In this essay from 1972 John Berger questions the effectiveness of graphic war photography and in doing so anticipates many of the debates about documentary that were soon to come. It was originally published in New Society magazine and subsequently reproduced in the 1980 collection, About Looking.
Writing during the closing phases of the Vietnam war, Berger begins by describing both the extent of the American bombing campaign of the north of that country, and the indiscriminately cruel nature of the lethal armanents being used. He notes a photograph in the newspaper by Don McCullin, from earlier in the war, depicting a man holding his injured child in the aftermath of a bombing. The actual photograph is not reproduced in the book but it is most likely the one below that Berger is referring to.
Traces Of The Real 