There was a photograph taken of me once where I was sitting on a beautiful beach. I was on vacation with the woman I loved. I was just back from my first tour in Iraq and I could not have been anywhere else in the world at that moment that would have brought me more happiness. However, the photograph captured the truth; it froze a moment in time when I could not have been father from where I really was…
I have been thinking about that picture because an old man brought a young child to us while we were at a police checkpoint. He brought the young child to us in a wheel barrel. The child was severely burned over half his body. Some soldiers tried to help but as an army, the world’s most powerful one, we did not do enough. The child will probably die before to long because the type of care the child requires is out of reach for most Afghan’s. What keeps echoing in my thoughts is that dying is probably the best hope for him.
Since the type of mission we are on has not and probably will not put us in a position where we will be heavily engaged with the enemy, today could be the type of battle that stays with some soldiers for a long time. I hope it does not because I have fought that type of battle before. I hope that today is just another day for the other soldiers on my team. I hope they will not have dreams of the young child. I hope that when they are home, far away from this place, a photograph is taken that will not be a portrait of a tormented soul.
What will photographs show about me?
