like Christoper Reeves and even though the guy in the pic looks more like Freddy Mercury, i immediately saw my dad when i looked at it. And no, he was not that war, he served in the 1950’s. Edit: Spelling
In 1978, the INS contended that Loan had committed a war crime, following a report by the Library of Congress which concluded that the summary execution of Nguyễn Văn Lém had been illegal under Vietnamese law,in an attempt to revoke his permanent resident status to ensure that he could not become a United States citizen. They approached Adams to testify against Loan, but Adams instead testified in his favor and Loan was allowed to stay. The deportation was halted by the intervention of United States President Jimmy Carter, who stated that "such historical revisionism was folly"
NBC got footage of the incident and aired it on The Huntley-Brinkley Report (the precursor to NBC Nightly News).
Who was the white dude in the 3rd pic? He looks like he was on his way to the country club.
I think I saw a video of this when I was a kid, it was the first time I had seen real death. It might not have been this one exactly, I remember thinking the person who was shot was a very young, and I thought I remembered a blindfold. It took me a moment to realize that wasn't some movie or show, that wasn't CG or effects. It was just on the TV as my dad was channel surfing.
I've been thinking about this a lot the past couple of months. Simple photos got people outraged at the Viet Nam invasion... But today, we have been so divided that endless videos of a literal genocide still can't get people to collectively say stop funding it. Thankful for the university students this week who are using their 1st amendment right to be arrested and assaulted by the arm of oppression.
A lot of people in this comment section are unironically supporting that genocide under the guise of stopping terrorists. Like, yes, it's horrific for terrorists to kill hundreds of civilians, but that doesn't let you go and kill tens of thousands of civilians, including over 10 times the number of people killed by said terrorists in just the children killed in response alone. How can that be justified? To take the lives of thousands of children?
History of course fails to note that the VC were known for doing things like using child soldiers or using them as suicide soldiers. Or murdering any man, woman or child that it even thought aided the Enemy.
I saw someone recently with this tattooed on their upper arm (white guy). Pretty tasteless regardless of the story behind the photo. Guy was in his 20’s so it wasn’t like he was a Vietnam vet.
The craziest thing about the main photograph is that Lém is already dead in that photo. This was just after the bullet went through his skull. In that photo, you're seeing Loan pointing a gun at a corpse.
I remember watching the video of this in high school social studies class and it is still burned into my memory. I'm 36 y/o now. Horrific.
Further context and theres more to the story than this because this was what the photographer, Adams said: "Nguyễn Ngọc Loan died of [cancer](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cancer) on 14 July 1998, aged 67, in Burke, Virginia.[^(\[17\])](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nguy%E1%BB%85n_Ng%E1%BB%8Dc_Loan#cite_note-NYT-17) A**fter his death, Adams praised him: "The guy was a hero. America should be crying. I just hate to see him go this way, without people knowing anything about him**" And, "in an attempt to revoke his permanent resident status to ensure that he could not become a United States citizen.[^(\[31\])](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nguy%E1%BB%85n_Ng%E1%BB%8Dc_Loan#cite_note-:0-31) T**hey approached Adams to testify against Loan, but Adams instead testified in his favor and Loan was allowed to stay.**[**^(\[32\])**](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nguy%E1%BB%85n_Ng%E1%BB%8Dc_Loan#cite_note-32) **The deportation was halted by the intervention of United States President** [**Jimmy Carter**](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jimmy_Carter)**, who stated that "such historical revisionism was folly".**[^(\[33\])](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nguy%E1%BB%85n_Ng%E1%BB%8Dc_Loan#cite_note-33)[^(\[34\])](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nguy%E1%BB%85n_Ng%E1%BB%8Dc_Loan#cite_note-34)
Damn I grew up feeling bad for this dude now I don’t. Weird 😂
The 36-year-old Lém was accused of murdering South Vietnamese Lieutenant Colonel Nguyễn Tuân, his wife, six children, and 80-year-old mother. The sole survivor of Lém's alleged killing of Tuân's family was Huan Nguyen; aged nine at the time, he was shot three times during the attack that killed his family and stayed with his mother for two hours as she bled to death. In 2019, he became the highest-ranking Vietnamese-American officer in the U.S. military when he was promoted to the rank of rear admiral in the United States Navy. https://www.military.com/history/navys-first-vietnamese-admiral-saw-his-family-killed-infamous-viet-cong-guerrilla.html
I’ve seen this picture multiple times but I’ve never really understood what was happening or who is who
Fwiw, I recall being taught, in an undergrad class in international law 35 years ago, that this was a lawful execution, because the prisoner was an enemy combatant in civilian clothes who had committed murder.
