Wounded Marine Gunnery Sgt. Jeremiah Purdie (center) moves to try and comfort a stricken comrade after a fierce firefight during the Vietnam War.
Photographed for an essay that ran in the October 28, 1966, issue of LIFE, this Larry Burrows picture — now regarded as one of the handful of utterly indispensable images from the war — did not appear in the magazine until February 1971.