SALUTE TO VETERANS 2025: Inside the harrowing life of a Vietnam War photojournalist on the front lines

BLOOMFIELD — The Stars and Stripes Museum in Bloomfield chronicles the story of those who tell the stories. During the Vietnam War, journalists in the employ of the Armed Forces risked their lives alongside frontline troops in firefights and close-call engagements.

Draftees and volunteers from Southeast Missouri found themselves a world away in the jungles of Southeast Asia. While the museum does not have records of any Stars and Stripes reporters from the area for this conflict, the stories these reporters told resemble those of many from this area.

Gary Cooper, a Stars and Stripes photojournalist, found himself embedded in a 12-man squad of the 3rd Brigade, 25th Infantry Division near the Cambodian border.

It was 1966 and the war had not yet reached its zenith. Patrolling after a harried night at a remote outpost, the squad collided with a 50-60-strong Viet Cong force. Cooper carried a Nikomat camera but resorted to picking up a dropped M-16 rifle.

“Things were touch and go for minutes, and I thought it best to shoot an M-16 rather than my Nikomat,” he recalled.

Eventually, Cooper settled in to capture some photos of the men in combat. The pictures tell a harrowing story of a life-and-death battle deep in the dense vegetation. He recounted his own rifle jamming and having to pick up another as the larger Viet Cong force attempted to surround the embattled Americans.

The museum displays a helmet of one of the U.S. wounded showing the path the bullet took through the steel. Alongside it is a captured AK-47 rifle from the engagement.

“The Viet Cong, now maybe 50 or 60, have you surrounded. They are screaming and yelling, hoping to panic the squad. It sounds like a Western movie with Indians whooping. But it’s real,” he wrote.

Five of the 12 received wounds and two were killed in action. According to Cooper’s report, the five surviving wounded were in a medical evacuation helicopter in under 45 minutes. Eventually, the two forces disengaged with four Viet Cong bodies found dead.

The Stars and Stripes reporter remembered thinking, “But there has to be more than that dead. You know there are.”

The five remaining unwounded soldiers returned to the remote outpost only to go out on patrol again sometime in the future.

Cooper wrote somberly when he returned to safety, “They’ll probably be there tonight. And every other night.”

For many Vietnam veterans in Southeast Missouri, they may find their minds drifting to experiences such as this tonight and every other night.