On the Frontlines of the Television War : A Legendary War Cameraman in Vietnam

Tony Hirashiki was simply one of the best television cameramen to cover the Vietnam War. His soaring video, often acquired only at great personal risk, gave wings to even the most mundane narration. For those of us who worked with him he was also a source of gentleness and joy in a place where both were in terribly short supply. - Ted Koppel, Former Nightline anchor ABC On The Frontlines of the Television War is the story of Yasutsune "Tony" Hirashiki's ten years in Vietnambeginning when he arrived in 1966 as a young freelancer with a 16mm camera but without a job or the slightest grasp of English and ending in the hectic fall of Saigon in 1975 when he was literally thrown on one of the last flights out. His memoir has all the exciting tales of peril, hardship, and close calls as the best of battle memoirs but it is primarily a story of very real and yet remarkable people: the soldiers who fought, bled, and died, and the reporters and photographers who went right to the frontlines to record their stories and memorialize their sacrifice. The great books about Vietnam journalism have been about print reporters, still photographers, and television correspondents but if this was truly the first television war, then it is time to hear the story of the cameramen who shot the pictures and the reporters who wrote the stories that the average American witnessed daily in their living rooms. An award-winning sensation when it was released in Japan in 2008, this book been completely re-created for an international audience. In 2008, the Japanese edition was published by Kodansha in two hardback volumes and titled "I Wanted to Be Capa." It won the 2009 Oya Soichi Nonfiction Award-a prize usually reserved for much younger writersand Kodansha almost doubled their initial print run to meet the demand. In that period, he was interviewed extensively, a documentary was filmed in which he returned to the people and places of his wartime experience, and a dramatization of his book was written and presented on NHK Radio. A Kodansha paperback was published in 2010 with an initial printing of 17,000 copies and continues to sell at a respectable pace. "Tony Hirashiki is an essential piece of the foundation on which ABC was built. From the day he approached the Bureau Chief in Saigon with a note pinned to his shirt saying he could shoot pictures to the anxious afternoon of 9/11 when we lost him in the collapse of the Twin Towers (and he emerged covered in dust clutching his precious beta tapes,) Tony reported the news with his camera and in doing so, he brought the truth about the important events of our day to millions of Americans." David Westin, Former President of ABC News Table of Contents Foreword by Ted Koppel Editors Note Preface PART I: GOOD LUCK OMIKUJI 1. Happy Valley 2. Rookie 3. Teacher 4. Hawks or Doves 5. The Bureau 6. Con Thien 7. Meet the Bosses 8. Independent Guy 9. He Loved Mozart 10. Son of a Minister 11. Veteran 12. Tuckners Crouch PART II: BAD LUCK OMIKUJI 13. Competition 14. Charming Dictator 15. Reinforcements 16. Photographers 17. American Guy 18. Documentarian 19. Quiet in Kontum 20. Roger Returns 21. Battle of An Loc 22. Quang Tri 23. Survivors Guilt 24. Ceasefire 25. Fall of Cambodia 26. Fall of Saigon Epilog Acknowledgments and Thanks Notes Index “ The eyewitness accounts of the many phases of the war in this memoir bring events to life as if they had happened yesterday” ( Vietnam Veterans of America Book Reviews ). On the Frontlines of the Television War is the story of Yasutsune “Tony” Hirashiki’s ten years in Vietnam—beginning when he arrived in 1966 as a young freelancer with a 16mm camera, but without a job or the slightest grasp of English, and ending in the hectic fall of Saigon in 1975, when he was literally thrown on one of the last flights out. His memoir has all the exciting tales of peril, hardship, and close calls of the best battle memoirs, but it is primarily a story of very real and yet remarkable people: the soldiers who fought, bled, and died, and the reporters and photographers who went right to the frontlines to record their stories and memorialize their sacrifice. If this was truly the first “television war,” then it is time to hear the story of the cameramen who shot the pictures and the reporters who wrote the stories that the average American witnessed daily in their living rooms. An award-winning sensation when it was released in Japan in 2008, this book has been completely recreated for an international audience. “Tony Hirashiki is an essential piece of the foundation on which ABC was built . . . Tony reported the news with his camera and in doing so, he brought the truth about the important events of our day to millions of Americans.” —David Westin, former President of ABC News Yasutsune Tony Hirashiki ; Foreword By Ted Koppel ; Edited By Terry Irving. This Book Is A Translated And Revised Edition Of The Original Japanese Title: Once I Dreamed Of Being Robert Capa (kodansha, Two Volumes, 2008).--title Page Verso. Includes Bibliographical References (pages 353-357) And Index. Translated From The Japanese. Tells the story of Yasutsune "Tony" Hirashiki's ten years in Vietnam, beginning when he arrived in 1966 as a young freelancer with a 16mm camera but without a job or the slightest grasp of English and ending in the hectic fall of Saigon in 1975 when he was literally thrown on one of the last flights out. - provided by publisher