László Kondor

(Born 1940, Fugyivasarhely, Hungary)
Served in Vietnam, Army, 70-71
DASPO (Department of the Army Special Photographic Office),
American Division, Chu Lai,
Combat Photographer, 1969-70

I was with the line company in an area called the Barrier Islands, a coastal plain with sand dunes wedged between the sea and the rice paddies. I was attached to an infantry squad with a machine gunner named Pineapple. Pineapple had earned his nickname because of the scars of childhood acne. He was short, squat, and bowlegged, and he was the pigman. The grunts called the M-60 machine gun the pig and the man who carried it was the pigman. Pineapple was a good pigman. He carried the pig slung on his shoulder, from which position he could fire standing up. Pineapple was nineteen and had been in Nam for a year. He could sense from twenty-five yards what I could not see from ten feet.