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This photo illustration commemorates the 4000 American service personnel killed in Iraq since the war began just over five years ago.
The photos are remixed by permission of their Creative Commons licenses.
This photo, by Spc. Luke Thornberry, is entitled iraq. It is remixed by permission of the U.S. Army’s Soldiers Media Center. Its Flickr caption reads:
A U.S. Army Soldier from the 3rd Squadron, 2nd Stryker Cavalry Regiment conceals himself with smoke Oct. 18, 2007, after one of his regiment’s vehicles was hit by an improvised explosive device in Baghdad, Iraq.
The vibrantly coloured image of this U.S. Soldier charging into a literal fog of war (the alternate title of 4000 is The Purple Haze of War,) reflects the professionalism, determination, life and vitality of our Armed Forces. (The U.S. Army is featured because it has suffered the most deaths of all the services: 2319 of 4004, as of this posting.)
In the collage, the viewer’s eye is first directed to the Soldier’s face in the upper left corner of the frame. It then flows down the barrel of his weapon, across the 4 vertical slats, and continues along the inverted arc of the dog tag chain until it concludes on the grieving face of the U.S. Marine in the grayscale image at the left of the frame. (The U.S. Marine Corps has suffered the second most deaths of all the services: 847 of 4004, as of this posting.)
I converted the original colour image to grayscale to act as an achromatic counterbalance to the saturated intensity of the image on the left. It also resounds of the tragic lexicon of modern combat photography first captured by artists such as Robert Capa and Margaret Bourke-White.
This photo is entitled Iraq: Memorial. It is remixed by permission of the U.S. Marines. Its Flickr caption reads:
Lance Cpl. Charles S. Hayes, a 19-year-old from Iva, S.C., takes a moment of reflection at of [sic] the memorials to four fallen Marines from A Company, 2nd Tank Battalion, Regimental Combat Team 5. 2nd Lt. Michael L. LiCalzi, Cpl. Steve Vahaviolos, Lance Cpl. David J. Gramessanchez and Lance Cpl. Jason K. Burnett were memorialized at Camp Fallujah’s Chapel of Hope May 24. They were killed in a non-battle incident May 11 [2006].
Lance Cpl. Hayes is holding the dog tags hanging from a fallen comrade’s inverted rifle display, which is explained on Yahoo! Answers:
In the Army and other branches of the U.S. military, most units prepare a visible reminder of the deceased soldier with a display of a pair of combat boots and an inverted rifle with the soldier’s helmet and dog tags hanging on it.
Army lore indicates the helmet and identification tags signify the fallen soldier. The inverted rifle with bayonet signals a time for prayer and a break in the action to pay tribute to the dead. The combat boots represent the final march of the last battle.
Service members kneel before an inverted rifle display and hold the hanging dog tags as Lance Cpl. Hayes does in a gesture of remembrance. A warrior grasps a lost comrade’s dog tags as the final corporeal connection to a buddy lost on the battlefield. It is a moment that I imagine can only be fully understood and appreciated by those whom have held those tags in hand (a small cadre that has grown sadly greater these last five years.)
It is this moment that I sought to capture with 4000, as my own expression of appreciation and respect for all those whom have given their lives in the service of our Country.
1 Comment
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Support Barack Obama
Great imagery York - I can’t help but think that without your caption, this could have easily been mistaken for photos from another war. Your editing makes these fellows seem almost timeless: they could be from the 50s, 60s, or from the Bush era… a sad irony.