Afghanistan Through My Eyes - Dickie Chapelle

But we should start at the beginning with Viet Nam.

Another hero of mine is Dickie Chapelle, a combat photographer. Dickie was a woman, Georgette Louise Meyers, who cut her teeth during WWII.

Dickie recieved the Overseas Press "Polk" Award for her triple truck shot, (that's an unheard of three page photograph, two with a fold out) in National Geographic proving our Special Forces were fighting, when they were supposed to be in Viet Nam in an advisory capacity only. Her photo was published in the November issue in 1962. It had been buried by the Kennedy administration for an entire year.

It was hard to get behind the Viet Nam war when the American public was lied to from the very beginning. It was hard to separate the man from the soldier from the war.

Another honor Dickie received was, she was the first woman killed in combat. She was killed in 1965 at age 47, on her 5th tour of Viet Nam, the first with her beloved US Marine Corp.

She was 5 years younger than I am now.