As I sat at the TIDAL WAVE (Song Than) editorial office
in 133 Vo Tanh Street, Saigon,
my friend Anh Dien walked in,
picked my camera up from the desk, clicked this.

A few hours later he returned from the labs,
telling me the guy in the photo looked perfectly ugly
but he still need to keep a copy,
just in case I got killed at the combat,
our newspaper would have my face
to print on front page for readers to see.

During the following month, I've got wounded
by a VC's B-40 while covering the battle near Phu Bai Airfield,
but failed to die.

So this is how I was on my 20th birthday, in July 1972.

Today, I look 100 times worse,
as you can see here.




.