Purple Hearts
July 7, 2005 – July 30, 2005
An image of a wounded American soldier is one of the few pieces of documentary evidence the American public can see to begin a process of separating propaganda—that war is quick and bloodless—from truth.
Since October 2003, I have been making portraits and conducting interviews with Americans who were wounded in the Iraq War. I seek them out at their homes after they have been discharged from the military hospitals at Walter Reed in Washington, D.C. and Brooke Army in San Antonio, Texas. I stay away from the homecoming parades, the VFW initiation events, the yellow ribbons and appearances with politicians. I want to see the soldier alone as each confronts his or her loss and considers the experience of war and life ahead.
These portraits are not sentimental; if anything, they are detached. They are done in a formal manner in that the person is aware of being photographed. The process takes a few hours and always begins with a taped interview in which I ask questions about life at home, the recruitment process, the injury, what he or she liked about the military, and the experience in Iraq. Lately, I’ve been asking them for their definitions of freedom and democracy, a question that often leaves them puzzled.
When viewed together, the words and photos make for a complex, sometimes contradictory portrait of American youth; the values, dreams, the lack of opportunity facing them after high school, the culture of violence and drugs which many tried to escape by enlisting and the myths of warfare which helped influence their decisions to join.
When I started this project, I wasn’t prepared for the physical damage I would see. I remember the first soldier I photographed was completely blind. His world is black from morning to night. Titanium plates hold his brain together. He has seizures and mood swings and needs frequent naps. I photographed him in his bedroom standing next to a giant deer that he had killed when he was 16 years old. Dangling from the antlers were the soldier’s dog tags and his army ranger berets. Below the deer was a picture of the soldier in uniform. This young man, tall and strong, a uni-versity graduate, and first in his class of 228 rangers, trembled at the sound of the camera’s shutter.