Vietnam: Once we were soldiers

Karl Mancini
Karl Mancini

(Vietnam, 2015). Fifty years ago it began the war against USA. Forty years ago, with the conquest of Saigon the North, Vietnamese Army won the war and thousands of veterans came back to their villages trying to start a new life. Today, just in Huè (Central Vietnam) which was one of the more hit part of the country by the fighting, close to the DMZ zone, there were settled 25.000 veterans, 4.000 of them are invalid and 2.000 victims of the Agent Orange. They have a lot of problems to solve, as how to build a new life with their families.

Karl Mancini
Karl Mancini

In fact, many Veterans didn’t get married at that time. But the entire community welcomed them as heroes, in particular North Vietnamese, while in the south the situation was different because of the long presence of the American Army there. South Veteran’s Families were scared of the revenges but after some years the situation was changed and the harmony was established again. Today, after 40 years, there are no longer distances and they live all together. – See more at: http://www.echophotojournalism.com/stories/once-we-were-soldiers#sthash.LFPKwBhh.dpuf

Karl Mancini
Since 2001 he has visited more than 80 countries, with a particular preference for Asia and South America,  following the socio-historical and political events , working as a freelance photojournalist and writer by focusing with particular attention issues such as child labor, violence against women, the tragic story of landmines (to which he have devoted years of work) and genocide that he documented  in 8 different countries. He studied photography in Rome, to achieve the Masterclass in contemporary journalism. Karl has joined Echo in 2015 as a staff photographer. – See more at: http://www.echophotojournalism.com/photographers/karl-mancini-1#sthash.AaYB1y6Z.dpuf