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Willie Vicoy \ryidely Mounned Great sorrow spread through the correspondent community at the news of the death of Willie Vicoy on April25. He was one of Asia's most renowned news photographers, whose career spanned the Vietnam War and the upheaval in the Philippines. Vicoy, 45, a 28-year veteran with United Press International who joined Reuters when it bought UpI's foreign photo service last yeaq died of wounds sustained in a communist guerrila ambush in the Philippines.
He died about 15 hours after the guerillas ambused a small party of journalists and soldiers in a northern Philippines province. Manila Bulletin correspondent Pete Mabasa and eight soldiers were also killed in the attack. Vicoy and Mabasa were the first journalists killed while covering the lg-year-
old insurgency.
Vico¡ survived by his wife and
six children, was awarded .,Most Outstand-
ing Achievements In Combat photography" by the Philippine press photographers Association earlier this year. In 1972 he became the only Filipino fo be nominated for a Pulitzer, which was awarded to his colleague David Hume Kennerly. He is believed to be the only photographer to havè a picture on the cover of Newsweekand Timeinthe same
week
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March
31, 197 5
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a Vietnamese
woman holding the blood-splattered body of a baby in her arms. Among the scores of reporters who worked with and admired Vicoy is Leon
Daniel, former UPI News Editor for Asia-Pacific and FCC member. Daniel's appreciation of Vicoy was carried by
UPI: The American GIs in Vietnam liked V/illie. He did not talk a lot, perhaps because his English in those days was less than fluent, or maybe because of his evident shyness. Willie not only packed his cameras, canteen and C-rations, he sometimes carried stretchers with wounded GIs on them.
When there were the dead and wounded to photograph, Willie shot his
pictures quickly, with sensitivity and compasslon.
He worked hard to be at the scene of firefights, disdaining to come in after the battle to shoot the carnage. He spent most of his time in the field, humping with the grunts. They respected him
for it.
In the waning days of the wa¡ Willie photographed many of the babies killed in the crash of a plane that was airlifting orphaned children out of Saigon, killing
140.
It is likely that no story Willie covered saddened him more, but he worked quickly and professionally to record the
horror we reporters were unable to communicate adequately
with
mere
words.
Willie won his share of awards and what passes for fame. Willie never made much mongy. IIis legacy is his work, which touched the lives of those not privileged to known him.
It is one of the ironies of war that V/illie Vico¡ a truly gentle man, spent much of his life and then lost it in pur_ suit of photographs of men killing each other.
He was not your
movie-version
combat photographer, the self-styled "shooter" who bounces around the world's hot spots, driven by a lust for
fame and money. Such men are not called V/illie. And the wiry Filipino was not one of those in the craft who are seduced by danger, cursed with an inexplicable and continuing need to test themselves under fire. Willie, who grinned a lot, loved living too much for that. He took risks along with his pictures, bcrt they *er" orr.i he deemed reasonable for a family man.