Scope and Contents

Department of the Army Special Photographic Office (DASPO) Pacific Detachment patches and critique sheets for films shot by Lee Swain in Korea for DASPO Pacific Detachment in 1969.

Biographical / Historical

Lee Swain was born on 21 June 1930 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. In 1951, Swain volunteered for the United States Army, where he served for twenty-two years before transferring to the United States Air Force in 1976. During his total of thirty years in the military, Swain spent two and a half years in Southeast Asia, from 1967 through 1971, serving with the Department of the Army Special Photographic Office (DASPO). He served first as a Specialist 5 and then a Specialist 6 as a photographer, both motion and still, and was stationed in Hawaii, Vietnam, Korea and Thailand. While in Southeast Asia, he was involved in the Tet Offensive and received the Vietnam Service Medal and the Armed Services Expeditionary Medal. In 1981 Swain retired as a Sergeant First Class and took up a job as a photographer at Kelly Air Force Base as a civilian contract photographer from 1982 through 1995. He is a member of the Vietnam Veterans of America, the Veterans of Foreign Wars, the American Legion and the Disabled American Veterans Association.