Help Your Fellow Comrade
Most photographs capture a fraction of a second, which is just that: a snapshot of a moment in time. Even in combat, that instant can sometimes communicate a complete story, but it can also be confusing.
The portrait of Gunnery Sergeant Jeremiah Purdie, bleeding and bandaged, being dragged down a muddy slope by fellow marines that appeared in LIFE in late October 1966 didn’t really need a caption. Infiltrating forces and efforts to prevent them were described in the written description that accompanied the photograph and a dozen others that brought Operation Prairie to LIFE’s readers. Hills were taken and given up.
Help Your Fellow Comrade
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One of them is this photograph of a haunted-looking young American GI hiding from monsoon rains in the forests west of Da Nang while on patrol in 1972. The soldier’s eyes suggest that he most certainly went through hell along the route, and you don’t need a caption to describe it.
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