When I was posted to Vietnam, MACV, the Advisory command, in Oct of '71, my only photography experience had been with the popular Instamatic 126 cameras. One of the first things I did in-country was to buy my first 35mm an Olympus Pen F, a half frame 35mm. It was and still is considered a fine small SLR. But I soon sold or traded it for something, and shortly there after it was stolen from the other chap.
I then bought a simple Ricoh semi-automatic 35 mm, and started shooting Kodachrome 25, which I would buy at the PX. Some of my earlier slides were with the Ricoh. Later, looking at the PACEX catalogue, which had items not available stateside, like high end music systems, cameras, Rolex's for $200, and Nikon, Cannon, Minoltra and Pentax (actually Asahi) cameras. Ordered and was sent a "Pentax" Spotmatic II, with the 1.4 and a 28 mm, all in nice leather cases. At that time, Asahi had the best anti-reflective coatings.
I had to be pretty choosey of what pic's I took, as my supply of Kodachrome and occasionally Ectachrome 160 was very limited. I had these little Kodak mailers, and would send my slide film back to the stateside lab, to be returned to my Nebraska home. I never knew until I returned if they were any good or not, having never seen any of them 'till then. I was lucky.
I learned a lot about basic photography with that manual camera, which has stood me well in my continued hobby of photography and darkroom work with different formats.
I took my "Pentax" every where with me, in a plastic bag, then and later all over the world, and to Desert Storm later. Eventually lots of lenses and bodies, and more. Even parachuted with it.
I have probably 5 or 6 hundred slides from Vietnam, and a few years ago selected some for hi-resolution digitalization, which are the ones I post here.
This is one of my bodyguards, an X-VC, we are about to go somewhere in my Whaler, with the two Johnson 40's. That is his silenced XM203 with a 40mm launcher under the barrel. My PRC 77 and rifle too. I never carried any grenades, just too much chance of catching one on some vines or the like.
One thing about the Vietnamese, they had NO radio discipline at all. They talked constantly on the radio, they never quit communicating. Once, the VC jammed my own radio with repeated playing of the Beatles Yellow Submarine song. I just enjoyed listening to it, and left it on.
When I was an A team CO, we had two Leica M2's for our team.
Anyway, stay safe, and all the best... SF VET
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