"I am no kook, hippie, hawk, or dove. I am just a veteran combat photographer and foreign correspondent who cares intensely about my country and the role we are playing - and assigning to ourselves - in the world of today. And I want to shout a loud protest at what has happened at Khesanh and in all of Vietnam." David Douglas Duncan, I Protest.

1916 - Born in Kansas City, Missouri on January 23.

1934 - While at the University of Arizona Duncan heard on the radio that Tuscon's largest hotel was on fire. He rushed downtown with his 39 cent Bakelite camera and snapped his first photograph of a frantic man retrieving a suitcase from the burning hotel. The next day he read in the newspaper that the man he had photographed was John Dillenger whose suitcase had been filled with guns and stolen money. Duncan recalls in his autobiography, Yankee Nomad, that this was "the most significant single move of my life."

1938 - Received his B.A. and roamed around for a year freelancing. While aboard a schooner in the Caribbean, Duncan photographed every stage of a fishing exhibition for giant turtles. These photos would later appear on the pages of National Geographic Magazine.

1943 - Entered the U.S. Marine Corps as a second lieutenant looking forward to "exciting new experiences." He was assigned as a specialist to the aviation branch and was stationed at Ewa, near Honolulu, where he commanded a photo lab.

1944 - After being transferred to photograph the South Pacific Air Transport Command, he covered the guerrilla fighting of the Fijians against the Japanese on the Solomon Islands, and later combat aviation on Okinawa and other islands.

1945 - Covered the Official surrender of Japan aboard the USS Missouri. When Duncan left the service as a lieutenant colonel his decorations included a Legion of Merit, a Purple Heart, two Distinguished Flying Crosses, six Battle Stars, and three Air Medals.

1946 - His reputation as a combat photographer who had shared the hardships and risks of the men who he had photographed, earned him a staff position with Life magazine. Duncan sent Life photos he had taken in Palestine to show, impartially, the conflict between the Arabs and the Jews before there was a state of Israel. Duncan felt that Life slighted the Arabs in the magazine layout and threatened to resign. Promises of more balanced coverage of the crises convinced him to stay.

1950 - Covering the Korean War for Life, Duncan wanted to show the horror and heroism of combat as seen through the eyes of the marines from the First Division. His photographs appeared in Life under the caption "This-is War!"

1952 - Photographed for Life the departure of King Farouk from Egypt after he was overthrown by Egyptian army officers. Other assignments during this time up to 1954 included an assignment in Africa where he visited South Africa, French Guinea, and Morocco.

1955 - Duncan resigned from Life magazine.

1956 - As a freelance photographer, Duncan contributed a story on Russia, entitled "On the Loose in Moscow" and a story on Ireland, "Connemari" to the Saturday Evening Post. During his visit to Moscow, Duncan obtained permission from Premier Nikita S. Khrushchev to photograph the art treasures of the Kremlin. These images were the first full-color photographs ever made of the interior of the Kremlin. The eighty-three color plates appeared in Duncan's The Kremlin.

1956 - Duncan spent much of the late fifties working on two books about artist Pablo Picasso. Picasso invited Duncan to stay for several months at his villa on the Riviera. Duncan took over 10,000 unposed photos of Picasso going about his daily affairs.

1960 - Dissatisfied with the limitations of his camera, Duncan went to Germany where he equipped a Nikon F with the latest technical devices, allowing new color effects, multiple exposures, and multiple images. He used these new technical advances for his pictorial essay "Paris in Photographs," which appeared in the February 1964 issue of McCall's. Duncan received S50,000, reportedly the highest price ever paid for a picture story.

1967 - Duncan returned to the Far East under the sponsorship of Life and ABC-News to cover the Vietnam War. His photographs and remarks about the war were published in Life and in the book I Protest.

As a photographer for Life, Duncan won the Overseas Press Club Award for picture reporting from abroad. He also won the United States Camera Gold Medal Award for This is War!. He gave the royalties from that book to the Marine Corps Fund for widows and children of the dead, and he turned over the proceeds from I Protest to the families of marines killed at Khensanh.