robertjerl Loc: Corona, California

After I was over 2 years and 6 months into my enlistment, and in Nam, an Air Force doctor working at our joint clinic near the airfield went over my health records when I was in for the third fungal infection in my ears in a short time (shower water came from a mountain stream so a lot of people got the fungus in their ears) looked at me and said he could have me home with an honorable medical discharge in 6 weeks or less: Very near sighted, convergence deficiency (eyes don't focus on the same spot unless I think about it), allergies, beginnings of asthma and now the fungus in the outer ear which stays in the flesh for decades and reactivates when you get water in your ears. I just told him I was rotating home in 3 months and would get an early discharge due to then only having another 3 months on my enlistment so "Why bother?" He said OK, but that fungus is doing damage to your hearing and will only get worse as you get older. Maybe they will come up with a treatment or cure but don't count on it.
He was right, I will be 76 next month and my tinnitus is so bad I often can't hear high pitched sounds and sometime have trouble with understanding people with high pitched voices. I literally don't know what silence is anymore and haven't for at least 20 years.

My ENT doc at Kaiser long ago killed the fungus with a new med but he still tells me that no matter what all those ads say they haven't got a real treatment, let along a cure for tinnitus.

Paul Diamond Loc: Atlanta, GA, USA

[quote=robertjerl]After I was over 2 years and 6 months into my enlistment, and in Nam, an Air Force doctor working at our joint clinic near the airfield went over my health records when I was in for the third fungal infection in my ears in a short time (shower water came from a mountain stream so a lot of people got the fungus in their ears) looked at me and said he could have me home with an honorable medical discharge in 6 weeks or less: Very near sighted, convergence deficiency (eyes don't focus on the same spot unless I think about it), allergies, beginnings of asthma and now the fungus in the outer ear which stays in the flesh for decades and reactivates when you get water in your ears. I just told him I was rotating home in 3 months and would get an early discharge due to then only having another 3 months on my enlistment so "Why bother?" He said OK, but that fungus is doing damage to your hearing and will only get worse as you get older. Maybe they will come up with a treatment or cure but don't count on it.
He was right, I will be 76 next month and my tinnitus is so bad I often can't hear high pitched sounds and sometime have trouble with understanding people with high pitched voices. I literally don't know what silence is anymore and haven't for at least 20 years.

My ENT doc at Kaiser long ago killed the fungus with a new med but he still tells me that no matter what all those ads say they haven't got a real treatment, let along a cure for tinnitus.[/quo

Empathy and personally aware of your 'tinnitus'. Mine is constant. The TV is higher in volume as is the radio. My hearing range seems similar but reduced except for certain sounds that seem to match the background ringing. But, we can't live with 'coulda/woulda/shoulda' after the fact. - I haven't checked with an audiologist to digitally map my hearing yet. Even if I can get some external hearing assist, I think the tinnitus ringing at higher tones within my ears will not go away.

Paul Diamond Loc: Atlanta, GA, USA

I attended middle school with a girl whose brother had a special job in the military. He would parachute into the mountains of Vietnam. Then he would meet the mountain tribesmen and recruit them into freedom fighters. He taught them to set traps, make bombs, defend their homes & families, etc. He stayed 6 months at a time in the mountains. Then he would travel down a stream/river to the shoreline and arrange for a US pickup. He had 1-3 months of R & R at home before his next trip. He had done this three times when I talked with his young sister while I was about 11-12. - But, the USA was not "officially" in Vietnam until many years later!

robertjerl Loc: Corona, California

The French were allies from WWII so the US backed them. Also in WWII the OSS worked with the local resistance and their successor the CIA did also. And they often "borrowed' people from the military for some jobs.

I read that Ho Chi Minh actually liked Americans on a personal basis from the OSS days of being helped by them against the Japanese and hoped to make an alliance with the US when Vietnam was independent.* But the State Department insisted on backing France in its efforts to regain their old colonies after the war.

I have talked to other Nam vets who took tours of Vietnam on vacation and found out their guides were former VC/NVA and in conversations they told them "I always liked most Americans as people. It was your government policies toward Vietnam I disliked." One guy even met and made friends with a former VC whose unit his unit had fought on more than one occasion. The two of them came to the conclusion that the whole mess should have never happened. Our two nations should have been friends instead. But Cold War politics made it different.

*I wonder what the result of a Communist/Socialist Vietnam and US alliance against the Chi Coms and Soviets would have been?

