What We Lose When War Become Abstract
He was sent — by governments
Look at the photograph.
Not past it. Not through it. At it.
The mud is everywhere — helmet, face, hands, rifle, uniform — layered so thick it has become its own texture, obscuring the details beneath until the man and the earth are almost the same thing. His mouth is slightly open. His eyes are focused on something outside the frame, something we cannot see, something that has his complete and total attention in the way that only immediate danger commands.