Photo Corners headlinesarchivemikepasini.com


A   S C R A P B O O K   O F   S O L U T I O N S   F O R   T H E   P H O T O G R A P H E R

Enhancing the enjoyment of taking pictures with news that matters, features that entertain and images that delight. Published frequently.

Veterans Day Share This on LinkedIn   Tweet This   Forward This

11 November 2023

Our era has brought combat home. From the Vietnam War on our black-and-white television sets to the Israel-Hamas conflict on our phones, we can see combat from guerrilla warfare to aerial bombardment to targeted missile attacks.

Foxhole. U.S. Marine sits in a foxhole and points a machine gun towards Beirut, Lebanon, in the distance. Thomas J. O'Halloran, July 1958, Library of Congress. Colorized in Photoshop.

The footage can't hide the resulting death and devastation. It is often simply hard to watch and newscasters often warn that "what you are about to see may be disturbing."

But it's important to remind ourselves that Veterans Day was never meant to glorify that combat. It is a salute to those who, in war and peace, served their country in the military. Living and dead.

We like to quote how the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs describes the day:

While those who died are also remembered, Veterans Day is the day set aside to thank and honor ALL those who served honorably in the military -- in wartime or peacetime. In fact, Veterans Day is largely intended to thank LIVING veterans for their service, to acknowledge that their contributions to our national security are appreciated, and to underscore the fact that all those who served -- not only those who died -- have sacrificed and done their duty.

And the living have a lot to say.

We have been reading Jack Yaghubian's Grunt's Minutia, a fictionalized account of 16 days in the fall of 1969 in Vietnam.

It was a gift from the veteran whose plight we profiled in 2019. He told us:

I ran into Jack the Hat at Specs. I asked him if he would sign the book for you if I ran across the street to City Lights to pick one up. He said, "Don't do that, buy it from me. I give a good discount."

One thing that has impressed us as we turned the pages was how the protagonist maintained his humanity in the context of combat. Which is also why we won't quote an example except to reveal at one point he marked his helmet with "FTA," an acronym that ends with "the Army" and for which you can imagine the rest.

Grunt's Minutia certainly doesn't glorify war. But it helps you appreciate everyone who ever wore the uniform.


BackBack to Photo Corners