he photographs are horrid. They stop everyone in their tracks and require full attention. They are posted on newspapers and all over the Internet. Videos are displayed constantly on local and national news and if you are an American citizen, no matter where you are residing, the images hit home.Several photographers from the era of the Vietnam War and one photographer from the current Iraq War congregated and served as panelists in a discussion called “Journalists Under Fire: Vietnam and Iraq” which Carol Pogash, a journalist, covered. Don McCullin, Catherine Leroy, and David Leeson, all notable and well renowned photojournalists, answered questions and talked about the disturbing sites and finally touched on the subject of their motivation and their drive. Very few U.S. citizens aspire to be war photographers or videographers but these men and women seemed passionate yet disturbed.
A uniting factor that disturbed all of these photographers, no matter which war they photographed, was their utter befuddlement with the U.S. citizens. The three photographers reflected on the fact that no war has been photographed like Vietnam, but even if Iraq was being photographed in the same way it would not rival the impact. Vietnam took precedence, no other aspect of media could trump over it. Nowadays, media coverage of the lifestyles of the rich and the famous takes the cake, Iraq, filled with U.S. men and boys whose death is imminent if no action is taken soon, is set on the back burner.
All three photojournalists agreed: the photographs they take and the images they see are disturbing and earthshaking, but nothing effects the U.S. population enough to motivate them to stand up for the rights of their fellow citizens, nothing alters the attitude toward the war. Anti-war protests are covered in the newspaper, on the news and, undoubtedly, on the Internet. Pertinent information is relayed to all citizens, but there is little reaction or disturbance among the American citizens. During the Vietnam War teens and adults were willing to give up their lives or their freedom to defend their fellow citizens. Today, without a direct connection very few people seem to actually care about the war because, although there is a lot of discussion about concluding the war, very few people stand up and take action because the nation has become too self-involved. Although the technology has improved, it has proven to be negative because there are too many ways to be passively aggressive about the war. Leroy defined the U.S.’s lack of action by stating, “We saw 24-hour-a-day Iraq war, but we didn’t really see much of anything,” (Reflecting on Shooting Through Decades of Battle, Pogash, 2005). How can anyone be devastated enough to take action if every image seen is impersonal, something that, without firsthand experience, is hard to relate to?
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