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May 3, 2006

This Is Our War

Devin Friedman of GQ magazine was kind enough to mail a copy of his new book, This Is Our War, which is a compilation of photographs taken by US troops in Iraq. Friedman was on one of many visits to Iraq, sponsored by GQ, when he had a revelation: the war in Iraq is the first where every particpant can take digital photographs of his own experience. He describes his realization in the introduction:

Sitting in this mess hall eating shitty cardboard cinnamon buns with lonely, geeky, barely postpubescent, kind of frighteningly smart army grunts, I had two thoughts. One: the familiar panic at realizing that the rabbit hole goes way deeper than you thought, that the lives of the people you're trying to write about are more vast, rich, mysterious, and moving than suspected, that you've barely scratched the surface. Thought two: Just imagine the untapped resources, the files and files of beautiful, honest, intimate, hilarious, harrowing pictures that exist on the hard drives and Memory Sticks of a nation of soliders, a collective memory of the war in Iraq probably far superior to whatever's on the photo servers at The new York Times or Newsweek. Superior not in terms of technical skill and artistic composition (though often that, too) but in terms of capturing that brittle, fleeting sense of what it's like, that shy animal that tends to make itself scarce around journalists except in brief interludes.
Friedman and the GQ staff have done a bang-up job in assembling the photos in this work. Moreover, they've refrained from any excessive commentary. Aside from Friedman's brief intro, and a forward by Gen Wesley Clark, the rest of the book is photos, their attributions, and the occasional quote from troops.

If that "fleeting sense of what it's like" is ephemeral to journalists, I suspect it is just as much so to veterans like myself. Flipping through This Is Our War is an excellent exercise in dredging up memories -- both good and bad -- for me and a work that can do that, which can really make one remember vividly for an instant what it was like is truly to be cherished.

For those who have followed the war in detail, as I imagine many of you loyal readers have, I'd recommend taking a look at this work to get a better mental picture of the landscape of Iraq, in all of its details: the lifestyles of the troops, the terrain, the weather, the Iraqis themselves.

Posted by Chester at May 3, 2006 10:01 PM

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Comments

www.undermars.com has a good collection of photos submitted by troops as well.

Posted by: tequila at May 4, 2006 1:08 PM

New to your blog. I lugged around an old Yashica J-7 when I was with the 25th Division in VN in 66 and 67 and put together something like a history of my time there. But I have three sons in this war, two with the 101st - one of them now in Iraq, the other going back for second time - and one formerly of the 82nd, attached to the 10th Mountain in Afghanistan. They all have digital cameras, and post their work on their personal spaces. One thing they don't do is write letters...they don't have to. Just look at the photos.

Posted by: Rhod at May 4, 2006 6:15 PM

I have a lot of photos too, but have never organized them . . . one day.

Posted by: Chester at May 4, 2006 10:33 PM

Howdy Chester,

I lugged around a crappy camera on every deployment we ever made. I was going through boxes the other day and came across the stack of photos... my wife walked up and asked me about them and it was amazing how most of the names and small incidents come flooding forth.

Posted by: Daniel at May 9, 2006 7:46 AM