Judging war

Afterimage, Jan-Feb, 2008 by Jill Conner

NEVER COMING HOME

BY ANDREW LICHTENSTEIN

MILAN AND NEW YORK: CHARTA BOOKS, 2007

80 PP./$24.95 (SB)

BOMB AFTER BOMB: A VIOLENT CARTOGRAPHY

BY ELIN O'HARA SLAVICK

MILAN AND NEW YORK: CHARTA BOOKS, 2007

61 PP./$34.95 (SB)

JUDGE

BY VINCENT KATZ AND WAYNE GONZALES

MILAN AND NEW YORK: CHARTA BOOKS, 2007

80 PP./$24.95 (SB)

In April 2004, the Seattle Times published Tami Silicio's Nikon Coolpix digital images of flag-draped coffins within a cargo plane at the Kuwait International Airport, with the intention of honoring those who had died in combat in the Iraq War. The act was considered a violation of the privacy of the families of the war victims, and Silicio was fired from her job as a contractor for Maytag Aircraft. However, earlier that month, author Russ Kick was granted access to 288 photographs of flag-draped coffins taken by photographers working for the Department of Defense at Dover Air Force Base. (1) Having won the "Dover Test," Kick uploaded each image to his Web site, Thememoryhole.com, where they are available for public view. Although Kick's acquisition exposed the practices of government censorship toward specific images taken by journalists, none of them reached the pitch of those images seen on the Canadian Web site, Mindprod.com, that depict countless war victims, American and foreign, lying mangled, damaged, and destroyed after impact. Thus, the photograph has run the risk of either telling too little or revealing too much, leaving many to question what exactly is appropriate. In Fall 2007, Italian publisher Charta released Never Coming Home by Andrew Lichtenstein, Bomb After Bomb: A Violent Cartography by elin O'Hara slavick, and Judge, co-authored by Vincent Katz and Wayne Gonzales. Together these artist books utilize photo-based images to effectively address the disconnect that underlies many of the government's decisions to go to war, neither surrendering nor withholding too much shock.

In November 2003, Lichtenstein attended his first military funeral--in Long Island, New York, for Private Jacob Fletcher. Around the time that the exhibition "War in Iraq: Coordinates of Conflict," by VII, opened at the International Center of Photography in March 2004, US News and World Report agreed to send Lichtenstein to various military funerals across the country. His resulting collection of photographs, Never Coming Home, consists of about fifty color plates that portray the families of fallen soldiers as well as their homes and belongings in an effort to create a memory of individuals who have been largely unknown to the rest of America. As a result, each image is named after the soldier who died, included with the date and location of his or her death and a description of what the picture actually portrays.

The empty gaze of a child emerges from the cover, and the first image, "Christopher Wasser, 21. Killed in Husaybah, Iraq, April 8, 2004. His Marine uniform hangs in the family home, Ottawa, Kansas, June 22" (2004), portrays a plastic-covered Marine jacket set on a hanger that rests on a hook near the stairwell in the family's home. Another image shows a group of seven Marines practicing for an upcoming ceremony in "Bunny Long, 22. Killed in Anbar province, March 10, 2006. Marine honor guard practices carrying the casket, Hughson, California, March 22" (2006), whereas two other images commute the vast loss that is felt on a personal level and should be felt on a collective one: Nick Spry's mother standing in the room of her son, unable to clean it, and Manny Hornedo's young son sitting on his bed in tears, his hands covering his eyes. In an interview with documentary photographer Nina Berman, Lichtenstein revealed: "I started during a time when the war was popular ... But I see war as the absolutely last choice, when every other option has been exhausted." (3) In an effort to further contextualize the lives of those who are remembered by this document, Lichtenstein punctuates these images with eight essays written by the soldiers' family members.

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Throughout all of his travels, which occurred between 2003 and 2006, it is clear that the photographer automatically became a silent, observing member of these grieving families, taking pictures of them both at home and at the graveyard. Most families have suffered anonymously since the Pentagon imposed guidelines on November 14, 2004, restricting reporters from either recording or standing at the back of memorial services. In addition, President George W. Bush has not attended either funerals or memorials--a gesture that echoes the Presidential custom during the Vietnam War. (4) Although soldiers' families do request privacy, "They want some other way for the national leader to acknowledge their sacrifice." (5) The photographer poignantly described one trip: "In Arkansas, the father of a boy who had given away all his favorite belongings before he left for war, knowing that he would not be coming back, invited me over after the funeral for a memorial barbecue" (5).