and iraq. i know what he looks like now. didn't know him before. have to ask my friend. i know he talked about suicide.

He said that mom told him, "Pinboy was never so angry before he went to Vietnam."

I had my catharsis and changed later, but it hurt to hear that.

Are you just now noticing the faces? They've been coming back like that for over a hundred years. Some wounds are not caused by bullets or shrapnel.

Makes me want to weep.

waiting for my flight to BIA back in '05. I looked at some guys from the Big Red One who were redeploying to Ft. Riley. I remembered the thousand yard stare from the Vietnam War. I was shocked to see it on some of those infantry guys. What shocks me even more is to realize that many of them probably went back for several more tours. A couple of the guys in these pictures have that same slack-eyed 'yarding' stare.

This has been going on for a long time .....

Looking out across the distance for the person who wants to shoot you.

... or perhaps more accurately, looking at the horrors within, is an unconscience act. This is what causes the 1,000 yard stare.

my dad who is now 84 still wakes up and thinks he is in a battle in
Korea where the ship he was on was being shelled.

big change in your looks. My twin brother was in Nam I was not and a few years ago one of his boys mistook me for him. We look alike today like we always have.

That's the handiwork of GWB*. I wish someone would put this in front of his stupid face and say, "Look, you a$$hole. Look what you did." I'm sure he's way too clueless to acknowledge he and the devil (Dick) are responsible.

The light is more from the front, lighting up the eyes, in the middle picture.

How GWB's vanity war demanded multiple tours for all units, and sent over a lot of National Guard Troops for the same hot combat and multiple tours.

It was such a terrible thing our country asked these young men to do. And for nothing, on top of that!

I always found it absurd that we went to war, and then the rational for going was constantly changing over the years. Not to mention Wolfowitz, BEFORE THE WAR STARTED, said publicly that the chose WMD's, BECAUSE THAT WAS THE ONLY THING THEY COULD ALL AGREE ON.

Step one - decide to go to pre-emptive war
Step two- find a justification we can all agree to

That is treason, murder and high crimes against humanity to go off to war based on bullshit!

-90% Jimmy

And not just any war. Gulf of Tonkin is another example.

The year was 1967, as an army brat I was traveling back to the states after two years in India. Pan Am from Delhi to Bangkok, then on a C-141 Starlifter to Saigon. The plane from Bangkok had a few new recruits that looked to be my age. We stayed on the ground and on the plane for two hours in Saigon while soldiers boarded the plane to return home to the states. The guys loading on were two years older than the guys loading off, but they looked to be twenty years older. BIG difference, and a strong influence to an army brat at 17. Damn the bastards who put us into Vietnam, damn the bastards who put us into Iraq and Afghanistan. Can we stop this endless war?!!

Peace,
Dave

Notice the pinched lines between the eyes in all the middle photos. This is the same effect you see in people who are in chronic physical pain or post surgery. Same effect in long-term stress. In the last photos, some of that stress has been abated.

The camera, lighting, position of the heads are not consistent. Its the same bullshit you see on advertisements that hawk wrinkle removing crap. I'm sure the stress of being deployed has a physical effect on ones appearance. But this example is garbage. If you have light being cast directly in your eyes you're going to squint/ grimace/ frown. You can see the reflection of the light in their eyes.

...over at Counterpunch.

I followed the link over to Upworthy and looked at all the faces and whether or not there was an agenda or a bias or trick lighting involved, the general observation made still strikes me as likely to be true and accurate:

Excerpt: