The Iraq war in pictures. Actually, in one picture. (WARNING: Graphic!)

[KamaAina]

http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/08/24/arts/portraits.php

One of the more shocking photographs to emerge from the current Iraq war was taken last year in a rural farm town in the American Midwest. It's a studio portrait by the New York photographer Nina Berman of a young Illinois couple on their wedding day.

Just when I think I cannot possibly hate these Bush**co SOBs any more... :grr: :banghead:

[w8liftinglady]

1. neither of them looks happy-he looks ashamed,she looks scared

how sad.

[Botany]

2. Oh God make it stop ... please make it stop.

I wish they find all the blessings of life and love.

:cry:

[Mojambo]

3. That photo's gonna stay with me for a while. n/t

[Selatius]

4. To be honest, I don't think they will have a happy life together.

It may be the alcohol in me, but I fucking guarantee that's not what she wanted her man to look like when she wanted to marry him. The sad part is he didn't have to look like that, but Bush went ahead and started the goddamn war anyway.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

5. I give it 50/50.

Like all marriages. If the bride didn't have class she wouldn't be standing there. So if it ends, it's going to be for some other, legitimate reason.

[Selatius]

11. I have to admit that you're probably less cynical than I am when viewing the picture.

If she left him because she couldn't stand seeing him like that every day, there will be no judgment from me; it's just something that was out of her control (i.e. the fucking war).

[TomInTib]

7. There is some unfortunate body language going on there.

And it is inherently unfair that you Central guys start drinking earlier than do I.

[bos1]

12. it may be the alcohol.

Men fall in love with women they are attracted to, women are attracted to men they fall in love with.

[Poll_Blind]

6. I really just don't have anything to say....except K&R. n/t

PB

[stillcool]

8. that must be a hell of a book...

http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/08/24/arts/portraits.php

Berman took this picture, which is in the solo show at Jen Bekman Gallery, on assignment for People magazine. It was meant to accompany an article that documented Ziegel's recovery, culminating in his marriage to his childhood sweetheart. But the published portrait was a convivial shot of the whole wedding party. Maybe the image of the couple alone was judged to be too stark, the emotional interchange too ambiguous. Maybe they looked, separately and together, too alone.

"Marine Wedding," the portrait's title, was not Berman's first encounter with wounded Iraq war veterans. She photographed several others beginning in 2003, and 20 of her portraits were published as a book, "Purple Hearts: Back From Iraq" (Trolley Books, 2004), with an introduction by Verlyn Klinkenborg, a member of the editorial board of The New York Times. These pictures, accompanied by printed interviews with the sitters, have been traveling the country, and 10 are now at Bekman.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Berman adds no direct editorial comment to the presentation. She has said in interviews that she started photographing disabled veterans soon after the war began mainly because she didn't see anyone else doing so. In what may be the most intensively photographed war in history, the visual documentation has been selective. The fate of the wounded veterans was not a public issue until news reports about substandard treatment at Walter Reed Army Medical Center.

This background provides the context for Berman's photographs, which are themselves tip-of-the-iceberg images. The images add up to a complex and desolating anti-war statement. Acosta makes that statement outright: "Yeah, I got a Purple Heart. I don't care. I don't need anything to prove I was there. I know I was there. I got a constant reminder. I mean like all the reasons we went to war, it just seems like they're not legit enough for people to lose their lives for and for me to lose my hand and use of my legs and for my buddies to lose their limbs."

[scarface2004]

9. bush doesn t give a damn about this or anything else!!!

those weapons of mass destruction have to be somewhere!!! ha ha ha! bush is a piece of shit!!

[Minimus]

10. there is a slide show on msn. it is heart breaking but I do admire the bride - she stuck by her man

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3042924/

scroll down it is under Impact of Iraq War - titled Scars of Iraq

[jgraz]

13. Here they are before he shipped out

[Uncle Joe]

14. This is a good picture, jpgraz n/t

[superkia]

15. Republicans and Democrats both make me sick right now!

Not all obviously but there are few that don't support this war for greed. If you vote for someone who isn't doing everything they can to stop this............you might as well go sit next to them the next time they do sign or vote for something that continues this shit and never complain about it again!