dieselpunkflimflam: the-alt-historian: titovka-and-bergmutzen: The Time Magazine issue for July 19th
dieselpunkflimflam: the-alt-historian: titovka-and-bergmutzen: The Time Magazine issue for July 19th, 1968, featuring the famous interview with American special forces hero Colonel Walter E. Kurtz, who’s sharp criticisms of the American effort in Vietnam was vital to the withdrawal of the majority of regular forces and the buildup of the special forces program. Along with Captains Richard Colby and Benjamin Willard, Colonel Kurtz’s integration of elite forces among the native Degar mountain tribes and use of psychological warfare was hailed as the driving element behind the North Vietnamese Army’s shutdown of the “Ho Chi Minh Trail” and decreased material support from both China and the USSR. @the-alt-historian I actually have all of Kurtz’s books, including Friend of Horror, his self-published 1979 autobiography. While his other books are fairly standard examinations and interpretations of unconventional counterinsurgency theory, Friend of Horror is an absolutely chilling first-person account of the psychological collapse and rebirth that led to him “going native”. He also discusses something quite disturbing– the idea that Captains Colby and Willard were not sent as skilled trainers and leadership augmentees, but rather as assassins intended to kill him. In a rambling and untitled appendix, he details several visceral torture methods that were used to “break” Willard and Colby, remaking their psyches until they were loyal members of his team. @titovka-and-bergmutzen, @dieselpunkflimflam, I believe you guys between you have a pretty extensive collection of Kurtz’s books. Titovka, I think you mentioned something about having found an annotated edition of Friend of Horror in some bookstore, and dieselpunk I’m 99% sure you have some of Kurt'z private photo albums. What do you guys think of this? Kurtz’s personal photography is derivative and lurid; the influences of Nick Ut and Eddie Adams on his work are obvious. The inevitable result is what LIFE photo editor Espinoza referred to as amateurish grit, the kind of “mawkish horror” as seen in the polaroids of the “jokin’ jarheads” of the Fighting Fifth. Of greater interest in Kurtz’s portfolios are the photographs he didn’t take; his “collection” numbered in the thousands, and the images run the gamut from the pornographic to the paranormal. It was revealed later - in the Nicholson Tapes, recorded in his commune in Osaka - that Kurtz make extensive use of “mind-bending snaps” to challenge his victims’ sense of reality in torture sessions. In one example (an image believed to have been printed from three frames of a 16mm movie reel) a Bell UH-1 “Huey” helicopter is seen temporarily becoming invisible during a squall.The Nicholson transcripts indicate Kurtz himself was never sure what happened to the Huey; on a notecard paper-clipped to the print, he wrote: “Five Nations? Six Nations? An acute misunderstanding strands the viewer in a Canadian river valley with a canoe of beaver pelts and an ass full of shot.”@titovka-and-bergmutzen @the-alt-historian -- source link