Art Greenspon
Award-winning war photographer and New Canaan resident Art Greenspon will be awarded an HMOR — Honorary Member of the Regiment — by the U.S. Army’s 237th Infantry Regiment of the 101st Airborne Division (Air Assault).
On Monday, May 19, in an official ceremony at the 101st division headquarters at Fort Campbell, K.Y., he will be welcomed as a member of the unit in recognition of his iconic 1968 war photograph, “Help From Above,” which he took while on a five-day patrol with A Company, 2nd Battalion/237th Regiment in the A Shau Valley in South Vietnam.
Last year, a member of A Company and two of the men pictured in the photograph contacted Greenspon after reading an interview with the photographer about the history of the photograph in an online segment of Time magazine. The photo was published most recently on the cover of a book of Associated Press photos from the Vietnam War-era — “Vietnam: The Real War, A Photographic History of the Vietnam War,” by Pete Hamill— published last fall.
The photo was originally published on the front page of The New York Times in late April of 1968 and distributed widely throughout the world by the AP. It was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize and won photographic awards from the National Press Photographers Association and the Overseas Press Club that same year. It was subsequently published in numerous books on the Vietnam War and is considered one of the most iconic visuals of the era, according to a release. It has been shown at the Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. and at the Museum of Modern Art as part of a 1998 exhibition of the best photos of the Times. It appeared again on cover page of the Times arts section last year when Hamill’s book was published, sparking renewed interest in it.
Greenspon described his path to becoming a Vietnam war photographer to Time reporter and contemporary war photographer Peter van Agtmael. After working as a reporter for WCBS-TV News in his early 20’s, he followed his curiosity and passion for photography to “the biggest news story of the mid-60s.”
“On the weekends, I’d go out into the streets and shoot the protest and the support-the-troops demonstrations — but I always seemed to come away with better snaps of the ‘Support Our Boys’ folks,” Greenspon said. “I had no strong feelings one way or the other on Vietnam at first, but I knew I would never find the ‘truth’ at home. The truth was over there in Vietnam.”
Genesis of the photo
After selling his car for $600, he bought a one-way ticket to Saigon, got a 10-day tourist visa and set out as a freelance photographer to show the world “the truth” about Vietnam. “I arrived on Christmas day of 1967. I was too naive to be scared,” he said.
He shot his historic photo four months after arriving in Vietnam and sold it to the Associated Press for $15, the standard rate for freelance photographs at the time. Two weeks later, on assignment for Life magazine, he was wounded when a spent round slammed into his face. After surgeons removed the bullet from the inside of his sinuses while he sat in a dentist’s chair, he developed dysentery and a very high fever which required him to be packed in ice. “The cold made the pain in my face worse,” he said, “but I kept it all inside. I was on a ward with GI’s who had lost limbs and two who were in casts from head to toe.”
Following his discharge from the hospital, “I tried to keep shooting, but my hands trembled so badly I couldn’t work my cameras,” he said. “I knew it was time to get out. Life paid my hospital bills and bought me a plane ticket home.”
He spent the next 10 years as a photographer and documentary filmmaker in New York before going back to Fordham University to complete his undergraduate degree and sought safer, more lucrative employment on Wall Street. He worked for 25 years as a portfolio manager for elite private banks before retiring from the business world at the end of 2007.
Since then, he returned to Fordham, this time to earn a master’s degree in clinical social work. Understanding personally how hard it is for veterans to recover from post traumatic stress, trauma and addictions, he devotes a large portion of his time to private practice and volunteer work on behalf of veterans to help them receive the support and services they need.
“In the final years of my life, I’m dedicated to helping them recover from the horrors of war,” he said.
‘Help From Above’ was shot by Art Greenspon of New Canaan during the Vietnam War in 1968 and appeared on front page of the New York Times.