Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2004/05/18
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]On 5/18/04 11:48 AM, "George Lottermoser" <george@imagist.com> wrote: > The following review of a major piece of Documentary Photography seems both > timely and historically important: > ---------------------------------------------- > Evidence of Things Not Seen > > by CHRIS HEDGES > > Agent Orange: "Collateral Damage" in Viet Nam > by Philip Jones Griffiths > > [from the May 24, 2004 issue of The Nation] > > My father and most of my uncles fought in World War II. I grew up in the > shadow of the war. But it was not the romantic war of movies and books, > although this romance infected me as it did all of the other farm kids in my > town. It was the war of the emotionally and physically maimed. My father, who > had been an army sergeant in North Africa, went to seminary after the war and > became a Presbyterian minister. When he spoke about the war you could almost > see him push his rifle away. He loathed the military and especially the lie > that war is about glory and manhood and patriotism. When our family visited > museums he steered us away from the ordered displays of weapons, the rows of > muskets and artillery pieces, which gleamed from behind cases or roped-off > areas. > > He was an early opponent of the Vietnam War. During a Fourth of July parade in > the farm town where I grew up he turned to me as the paunchy veterans walked > past and said acidly, "Always remember, most of those guys were fixing the > trucks in the rear." He hated the VFW hall where these men went, mostly to > drink. He found their periodic attempts to re-create the comradeship of war, > something that of course could never be re-created, pathetic and sad. When I > was about 12 in 1968 he told me that if I was drafted for the Vietnam War he > would go to prison with me. To this day I have a vision of sitting in a jail > cell with my dad. > > But it was my Uncle Maurice I thought most about as I looked through the > images in Agent Orange: "Collateral Damage" in Viet Nam, by the photographer > Philip Jones Griffiths. Uncle Maurice was in the regular Army in 1939 in the > South Pacific and fought there until he was wounded five years later by a > mortar blast. He did not return home with my father's resilience, although he > shared my father's anger and feeling of betrayal. His life was destroyed by > the war. He refused to accept his medals, including his Purple Heart. > > Maurice would sit around the stove in my grandmother's home and shake as he > struggled to ward off the periodic bouts of malaria. He did not talk about the > war. And so he drank. He became an acute embarrassment to our family, who > lived in a manse where there was no alcohol. He could not hold down a job. His > marriage fell apart. Another uncle hired him to work in his lumber mill, but > Maurice would show up late, often drunk, and then disappear on another binge. > He finally drank himself to death in his trailer, but not before borrowing and > selling the hunting rifle my grandfather had promised me. The money, I am > sure, went for a few more bottles. > > There was only one time he ever spoke to me about the war. It was at my > grandmother's kitchen table. He spoke in a flat monotone. His eyes seemed to > be looking far away, far across the field outside the house and the warmth of > the heavy porcelain stove, far across the snowy peaks, to a world that he > could never hope to explain. > > "We filled our canteens up in a stream once," he said. "When we went around > the bend there were twenty-five dead Japanese in the water." Those who pay the > price, those who are maimed forever by war, are shunted aside, crumpled up and > thrown away. They are war's refuse. We do not want to see them. We do not want > to hear them. They are doomed, like wandering spirits, to float around the > edges of our consciousness, ignored, even reviled. The message they bear from > war is too painful for us to absorb. And so we turn our backs, just as society > turned its back on my uncle, as it turns its back on all who come back and > struggle with the horrors of wounds, physical and emotional. > > In 1962 the United States set out to destroy the crops and forests that gave > succor and sanctuary to the Vietcong. The herbicide our government used to > accomplish this task became known as Agent Orange, after the color of the > canisters used to distribute it. Some of the herbicide contained dioxin, one > of the world's deadliest poisons. This herbicide had cataclysmic effects on > the foliage of Vietnam, but it also seems to have sown a "genetic time bomb" > that has left in its wake thousands of deformed children. Many died shortly > after birth. Griffiths has set out to photograph those unfortunates who > survived. > > There is a fierce debate about the link between the deformities and the > herbicide, but the incidence of birth defects in areas that were sprayed is > substantially higher than in those that were not sprayed. The wives of US > servicemen who were exposed to Agent Orange gave birth to a disproportionate > number of deformed babies. The affected families of Vietnam veterans were paid > $180 million by the chemical companies that produced the herbicide, although > none accepted liability. Needless to say, the Vietnamese victims as well as > Vietnam veterans from other nations, such as South Korea and Australia, have > received nothing. The only way to understand war is to see it from the > perspective of the victims. The face of war is in this book. It stares out at > you from the formaldehyde bottles that entomb dead infants with savage > deformities. It stares out at you in the portraits of orphans, crippled, > plagued by skin diseases, abandoned in hospitals and orphanages. It stares out > at you in! > the pictures from the village of Cam Nghia in central Vietnam, where one out > of ten children is born with deformities. In Cam Nghia families care for > children who suffer from spina bifida, mental retardation, blindness and > tumors, children born years after the war but wounded as if the war never > ended. > > We prefer the myth of war, the myth of glory, honor, patriotism and heroism, > abstract words that in the terror and