After more than 150 years of photography—of millions of photographs showing humans shredded, burned, drilled by bullets, eviscerated, or hacked to pieces, we must acknowledge that murder, genocide, slaughter and natural disaster continue undeterred by the witness of photographers and photojournalists.

Words may reveal the mind of the victim or the perpetrator and thereby teach us something, but never the photograph. It can only re-present that which was visible. You will not get blood on your fingers by dragging them across the photograph of a dead soldier or accident victim. You will not hear the victim’s dying screams or last words. You will not smell the stench of the body’s decay. Still photographs remain still—odorless artifacts.

Most of the photographs of war and suffering are made to sell—not just to teach, witness, document or chastise. The photojournalists who make these pictures expect to be paid for taking the risk. And the news agencies expect to be paid for the use of the images.

Such photography panders to the viewer/reader’s anxiety and need to feel safe. It is expected they will find comfort in knowing they have been spared the horror shown in the photograph. But is this real journalism? Does it truly educate and serve any noble or practical purpose? Or does it principally titillate, stir fear and fan prejudice?

Eddie Adams won the Pulitzer Prize for his photograph of General Nguyễn Ngọc Loan executing a handcuffed Viet Cong prisoner in Saigon. This picture helped turn American sentiment against the Vietnam War and hasten its end. However, it has done little to prevent America’s involvement in subsequent wars. Likewise, the highly publicized photographs of the My Lai massacre, of more than 347 unarmed men, women and children, by U.S. troops, on 16 March 1968, has done little to prevent subsequent mass murders and genocides from happening around the world.

Photojournalism’s demonstrated failure to prevent or end wars, genocides and disaster makes it cynical if not immoral for photojournalists, news agencies and publishers to continue profiting from the photography of people’s suffering, pain and tragedy—photographs that are sold and peddled as a commodity to be consumed like coffee at breakfast. Is this what it means to be civilized? Is this being informed or simply inflamed? Who really benefits?

© 2010 Michael Maurer Smith

Occasionally I meet people who, upon learning I was a Marine, tell me, “thank you for your service.” This is meant well, although their thank you is always tinged with guilt. People learned after the Vietnam War not to visit their dislike of America’s misguided politics and wasted wars upon the veterans who had to fight them.

I am conflicted about being thanked for my military service. Should I be gracious and accept it? Or should I tell the person to study the history of America’s war and politics and ask themselves some hard questions? Should I point out that the Vietnam War is now recognized to have been folly—that the 51,895 names etched on the wall in Washington D.C. testifies to their sacrifice in service of too many lying and dithering politicians who played war games from the comfort of their desks? Should I point out that our current “all volunteer” military is for many a last resort employment program led by career professionals—that in effect it is a mercenary force used to extend America’s influence by means of threat and violence. Should I point out that for all the deaths and maiming suffered by the United States, its allies, and the Iraqi and Afghan peoples that Osama Bin Laden has not been brought to justice, and that weapons of mass destruction have not been found in Iraq—although they certainly exist in arsenals throughout the United States?

Recently, while in New Mexico, a place I love for its stark contrasts, I photographed the roadside marker at the entry to Trinity Site.

Trinity Site Marker, near San Antonio, NM

It was at Trinity site, not far from San Antonio, NM in Socorro County, on 16 July 1945 that the equivalent of 20 kilotons of TNT was released with the detonation of the first atomic bomb. It was here that the biblical promise of Armageddon was made possible by science, engineering and American ingenuity. It was here in the desert, south of the Valley of Fires, that 45 mile stretch of malpais, and west of the Three Rivers Petroglyphs site with it 21,000 drawings carved in the rocks by nameless and faceless people more than 1,100 years ago that the objectivity of science was irretrievably surrendered to the service of politics.

Valley of Fires, Malpais, near Carrizozo, NM

Petroglyphs, Three Rivers, NM

We know the rest of the story. The bombs were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki and all that was living below perished or suffered. The bombs could not distinguish between combatant and non-combatant, the innocent or evil. They cooked the young and old, babies, dogs, cats and birds without discrimination.

Of course, the destruction and horrors of Little Boy and Fat Man were no greater than those caused by the fire bombings of Tokyo on the 9^th of March 1945, when more than 100,000 people died that night and more than a million were wounded!

On 5 August 1945 the bomb bay doors of the Enola Gay opened and America gained the distinction of being the first nation to drop an atomic bomb (Little Boy) on a living population. Later, on 9 August 1945, Fat Man fell on Nagasaki.

