Until today, I had felt myself becoming numb—distressingly so—to the torrent of bad news coming from Iraq.
But this morning I came across a slide show from the LA Times, and the war became somewhat real and immediate again. (I say ’somewhat real’ because if the only way this war affects me is through images on a web site, then it’s still sort of unreal.)
It’s the back story to the iconic photograph of the ‘Marlboro marine.’
The picture was taken in Falluja in 2004 by LA Times photographer Luis Sinco, and it was immediately labeled the “emblematic” image of the war. Now, a few years later, the subject of photograph, James Blake Miller, is back at home and struggling with post-traumatic stress. Sinco and his camera followed Miller back home to Kentucky.
Miller, broken in spirit yet incredibly lucid and insightful, narrates a trio of slide shows composed of Sinco’s photos. Check it out.
Potent. I read the other day in the Daily Camera that around 30% of homeless people are vets. And a large population of recent war vets are already living on the street. It’s a trend military spending should address.
I would think that he could never have nightmared what he saw as he was imagining what he would see when he got there. If a person can walk away feeling normal after something like that then they aren’t normal, and if you are normal you walk away scarred with no way to reconcile. Truly horrific. I can now imagine the last two people on earth fighting over an apple to the death.