Paul Diamond Loc: Atlanta, GA, USA

Something missing from your narrative. Vietnam had rubber plantations, vital during WWII for tires/gaskets/tubes, etc. And Vietnam also had discovered OIL not too long before NVA began activities against the South. There were some 'big money' companies working to influence the USA policy toward South Vietnam. When France was ready to throw in the towel, pressure within the USA saw fit to continue and expand our involvement with this country.

robertjerl Loc: Corona, California

Uh, the Japanese had that rubber all during the war and by the time the war was over artificial rubber for tires etc. was well on the way to suppling the US market - after all, in large part it got us through the war. 1940 a new type of synthetic rubber, much cheaper from Goodrich; 1942 the first four pilot plants made 2241 tons, 1945 production was up to 920,000 tons per year. So the US didn't need SE Asia's rubber any more.

In North Vietnam the Song Hong gas field, relatively small with only 40 wells total by the late 70's was found by Soviet techs in 1969* and newer exploration with modern tech today has found a lot of mostly gas in the area though they still carry on exploration and keep predicting big things-sometime-maybe for petroleum.

The first oil field in what was South Vietnam was discovered in February of 1975 and the US closed its embassy and SVN was over run in April 1975. Then another a second oil field was found in 1988 and the third about 2003 and they are all off shore fields.

So oil wasn't a major factor either.

And as recently as last year the US was independent thanks to shale oil production. But that has since been cut back so we need to import oil again. Yes the last few years we imported some grades of crude petroleum for some uses but we exported more of other grades for a net export balance in our favor. One I know of is high sulfur oil which we exported/traded for low sulfur oil because it is much cheaper to refine for the US market anti-pollution specs.

Nope oil and rubber or other resources were not a big factor in our Vietnam War.
And we never did legally declare war - the US is about the only nation that requires the legislature and president to pass and sign a formal declaration of war to make it a real War.

So oil did not enter into the causes of the US in Vietnam. It came about because we backed France in trying to get back its colonies, then we backed the "democratic" South of the split nation as part of the US's overall containment policy towards communism.
It was politics, not money.

*US advisors in Vietnam 1954, combat troops first arrived in March 1965, I was there Dec 66 to Jan 69, last US combat troops pulled out in 1973.

Paul Diamond Loc: Atlanta, GA, USA

You can't measure the needs of the 1960s with 2021. Large oil and gas US companies began lobbying congress for the USA to help/support South Vietnam and the overpowered French. Sadly, it seems that USA has not learned lessons from the tragic mistakes of supporting or creating puppet regimes. We continue to repeat it as we did in Afghanistan and Iraq.

But, this thread should stay on message - Ansel Adams and being inspired by his life's work and quotes.

robertjerl Loc: Corona, California

Noted. I got to see Adams at a lecture given at UCLA back during the 73/74 school year - it was great. Then around 1980 we took our son and his favorite cousin (they were 7, only a couple of months apart in age so he and Jennifer were almost glued to each other)to Hancock Park to see the Tar Pits/Museum (east end) and the county Art Museum (west end) and they had a big Adams show at the art museum with discounts on mat boarded prints(the mass market ones, not the $$$$ ones). My LA Unified School District ID got me an additional discount so I picked up two prints I liked, they are on the wall in the room right next door to me now. "Rose and Driftwood" and one of leaves and ferns on a forest floor. I thought it was "Leaves, Mt Rainer" but on a closer look it isn't a complete match so I don't know what it is. But I liked it when I bought it and like it now.

The one year I taught beginning photography (renamed "History and Practice of Photography" so my History credential covered it) the district had an old beat up, patched, scratched etc. 16mm B&W film of Adams that was a sort of history of him and with some brief lessons that in spite of being a 2 or 3 on a 1-10 scale of watching quality the students just loved. I had to show it more than once they liked it so much.

I am sure you know that his parents had Adams trained to be a concert pianist as a child and he was highly rated - the photography was almost an accident when he was given a Kodak No. 1 Brownie at age 12 (1916) for his family's first vacation to Yosemite. Then he joined the Sierra Club and learned photography from other members.

I took a class on his "Zone System" and somewhere in a storage box have prints I made for the class at Cal State University, Los Angeles back in the late 70's. I even picked up a Speed Graphic 4x5 and then a studio 4x5 at garage/yard sales so I could try to do the Zone System the "right way" on sheet film. I even produced one that my Mother pronounced "That is good, I like it." That compliment rates up with a Pulitzer with anyone who knew my Mom.

I think AA would probably be into selective focus stacking and HDR to get close to his Zone System. And would probably be leading the pack at those things if he was alive and working today. And being a master of the darkroom he would be very into high end editing software and probably hire a code writer or two to help him improve/customize them. His darkroom assistants he trained himself were so good other photographers were constantly trying to hire them away.

Paul Diamond Loc: Atlanta, GA, USA

Great story and experiences. Thanks so much for sharing. There are many UHH'ers who attended AA workshops and shared their experiences here.