This image triggers a whole spectrum of emotion in me

Vlad

Vlad

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Mar 16, 1980
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#1
wedding.jpg


One of the more shocking photographs to emerge from the current Iraq war was taken last year in a rural farm town in the American Midwest. It’s a studio portrait by the New York photographer Nina Berman of a young Illinois couple on their wedding day.


The bride, Renee Kline, 21, is dressed in a traditional white gown and holds a bouquet of scarlet flowers. The groom, Ty Ziegel, 24, a former Marine sergeant, wears his dress uniform, decorated with combat medals, including a Purple Heart. Her expression is unsmiling, maybe grave. His, as he looks toward her, is hard to read: his dead-white face is all but featureless, with no nose and no chin, as blank as a pullover mask.

Two years earlier, while in Iraq as a Marine Corps reservist, Mr. Ziegel had been trapped in a burning truck after a suicide bomber’s attack. The heat melted the flesh from his face. At Brooke Army Medical Center in Texas he underwent 19 rounds of surgery. His shattered skull was replaced by a plastic dome, and a face was constructed more or less from scratch with salvaged tissue, holes left where his ears and nose had been.

Ms. Berman took this picture, which is in the solo show at Jen Bekman Gallery, on assignment for People magazine. It was meant to accompany an article that documented Mr. Ziegel’s recovery, culminating in his marriage to his childhood sweetheart. But the published portrait was a convivial shot of the whole wedding party. Maybe the image of the couple alone was judged to be too stark, the emotional interchange too ambiguous. Maybe they looked, separately and together, too alone.
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From today's NY Times.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/22/arts/design/22berm.html?_r=1&oref=slogin
 
#4
i saw there article a few months back in people magazine. it's so sad. the bride just looks like she is in shock. i wonder what she's thinking. the photographs of what the groom looked like before the accident is shocking. i'll have to see if i can find them somewhere.
 
#9
This is a sad story and is one of MANY.

One of my closest friends' husband was gravely injured by an IED near Baghdad in 2006. He has major brain damage and is confined to a wheelchair. He was a reservist who was called away from his job as a firefighter to go to Iraq. His unit has suffered heavy losses, including the death of a Colonel, who is to date, the highest ranking officer to be killed in Iraq.

I won't go into details, but what this family has had to endure is beyond comprehension. They have been treated like garbage by the Army and the Veteran's Administration. When my friend went to the ********** Congressman in her district for help, he would not return her calls. When she went to the ********, within days her husband's back pay was released. They had waited months for his pay and were on the verge of losing their house due to issues around his medical discharge and his pay being disbursed properly.

This photo reminds me of what my friends go through daily and what many, many others do as well.
 
#10
I am honored that he (and she) are willing to sacrifice to serve this country's military. Regardless of my views on this war. Words do not suffice to express my admiration, awe, and respect for them.
 
#13
Roo said:
This is a sad story and is one of MANY.

One of my closest friends' husband was gravely injured by an IED near Baghdad in 2006. He has major brain damage and is confined to a wheelchair. He was a reservist who was called away from his job as a firefighter to go to Iraq. His unit has suffered heavy losses, including the death of a Colonel, who is to date, the highest ranking officer to be killed in Iraq.

I won't go into details, but what this family has had to endure is beyond comprehension. They have been treated like garbage by the Army and the Veteran's Administration. When my friend went to the ********** Congressman in her district for help, he would not return her calls. When she went to the ********, within days her husband's back pay was released. They had waited months for his pay and were on the verge of losing their house due to issues around his medical discharge and his pay being disbursed properly.

This photo reminds me of what my friends go through daily and what many, many others do as well.
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That makes me angry on so many levels... first thing you'd expect from your country would be its full support after you sacrifices health and so many other things. Guess the administration doesn't give much of a s**t after all.

Sad, so very sad.
 
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