Army Behavior poster, Panel 6: Respect Civilians' Lives and Beliefs (Vietnamese poster distributed in Saigon)
Army Behavior Panel 6: a rule for soldiers on civilians' lives and beliefs
Army Behavior Panel 6, Saigon, 1956: a USIA-series poster tells soldiers to respect civilians' lives, property and freedom of belief. NARA RG 306, NAID
Techniques named on the archive record
Glittering generalities
Date
May 28, 1956
Made by
U.S. Information Agency (predecessor: State Department International Information and Educational Exchange Program), Propaganda Posters Distributed in Asia, Latin America and the Middle East series
U.S. National Archives (NARA), RG 306, Posters Distributed in Asia, Latin America, Middle East (NAID 5051202) , retrieved October 4, 2026
Source
Public domain (U.S. government work; NARA RG 306) U.S. Information Agency / Department of State, May 28, 1956. National Archives, Record Group 306 (NAID 6948907, 306-PPB-79f).
Object, image, and catalog record from the FRAME archive. Text on this page is CC BY 4.0. Image rights are as the archive records.
Panel 6 of a seven-panel Army Behavior set, a Vietnamese-language poster distributed in Saigon, catalog date 28 May 1956, in the U.S. Information Agency series. A helmeted soldier stands between a temple and a church, over the rule that soldiers must respect the people's lives, property and freedom of belief (NAID 6948907).
What the panel says
A helmeted soldier, rifle slung on his shoulder, stands beside a tiled-roof temple and a church with twin spires. Small figures of civilians walk toward each building, in the archive's description. The number 6 sits in a black circle. The rule is one sentence.
6
Phải kính trọng tính-mệnh tài-
sản và tự-do tín-ngưỡng của Dân
Must respect the lives, property and freedom of belief of the People.
The set and its maker
The archive calls this panel 6 of the Vietnamese army's seven commandments. The other panels in the record carry their own rules: panel 4 on protecting army property, panel 5 on keeping army secrets, panel 7 on being close to the people. The poster is filed in the U.S. Information Agency series for Asia, Latin America and the Middle East, with the agency's State Department predecessor also named. The archive classes the source as unidentified and gives the purpose as "Mobilize or secure compliance." The record does not name the artist, the printer, or who first wrote the seven rules.
How to read it
FRAME's single tag is glittering generalities: respect for religion and for the people is asserted as the soldier's ideal. The poster states a standard; it shows no case of the standard being kept or broken.
The standard itself is the right one. Soldiers who respect civilians' lives, their property, and their freedom to worship at the temple or the church are what any constitutional order asks of its army. The drawing puts the two buildings side by side and gives neither the advantage. Whether the army that received this panel lived up to it is beyond what the record can show.
FRAME object record, Army Behavior poster, Panel 6: Respect Civilians' Lives and Beliefs (Vietnamese poster distributed in Saigon), 28 May 1956. U.S. Information Agency (predecessor: State Department International Information and Educational Exchange Program), Propaganda Posters Distributed in Asia, Latin America and the Middle East series.
U.S. National Archives and Records Administration, Record Group 306, series Posters Distributed in Asia, Latin America, Middle East (NAID 5051202), item NAID 6948907 (306-PPB-79f), retrieved by the archive 4 October 2026. Rights as recorded: public domain (U.S. government work).
