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Vietnam, January 30, 1968 - "Ho Chi Minh" trail, night background.
It's the eve of Tet Nguyen Dan, the Vietnamese New Year, and NVA soldiers, aided by a massive formation of Viet Cong, are infiltrating through the brushwood of the trail, passing between Laos and Cambodia to launch a surprise attack on the American base at Khe Sanh. The operation, better known as the "Tet Offensive," will turn into a bloody siege that will see the Marines forced to hold out for two months against attacks organized and overseen by the National Liberation Front.
The "redskins," tired of the continuous enemy harassments, decide to attack the fortress with every means suitable for offense. The occupants of the base will be forced to feed themselves and supply ammunition through the artificial manna raining from the iron vultures Lockheed C-130 Hercules. The "redskins" will not manage to seize the fortress, and no totem will be erected. There will be many feathers indeed that, weighed down by blood, will settle on the battlefield. Just as the tomahawk will absolutely not be buried. In fact, others will be exhumed.
In Saigon, during street fighting on the second day of the offensive, Van Lem, a political activist, is captured by the South Vietnamese army militias, allied with the United States. It seems he has killed some marines during the clashes and for this, he undergoes a summary "trial" and is then summarily sentenced to death for the multiple crime committed, in addition to having the alleged mark of Viet Cong. A prosecution and a judgment that recall the methods of the fierce NKVD of Stalin. He is handed over to General Ngoc Loan, who "for patriotic charity" lowers the axe of the executioner, without any hesitation.
At the materialization of the sentence, there are an NBC cameraman and a war photographer from the Associated Press, Eddie Adams. Van Lem is led to the edge of a dusty road, with wrists bound behind his back. He doesn't have time to form a thought, even if it were the last. He doesn't even have time to pray, perhaps. The general holds the regulation pistol and stretches out the armed arm as far as possible. The cameraman films, Adams shoots. In a precise fragment of time that, as fast as it might be, contains too many details. While a lightning bolt crosses the brain of the alleged Viet Cong, the fire disperses, the recoil highlights the cold arm muscles of the executor. Cold as the barely perceptible gaze.
A warm shockwave moves the plaid shirt of the prisoner, dishevels his hair, draws a gruesome grimace on his face. Those eyes, already narrow by complexion, close excessively. A fragment before they await the lightning, and a fragment after they feel its violence. Adams has even less time to turn around and move aside. That grain of time that otherwise would have stained him with blood and brain matter. It is February 1, 1968.
Eddie Adams wins the Pulitzer Prize in 1969. Van Lem, perhaps, rests in peace. Ngoc Loan stops living peacefully. The images go around the world, it emerges that Van Lem was not a Viet Cong and that in any case, the cold-blooded execution was far too brutal, violating the Geneva Convention. Over time, after his discharge and opening a pizzeria in Virginia, he tried to justify himself, even in an interview with Oriana Fallaci. Between: "...he wasn't in uniform and I can't respect a man without uniform killing soldiers..." and "...what would you do to a man who killed three or four of your allies...", nothing manages to soften the dry seal of the war criminal label pinned on him by the press and media. One day, after some time in silence, the photo is publicized again. On the door of the bathroom of his pizzeria, someone writes: "We know who you are." The ghosts of the past howl again.
Adams, reflecting on the repercussions that occurred and analyzing the context in which the crime was committed, publicly apologized to the general for the "dishonor" caused to him, even promoting him to "war hero for a just cause."
I wouldn't know how to judge.
If this is a man.
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