Rod Rodriguez: ‘What I saw here was war, and war is terrible. It can be inhumane, it’s very mean and it’s really hard to be nice, to be kind. However, what we did at that village broke through all of that. There was a moment that we could be kind, it was a restful time. You didn’t think about what your job was, your job was to be nice to these people – let’s show them that we care – and in the field, that was really hard to do. We couldn’t show people we cared.’ Rod served as a first lieutenant in Vietnam from July 1969 to July 1970. He lives in Pasadena, California, with his wife, Carmie.

Photograph: Reed Young