A Weather Walked In, A Vietnam perspective book and IPad | Eastern North Carolina Now

    Charlie Haughey was the battalion photographer for my battalion in the 25th Division during my time in Vietnam. He was also a rifleman in my unit, the 2nd 12th Infantry before he was selected to be the battalion Photographer.

   Here is Charlie as he looked in 1968.
    He spent his time in the field as a grunt and later as the photographer. I remember Charlie, but never really knew him. His job was to create a photographic history of the unit operations. Most of that included taking pictures of all the official ceremonies. The brass always wanted pictures of their ceremonies for their Military resume.

    But, he also worked with the grunt units in the field. When Charlie returned to the states, he brought back all his negatives. Like most Vietnam vets, he put them in a box and tried to move on with his life. In addition, like most of us, he later decided to pull out the negatives and with the encouragement of others, decided that he needed to make prints from the negatives.

    What started as a personal trip was encouraged by our unit webpage (Click here for Charlie Company 2nd 12th website ) and eventually turned into a crowd funded project. The result of a few years of work and photo repair was a book and an IPad application.

    The book is a 12 x 12 coffee table size and contains some of Charlie's favorite pictures. The IPad application contains other pictures with a short audio about some of the pictures. Because of security concerns, all of Charlie's notes had to be destroyed and most of his pictures have no names attached to them. If Charlie remembered the name or the circumstances of the picture, he tried to document it but in most cases, those names are lost to history, but the faces are documented in both projects. Since the publication of this book, their former Band of Brothers has identified many of the people. You never forget the youthful faces of those guys. Some of them never aged but went to their maker with the young faces seen here. Others have aged and would be hard to recognize today. Still their former comrades will immediately recognize others in any place or age.

    There were strict rules on what pictures could be published in the Stars and Stripes or any other Military publication, but there were no restrictions on what pictures Charlie could take. He was supposed to turn over the negatives to all his work when he returned but cleverly snuck them out by using the old GI trick of boldly blustering your way through any circumstance as if you were under orders of higher authority. He tells the story in one of the audio clip.

    Many of us contributed to the funding for this publication, which was an enormous undertaking. Eventually it became a reality. After I received my hard copy of the book, I ordered the IPad application, which is a completely separate procedure. Publishing a hard copy publication is vastly different from publishing an interactive one. I intend to order a copy for each of my two children. Perhaps the books will become a part of the family history even thought I am not among the pictures in either project.

    I just recently received my IPad application and downloaded it. This took me back 47 years to a time and place I never thought I would miss after leaving. I do not miss the place but I do miss the special bond formed during the crucible of battle so many years ago.

    I have created a short 3:22 video excerpt from the application for your review. I present it here as a fair use to entice you to purchase the book. Charlie will not get rich off this effort but it will be an enduring testament to what some very young and impressionable boys went through in their transition from boys to men and I am thankful that we had a brother in arms by our sides to record it on film.



    Here is the link to the video above

    Here is a link for more information and order details with a short video story of Charlie today - Welcome home Charlie.