[Leica] [img] korean war vet

[len-1 at comcast.net (Leonard Taupier)]

Kyle,

A really good photo and the start of a great idea on your next  
series. I expect the photos and the background stories would make a  
very successful book.

Thanks for sharing the photo and the fascinating story with us.

Len


On Jun 12, 2007, at 10:16 AM, Kyle Cassidy wrote:

> Some of you may know that I'm batting around this idea of doing an
> extended series of portraits of members of the military and their
> tattoos.
>
> I give you Robert Berns, USMC, July 12, 1950 - July 11, 1954, Item
> Company, 3rd Battalion, 7th Regiment, 1st Marine Division whom I ran
> into this weekend while I was walking out of a store. This is why it's
> always good to have your Leica with you.
>
> http://www.kylecassidy.com/warpaint/robert.jpg
>
>
> "I have an Marine Corps bulldog up here, wearing a hat, and down here
> there's a flag that says USMC underneath it. They're kind of faded  
> now,
> I got them fifty years ago.
>
> It was some time near the end of 1950. We were getting ready to go to
> Korea, we went to San Diego to pull liberty. As I came out of a store,
> there's a tatoo parlor. It was like peer pressure. Everybody was going
> to get them because we were Big Tough Guys going to Korea. We were all
> 17 years old.
>
> They wouldn't put them on both arms, they said "there's a story going
> around that if you're captured and they see these tattoos, they'll cut
> off your arm and make lamp shades and stuff out of them." I don't know
> if that was true or not, but that was what he was telling us.  
> That's why
> both of mine are on the same arm. I don't know how true that is, he
> might have just been trying to scare us a little bit.
>
> We got aboard the ship the first week in January. I had my 18th  
> birthday
> on there -- not that I remember it, because I was sea sick.
>
> Korea was cold. It's hard to explain, it was a landscape like you  
> never
> saw, it was all hills -- whenever there was a low spot that was level,
> that was rice paddies. Which would come in handy, the rice paddies  
> were
> great in the winter, because they froze over and that gave you a level
> spot for the helicopters to come in and take out the wounded.  
> Otherwise,
> it was very difficult to land there. winter had it's drawbacks, but  
> in a
> way it was helpful to us. In the summer, I guess it was just like any
> other time. If anything moved out in front of you you were allowed to
> shoot at it, if it was out in front of you, it was fair game. Now, you
> didn't deliberately shoot at civilians -- you could tell them by their
> dress. And the Chinese, you could tell them apart, they had a  
> different
> look about them.
>
>
>
>
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