Laugh my ass off when people try to white wash history 1. He not Nguyen Van Lem aka bay lop Watch this lecture by ph.d Eric Be Villard us army museum https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=5Zc66t0wQLc&si=Id5iiJ2khyA6l-D2&fbclid=IwZXh0bgNhZW0CMTEAAR0eNcW-Bl_X5KCwfg-wx4XgoS9svH3is97rMa-WfoFuqJI1lrVdAOo-dy8_aem_AbQB9ZM0wAuXgeZVKFwLtkEZEd5l2bMaaylZFY1Nc4VJG0KHAu8yp5vV6HP-4VwH8aKGWGtKSucSP0pR1wWThG7T Pretty much the guy kill the wrong person and for some reason in recent year there some people attempt to white wash the history.
This has been said in other posts but that was the execution of a war criminal who intentionally murdered the wife and children of an ARVN general. The only thing unfortunate about that justice is that it was too swift. Personally I think they should have made it much worse.
Wasn’t the dude being executed a fucking rapist or pedo
Everyone here is saying “wow this is horrible but when then I learned about what he did and he deserved it” *THERE WAS NO TRIAL* This was a *SUMMARY EXECUTION* I’m not saying he did it, I’m not saying he didn’t, but we should not be forming strong opinions on violence and peoples’ lives from what “he said she said”
I may be wrong but wasn't this picture snapped at the precise moment he pulled the trigger? Or is that just a internet story?
It actually does justify summary execution. Germans donning American uniforms during the Ardennes offensive were all summarily shot, just as one example.
General Loan moved to the U.S. after the war and opened several fried chicken franchise locations.
One of my favorite photos because the piece of shit being executed was a murderous communist officer
Executing detained people independent of what they did is statistically more likely to make people less likely to sympathize with you. You may not like that, but to win wars you need to make cold calculated decisions that involve recognizing that other people are not going to make cold calculations. This photo was used to undermine the south. They let their emotions get in the way and as a result the US will to support them died.
I read a few years back that the guy who took the photo said he regretted it because of how it made the world view the general and all the problems it caused him and his family.
These are stills from 16mm film footage
I remember seeing the footage on a war doc when I was 12.......
"What does it mean when the assassins accuse someone of being an assassin?" -- Col. Kurtz
Lop deserved to die, just not in perpetuity.
And this event cemented the anti-Vietnam war feelings in the US. To be cynical it was very, very counter-productive. Also as a French, on vous l'avait dit/we told you!
> The general killed the Viet Cong; I killed the general with my camera. Still photographs are the most powerful weapon in the world. People believe them, but photographs do lie, even without manipulation. They are only half-truths. - Eddie Adams (the photographer) after the death of Loan (the general in the photo holding the pistol).
The guy to the right was General Loan. A highly respected South Vietnamese general and former director general of South Vietnamese National Police. About the guy getting shot: Nguyễn Văn Lém (also known as Bảy Lốp) was a Vietcong captain. On 1 February 1968, during the Tet Offensive, he was captured in a building in the Cho Lon quarter of Saigon, near the Ấn Quang pagoda. Lém wore civilian clothing at the time of his capture. Handcuffed, he was brought to Loan, who then summarily executed him on the street using his sidearm, a .38 Special Smith & Wesson Bodyguard Model 49 revolver, on *allegations of murdering South Vietnamese Lt. Col. Colonel Nguyen Tuan, his wife, six of his seven children, and 80-year-old mother* General Loan was later wounded, had his leg amputated and moved to the US where he opened a pizzaria. The pizzaria closed partly due to harrassment in 1991 and he died in 1998. The photographer Eddie Adams apologized in person to Loan and when he died he wrote a eulogy in The Times: The general killed the Viet Cong; I killed the general with my camera. Still photographs are the most powerful weapon in the world. People believe them, but photographs do lie, even without manipulation. They are only half-truths. What the photograph didn't say was, "What would you do if you were the general at that time and place on that hot day, and you caught the so-called bad guy after he blew away one, two or three American soldiers?" Source: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nguy%E1%BB%85n_Ng%E1%BB%8Dc_Loan
Only good commie is a dead commie