It is argued that hundreds of thousands of allied troops would have died invading Japan had the bombs not been dropped. This is likely so. Yet the fact remains that the single most horrific and powerful weapon ever made was used, in spite of the pleas by many of the scientists who developed it. They said it should not be used until it had been first demonstrated to the Japanese thus giving them the option of immediate surrender. President Truman, ignored those pleas and ordered the bombings. Science was now an arm of politics. Realizing what he had done  J. Robert Oppenheimer, quoted from the Bhagavad Gita, saying, “Now, I am become death, the destroyer of worlds.”

Thus far we have avoided another war on the scale of World War Two and have settled for exercising our military skill in a succession of mini-wars—tactical adventures that increasingly resemble video games except for the real carnage they exact. This way we continue to produce a steady stream of new veterans—veterans of our political policy wars—of our wars to extend corporate influence in the guise of spreading Democracy (mostly to those who haven’t asked for it).

As a nation we seem to have lost our stomach for wholesale slaughter and subscribe to the unfounded belief that war can be waged clinically using missiles, drones, and robots, remotely controlled by operators sitting in front of computer monitors in air-conditioned command centers. We believe, or want to believe, that we can kill only the bad guys while avoiding “collateral” damage. It doesn’t seem to be working. We seem resigned to winning the immediate engagement but not the war. In fact we can’t seem to define the war—to decide whether we are at war, conducting a police action, doing peace keeping or nation building.

There was clarity about World War Two. Neither the Axis or Allied powers deluded themselves believing limited war was possible. It was a fight to the finish. It was freedom versus the forces of oppression. Hitler and the Imperial Japanese had to be stopped. And it was over in four years.

The bombings of Tokyo, Hiroshima, Nagaski, London and Dresden were not surgical raids on military targets only. Instead both sides aimed at inflicting so much pain and suffering on the respective enemy populations that they would be compelled to capitulate or wiped out. War then was understood as total. Whether you were a civilian or served in uniform you were involved and vulnerable. It was inescapable.

Today, in the United States, there is no compulsory national service, military or otherwise. Consequently the conflicts we are involved in, such as those in Afghanistan and Iraq are executed by volunteer troops, commanded by university educated and professional officers. Thus our civilian population is free to support, dismiss or totally ignore the American soldier and the military in general. Instead of military service being an obligation, or perceived as a duty it is now considered just another job or career choice. New recruits are given signing bonuses and in some cases permitted to take holiday leaves during boot camp! All of the military services now use branding and marketing agencies to sell themselves, promising to turn the young recruit into an invincible high tech warrior—off to see foreign lands, seek thrills and find adventure.

So, as a veteran how do I feel about being thanked for my service? I feel unsettled, embarrassed and somewhat grateful. I appreciate that my service is acknowledged. Yet I know I did not enlist out of patriotism. I enlisted because the G.I Bill promised me an opportunity for an education, if I survived—a way out of a dead end situation. And I got that education and opportunity at a price.

During and after my service I came to know that my nation lied to me about Vietnam. I began to realize that the pay and benefits I’d received as a Marine had come at a cost in blood for many innocent people, both American and Vietnamese. So how can I be proud of this? Why should I be?

The veterans of World War Two can be proud of their service, knowing it was truly necessary and noble. And those of us who served during Korea and Vietnam can take a measure of solace in knowing that we had few choices—we would likely have been drafted if we hadn’t enlisted. Drafted or enlisted most of us went in with our eyes open and aware of the calculations.

So I will graciously accept the thank you for my service. However, anyone who would truly honor me as a veteran must pledge to rise above the words of politicians, professors and religious leaders and search for the real truth—the truth one must recognize in their heart—the truth that tells them that “blessed are the peacemakers for they shall be called the children of God.” (Matthew 5:9)

War should never be the political solution. It should only be entered into in defense of the innocent and helpless, and then only as an absolute and unavoidable last resort.

The best way to thank veterans is by not creating the conditions that produce them.

© Michael Maurer Smith 2009

OutrageUS_002 © Michael Maurer Smith 2009

NOTE: The figure of 16 million dollars is the rounded down yearly income (192 million dollars) divided by 12 of Lawrence J. Ellison, CEO of the Oracle corporation. This figure was published by Forbes magazine, on their website as of 30 April 2008. The pay rate for the Army private first class (E2) comes from the pay tables published by the Defense Finance and Accounting Service. It reflects only the base pay rate for the year 2008.