Tman sends us a link to a sad love story of a journalist headed to Vietnam, a Virgin Mary medallion and the woman he left behind;
It was Feb. 10, 1971. Huet, 43, had boarded a South Vietnamese military helicopter in the town of Khe Sanh, near the border with Laos, with a mission to inspect efforts by U.S.-backed forces to sever Viet Cong supply lines.
With him were three other legendary news photographers: Larry Burrows of Life magazine, Kent Potter of United Press International and Keisaburo Shimamoto of Newsweek.
In a flash of anti-aircraft fire, the chopper was gunned down. All four photographers were killed, along with seven Vietnamese troops, one of them a military photographer.
Along with the men, the camera equipment, and the military hardware, a tiny disc of gold also tumbled down from the skies above Laos. On one side was a relief of the Virgin Mary; on the other was etched, “Cecile, nee le 16-6-1947” — French for “born on June 16, 1947.”
The Washington Times also memorializes Huet’s work with a gallery of photos he took before that fateful day.