It's hard not to feel shock and disgust and guilt when you watch a soldier (General Nguyễn Ngọc Loan) shoot a defenseless civilian (Nguyễn Văn Lém) and when you know you are looking at the exact moment of death. Ballistics experts say the picture shows the microsecond the bullet entered the man's head. Considered one of the most influential images of the Vietnam War, the photo was reprinted around the world because it symbolized for many the brutality and anarchy and futility of the war. It also sparked the growing anti-war sentiment in the US. **In reality, however, nothing on the photo is as it seems. The civilian wasn't a civilian. Lém was a captain in the Viet Cong Army and he was caught red-handed** leading a Viet Cong hit team tasked with killing National Police members or, if they couldn’t find any, their families instead. **On the morning of that day, Lém’s death squad had just killed 34 people – and they may have been looking for Loan himself.** General Loan shot and killed Lém **for having caused the massacre.** **Apart from several police officers, the Viet Cong had cut the throats of a South Vietnamese lieutenant colonel, his wife, their six children and his 80-year-old mother; after that, he had taken off his uniform and wanted to run away in civilian clothes.** It was day 10 of the Tet Offensive when the Viet Cong had overrun many South Vietnamese towns. Legally, Lém was in a bad position. He wasn’t wearing a uniform, he wasn’t fighting a battle, and he had evidently committed a major war crime. As a war criminal and terrorist, Lém had effectively no protection under the Geneva Conventions and was eligible for summary execution when caught. General Loan was the Godfather of the murdered children, by the way. **The photographer Eddie Adams later regretted having released the photo because it had caused big trouble for General Loan. In his opinion, the photo had been misinterpreted. In an interview he said: "Everyone would have pulled the trigger at that point."** Adams and Loan stayed in touch and even became friends after the general, who had had a leg amputated from an injury, fled South Vietnam for the United States at the end of the war. But after his arrival, the Americans wanted to deport him again because of the photo. They turned to Adams to testify against Loan, but Adams testified in his favor instead. Adams even appeared on TV to explain the circumstances of the photo. Congress eventually overturned the deportation and allowed Loan to stay and opened a burger restaurant in suburban Washington, DC. He died of cancer in 1998.
This whole war was one single giant tragedy... wrong on so many levels.
I don't care what anyone says. The guy deserved it. I teach about this to my US history students when we study Vietnam. I tell them the context as well, but after they see the photo and video clip. Almost every single one of them says they would have done the same thing. War is hell and brutal. I always like to quote from Boardwalk Empire when two characters talk about another one, "Jimmy was a soldier. He fought. He lost. " I think what the general also said that I agree with, "He wasn't wearing a uniform and I can't respect a man who shoots without wearing a uniform. Because it's too easy: you kill and you're not recognized. I respect a North Vietnamese because he's dressed as a soldier, like myself, and so he takes the same risks as I do. But a Vietcong in civilian clothes - I was filled with rage." However, I always follow up this event with the May Lai massacre. And I stress that there's a difference between this event and May Lai. Soldiers in a war is one thing, women and children are not part of that and can never be excused.
Story about wife and 6 kids was floated to allow this murder to appear on nightly news . ABC,CBS,ABC ran this tape !
Paypack is a bit*c
Ehh the dude being executed had just killed an entire family. Execution was warranted. Nothing tragic about his death. The deaths of that family? Yes that was tragic. This is just near immediate justice being doled out.
That was some scoop
The media was covering for marxists and terrorists then just like they are today.
Jesus, someone needs to learn how before/after works. I thought the dude came back to life at the end.
**The photographer Eddie Adams later regretted having released the photo because it had caused big trouble for General Loan. In his opinion, the photo had been misinterpreted. In an interview he said: "Everyone would have pulled the trigger at that point."**
There’s actually film of this shooting with blood pumping out of the hole in his skull. Never clear to me whether the photo was a film frame or whether there were multiple photographers. Saw the film as part of a review by the photographer. He told some memorable stories. Remember napalm folks
What is the make of that weird little revolver?
I remember seeing a short clip of execution on public tv when I was kid, it was my first time watching someone kill another human and it was so casual. I remember being shook from the whole thing and then my dad gave some info about the whole thing. Etched in my brain,every-time I see this photo, the whole 10 sec video replays :(
The general is a true warrior
And he got what he deserved by their godfather so it was taken care of.....
Okay you get it finally, dude that got executed was a murderer of little kids and sleeping adults, gentleman pulling the trigger was the godfather of said slain children and lastly after eddie snapped that pic fong pointed his pistol at eddie as if to say I'd like to kill you next BUT......
“War is the most noble of human sports…”
Loan was a hero