As we here in the States approach Independence Day and what is usually a weekend of fireworks, barbecue, boating and various kinds of excess, it's also worth reflecting on the fact that there are still some US citizens in harm's way, wearing the uniform and making significant sacrifices.

Getty sent Scott Olsen to accompany the remains of Pfc Aaron Toppen (4th ID) on his last trip home.  Pfc Toppen was one of several Americans killed by friendly fire.  It's both a lovely and melancholy photo essay--straight forward photojournalism.

You can see it here:  http://www.theatlantic.com/infocus/2014 … en/100768/

And a happy 4th of July to all of you,

Ed

That photo essay is very moving.

Powerful and moving.

Freedom isn't free.

That photo essay made me think a bit.  When I was doing photojournalism work, I shot a lot of difficult stuff.  I dealt with a lot of raw emotions and people suffering from loss.  And for the most part, I kind of shrugged it off (at least at the time, I now have PTSD so I guess I wasn't so good at shrugging it off).  But for all the ugly stuff I shot, the two things that probably had the most immediate emotional impact on me involved shooting a family in El Salvador recovering their father who'd been killed by death squads (and dumped in the San Salvador trash dump) then later burying him.  And a village in Bosnia during the Civil War  recovering and then burying a 12 year old who had been raped and killed by Serbs.  Basically, I don't do funerals.  I've shot a lot of ugly stuff...the dead and dying, people trying to pull loved ones out of collapsed buildings, refugees fearing for their lives, POWs who pretty much knew they were going to be killed once I left, people in poverty worse than anything I've seen here in the US, rape victims, people who lost arms in Liberia.  But it's the funerals I could never handle emotionally. 

So I look at Olson's essay and I not only evaluate the work as a photographer, I end up asking myself:  "Could I have shot that?".  And even in my prime, when I wasn't as brittle, considered myself bulletproof, that's not an assignment I would have managed well.  He's got my respect for pulling off something I'm pretty sure I never could have come close to, and doing it with dignity and intimacy and emotion.

Ed

Thank you.