Most photographs from the Vietnam War show combat, destruction, and grief. The images taken by Private First Class Lance V. Nix tell a different story. Drafted into the U.S. Army, Nix carried a camera alongside his standard gear and used his off-duty time to document the civilian world around him. His focus was My Tho, the provincial capital of Dinh Tuong Province, situated in the Mekong Delta.
My Tho sits in the Tien Giang Province, a region defined by rice paddies, river channels, and busy trade routes. In 1969, it was home to a working population that kept markets open, food vendors active, and streets full — even as the war ground on across the country. Nix arrived in the area in late 1968 and spent the following year recording what daily life looked like from ground level.
The downtown market was one of Nix’s most photographed locations. Vendors lined the streets selling everything from fresh produce to shoes. Sidewalk food stalls served hot meals to midday crowds, and buyers moved between stalls with the same routine they kept in peacetime.
The Tet holiday brought extra color to the market. Flower vendors arranged marigolds in large bundles, and decorative vegetables filled the stalls as the city prepared to celebrate the Lunar New Year. French bread, a direct remnant of French colonial rule, was still sold openly on My Tho’s streets in 1969.
Children appear throughout Nix’s collection. Flower girls worked the marketplace, a shoe seller posed with young customers, and a girl sold produce from her stall. On the Mekong riverfront, two children stopped to pose for his camera.
Nix also photographed the eastern commercial districts and the broader rhythms of My Tho’s streets. Local men played cards in the northeast part of the city. Women walked past the military operational center without breaking stride. American officers, including Captain Kozak and Lieutenant Short, shared Chinese lunches with local contacts in Dinh Tuong Province.
The Mekong River shaped much of what Nix recorded. Riverfront food vendors served customers along the water’s edge. Locals gleaned fish from drying rain ponds near the Binh Duc airstrip. The southeastern corner of My Tho, where the city met the Mekong, offered open views and a public park.
One of the most unusual subjects in Nix’s collection is the Coconut Monk’s island compound on the Mekong, near My Tho. The Coconut Monk — a Vietnamese religious figure — had built a floating platform and tower on the river, where devotees gathered for services and visitors arrived by water taxi. A South Vietnamese war boat patrolled the waters nearby. Nix photographed the compound’s entrance, its devotees at worship, and a young visitor who had made the trip out to the island.
Nix also crossed the river by ferry toward Kien Hoa Province, where he photographed a meeting with visitors from Saigon. Along the way, his camera kept recording — street noodles, market stalls, a man eating what Nix labeled the “Noodle Gobbler,” and the southeastern riverfront that defined My Tho’s edge.
