[Congressional Record Volume 161, Number 72 (Tuesday, May 12, 2015)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E680]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




        CELEBRATING THE ACCOMPLISHMENTS OF MR. NGUYEN NGOC HANH

                                 ______
                                 

                            HON. ZOE LOFGREN

                             of california

                    in the house of representatives

                         Tuesday, May 12, 2015

  Ms. LOFGREN. Mr. Speaker, today I recognize the life of Mr. Nguyen 
Ngoc Hanh for his outstanding achievements as a soldier, photographer, 
and teacher. His contributions to documenting the Vietnam War over 
forty years ago continue to inform us about this conflict.
  Mr. Hanh was recognized among the Top Ten Photographers of the 
Photographic Society of America in 1968 for his coverage of the Tet 
Offensive. His stunning portraits of soldiers and Viet Cong detainees 
capture the emotion and humanity of the war. He began photographing the 
conflict in 1956, while serving in a paratrooper battalion. By 1961, at 
the age of thirty-four, the South Vietnam Armed Forces assigned Mr. 
Hanh as its official war photographer. Perhaps his most well known 
photograph is a portrait of a tearful young woman in Hue recently 
widowed and holding her husband's tags.
  After the fall of Saigon in 1975, Mr. Hanh declined to use his 
personal pass for a helicopter transport and instead chose to remain 
with his fellow soldiers. This led to Mr. Hanh's imprisonment by the 
North Vietnam Army. For the first year and four months of his 
confinement, Mr. Hanh's lived in a metal container too small for him to 
stand and too narrow for him to lie down. He remained detained until 
1983, and on his fourth attempt was able to flee from Vietnam to 
Thailand in 1985.
  Four years later, at the age of sixty-two, Mr. Hanh immigrated to San 
Jose. He soon established the Vietnam Photographic Association while 
also working at a Fremont technology company delivering mail. Since 
1989, Mr. Hanh has trained hundreds of photography students in San 
Jose. He also exhibited his photos at the annual Vietnamese New Year 
Tet Festival in San Jose, as well as at several nonprofit fund raising 
events to raise money for the disabled vets of the South Vietnam Armed 
Forces. His work has contributed immensely not only to San Jose, but 
also to our country. I thank him for his contributions, and I recognize 
him as an outstanding member of the Vietnamese-American community.

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