Dang Van Phuoc, the Associated Press photographer who spent a decade covering combat in Vietnam and lost his right eye to a grenade explosion, died on May 23 in Newport Beach, California. His powerful images captured both the heroism and horror of war, earning recognition from colleagues as a fearless presence on the front lines.

From 1965 until the war ended in 1975, Phuoc photographed major battles across South Vietnam and North Vietnam. One of his most haunting images showed a Vietnamese woman carrying her napalm-burned 6-month-old son after Allied aircraft attacked her village in December 1968. He also documented American soldiers helping refugees and South Vietnamese forces interrogating Vietcong prisoners.

Horst Faas, AP's Saigon bureau chief, called Phuoc 'our secret weapon' for his willingness to risk injury for compelling photographs. Nick Ut, another Pulitzer-winning colleague, noted Phuoc 'always wanted to go back' despite being wounded multiple times. In 1968, the U.S. Army's Ninth Infantry Division commended him for carrying a wounded soldier through sniper fire.

Phuoc's work gave him a voice to speak to the world about war's human cost. Born in 1935 in Quang Ngai province, he witnessed his father's execution by the Viet Minh as a child. After Saigon fell in 1975, he resettled in the United States and later became a portrait photographer. His images remain essential documentation of Vietnam's brutal conflict.