brutality of combat are empty and > meaningless, abstract words that mask the plague of war, abstract words that > are obscene to those ravaged by war. The children in this book know war. > > I too went to war, not as a soldier, but as a war correspondent. I too battle > the demons that defeated my uncle. Perhaps it is hopeless to expect anyone to > listen. This book is hard to look at, just as war is hard to see. The myth has > a powerful, intoxicating draw. It permits us to make real the darkest > undercurrents of our fantasy life. It permits us to destroy, not only things > but other human beings. And in that power of wholesale destruction we feel the > power of the divine, the power to revoke another person's charter to live on > this earth. What we do not understand until it is over is that by unleashing > this destructive impulse we destroy not only others but ourselves. War > reverberates for years afterward, spinning lives into a dark oblivion of pain > and suffering. > > Most war films and images meant to denounce war fail. They fail because they > impart the thrill of violence and power. War images that show scenes of combat > become, despite the intention of those who produce it, war porn. And this is > why soldiers who have not been to combat buy cases of beer and sit in front of > movies like Platoon, movies meant to denounce war, and they yearn for it. It > is almost impossible to produce antiwar films or books that portray images of > war. It is like trying to produce movies to denounce pornography and showing > erotic love scenes. The prurient fascination with violent death overpowers the > message. The best record of war, of what war is and what war does to us, is > that which eschews images of combat. This is the power of Griffiths's book. It > forces us to see what the state and the press, the handmaiden of the > warmakers, work so hard to keep from us. If we really knew war, what war does > to minds and bodies, it would be harder to wage. This is why the! > essence of war, which is death and suffering, is so carefully hidden from > public view. We are not allowed to see dead bodies, at least of our own > soldiers, nor do we see the wounds that forever mark lives, the wounds that > leave faces and bodies horribly disfigured by burns or shrapnel or poison. War > is made palatable. It is sanitized. We are allowed to taste war's perverse > thrill, but usually spared from seeing its consequences. The wounded and the > dead are swiftly carted offstage. The maimed are carefully hidden in the wings > while the band plays a majestic march. > > War, at least the mythic version, is wonderful entertainment. We saw this with > the war in Iraq, where the press turned it into a video game, with a lot of > help from the military, and hid from us the effects of bullets, roadside bombs > and rocket-propelled grenades. War is carefully packaged, the way tobacco or > liquor companies package their own poisons. We taste a bit of war's > exhilaration but are safe, spared the pools of blood, the wailing of a dying > child. > > Only those works that, like Agent Orange, eschew the fascination with violence > to give us a look at what war does to human bodies grapple with war's reality. > We can only understand war when we turn our attention away from the weapons my > father refused to let us see in museums and look at what those weapons do to > us, look at those who bear war's burden. > > Modern warfare is largely impersonal. It mocks the idea of individual heroism. > Industrial warfare, waged since World War I, means that thousands of people, > who never see their attackers, can die and suffer in an instant. The power of > these industrial weapons, to those of us who have not seen them at work, is > incomprehensible. They can take down apartment blocks in seconds, burying > everyone inside. They can demolish tanks and planes and ships in fiery blasts. > They can leave a country like Vietnam defoliated and poisoned for decades > after an afternoon flight. > > Those left behind to carry the wounds of war feel, as my uncle did, a sense of > abandonment, made all the more painful by the public manifestations of > gratitude toward those who fit our image of what war should be. We see only > those veterans deemed palatable, those we can look at, those who are willing > to go along with the lies of war. They are trotted out to perpetuate the myth, > held up as heroes for young boys to emulate. We do not tolerate deviations > from the script. > > My family was not unique. There were tens of thousands, maybe hundreds of > thousands, of families like ours, families that cared for the human refuse of > World War II. There are families today that carry similar burdens, from > Vietnam, the Persian Gulf War and now Iraq. And there are their counterparts, > once the enemy, now part of the suffering mass of humanity that survived the > war, brothers and sisters of the maimed. > > Agent Orange allows us to look beyond the nationalist cant and flag-waving > used to propel us into war. It looks beyond the seduction of the weapons and > the pornography of violence. It looks beyond the myth. It focuses on the evil > of war. > > War corrupts our souls and deforms our bodies. It destroys homes and villages. > It grinds into the dirt all that is tender and beautiful and sacred. It is a > scourge. It is a plague. Before you agree to wage war, any war, look closely > at this book. Look at the faces of these children. Look at the faces of your > own children. > > Fond regards, > > G e o r g e L o t t e r m o s e r, imagist? > > <?>Peace<?> <?>Harmony<?> <?>Stewardship<?> > > Presenting effective messages in beautiful ways > since 1975 > ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ > web <www.imagist.com> > eMail george@imagist.com > voice 262 241 9375 > fax 262 241 9398 > Lotter Moser & Associates > 10050 N Port Washington Rd - Mequon, WI 53092 > ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ > _______________________________________________ > Leica Users Group. > See http://leica-users.org/mailman/listinfo/lug for more information Excellent words.. I often wonder why all leaders of religion and government just don't speak out against war and conflict and oppose all efforts that turn us from becoming better human beings.