A patchwork of rice paddies stretches from a linear farming village to the banks of a great river, photographed from a low-flying aircraft during the Vietnam War. Flooded and dry fields sit side by side and a rain shaft falls from the monsoon overcast, marking the turn of the wet season. The width of the river and its long mid-channel sand islands are consistent with the Mekong, though the frame carries no identifying detail. Photographs like this, taken casually on transit legs, record the civilian landscape that lay beneath one of the most intense air campaigns in history. Project: 219827