LIFE Behind the Picture: Larry Burrows’ ‘Reaching Out,’ 1966

Life Magazine ^ | Ben Cosgrove

[AtlasStalled]

In October 1966, on a mud-splattered hill just south of the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) in Vietnam, LIFE magazine’s Larry Burrows made a photograph that, for generations, has served as the most indelible, searing illustration of the horrors inherent in that long, divisive war — and, by implication, in all wars. In Burrows’ photo, nowadays commonly known as Reaching Out, an injured Marine — Gunnery Sgt. Jeremiah Purdie, a blood-stained bandage tied around his head — appears to be inexorably drawn to a stricken comrade. Here, in one astonishing frame, we witness tenderness and terror, desolation and fellowship — and, perhaps above all, we encounter the power of a simple human gesture to transform, if only for a moment, an utterly inhuman landscape.

[onedoug]

Too bad that the media and politicians decided not to let US win that war.

[MarkL]

Too bad that the media and politicians decided not to let US win that war.

We live in Bizarro World... One of the people, who later became a politician, was instrumental in painting American soldiers as murderous animals... And he's been picked to be the next Secretary of State.

It's really sad to watch the dismantling and destruction of the best and greatest hope for liberty the world has ever seen.

Mark

[gibsosa]

Sickening, actually...