[Leica] covering the news....

[photo.forrest at earthlink.net (Philip Forrest)]

I could have taken photos of lots of dead Marines. That could have been
considered part of my job. I didn't want to though. I didn't want to
photograph a lot of what I did, but it was my job. I lost enough
friends out in Iraq that I didn't need to capture that memory forever.
I'll have it forever. I respect the men and women who've died. Their
war is over and there is nothing but peace for them now. Us who
survived have the hard battle to deal with. Memory.
There are a few things I agree with on the DoD side, and a few things I
agree with on the journalist side. If he did indeed break some
protocol, then he deserved to get kicked out. Were he military, he'd
have been tried at a courts martial possibly. On the security side, I
completely understand the DoD point of view. The enemy is extremely
smart and if they can use any intelligence gathered from the internet
to find a weak spot in our tactics, then again, the journalist is in
the wrong. I DO believe that there should be more imagery coming out of
Iraq and Afghanistan, but not if it endangers my comrades. 

Further, this war CANNOT be compared to Vietnam in regard to imagery
and journalism. There was no way for the enemy to use photos such as
these in a timely fashion since most film was sent back to the
publication it was shot for, then developed, then edited, and then
possibly used for publication. We all have access to the means of
production now. Remember Nick Berg and the many beheadings which were
seen on the internet during 2004 alone. The internet is free
information, pure and simple and it's quite easy to do a little
snooping to find out who got bombed, where, when, how and possibly what
tactics were used. Blogs are a product of our egos. Now that we can
take a digital photo of a dead Marine then post it on the internet soon
afterwards, we do so in order to get attention. A kind of "look at me!
look at me! Look what I made! I risked MY life to take this photo of
this guy who GAVE his life for it, all for you! Pay attention to me!"
This is what I think of exploitative bloggers. There is a time and a
place for showing our dead. It's after the family has done their
grieving. After we have paid our respects to our fallen friends. After
the security environment surrounding the death has changed enough that
it can't be exploited to hurt us. Until then, take the photos and just
keep them for the future. War hasn't changed at all in all of
history. We all are wounded and all die the same way. The photos
can wait for a while, they'll still have plenty of impact later on.
Maybe put the camera down once in a while and hold the hand of that
Marine who is bleeding out. 

Phil Forrest