The war in Afghanistan is not only a difficult military mission, it’s also a hard war to report on as well.  And for the same reason: you have a modern army trying to subdue guerrilla fighters in a desolate land for no clear political purpose.  The deployment of heavily equipped troops provides continual demonstration of enormous organizational and technological power, but with no identifiable enemies, territorial objectives, or sound strategic rationale the sense of things seems to drain away into the vast, almost lunar terrain.  In these conditions, some photographers have managed to tap into mythic visions.

This photograph of troops on patrol was captioned to report that they are soldiers of the Royal Gurkha Rifles and Afghan National Police on patrol in Helmand province.  That information tells you very little, however, and not enough to understand either the image or the war.  Instead of reporting anything of note, the image evokes the mythic theme that war is eternal, and like other forms of eternity, a place where something elemental about moral life is revealed.

The patrol is moving out, two by two, across featureless terrain into some unseen, unknown future.  One figure is stopped for a moment, and the profile allows us to see the burden he carries.  Although he is equipped with a radio, he seems caught in silence, as are the others, their thoughts to themselves while everything else is reduced to being silhouettes.  We don’t know where they are going, but in the myth it doesn’t matter.  The long grey line continues forever, and they are simply carrying the load for their brief time.  They walk through history into the unknown, as good soldiers always do and always will, ennobled by their simple devotion to duty.

Like I said, it’s a myth.  I won’t deny it entirely, but I will note that it can expand into full sentimentality because there is so little in its way, and because mythic significance becomes especially appealing when no other, more pragmatic rationale is available.  Whatever the photographer’s intention, something deep has been evoked by this image.  What could be a parable of military activity without purpose  evokes instead a sense that war is, if not an end in itself, something close to that.

Myths are used to make sense of large forces that exceed understanding.  Mythic allusions may be particularly available in images of Afghanistan because there is a deep need to make sense of something that is becoming increasingly senseless.  It has dawned on me that I now have several posts that identify various mythic projections infiltrating the optical unconscious: how the war is a form of extreme sport, or Afghanistan a new frontier.  In each case, media culture digs into its storehouse to put up images that imply some otherworldly yet familiar narrative.

Maybe it’s just me, but I think the image above does double duty in this regard, as it also could be a scene from a sci-fi movie where the heroes head out from their craft to explore a dry, unforgiving planet.  And so you can imagine my reaction when I saw this photograph:

This photo of the night sky over Camp Hansen in Helmand province is a stunning image of the firmament, so much so that I can feel the pull to go there and see the heavens so close, bright, vast, and deep.  But I see something else as well: another mythic vision, this time from science fiction.  Camp Hansen could be perched on some distant planet, a small outpost of humanity now flung across the stars.   Across the stars, but still at war.

Photographs by Bay Ismoyo/AFP-Getty Images and Hyunsoo Leo Kim/AP/The Virginian-Pilot, thanks to The Big Picture.

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I was at Yankee Stadium recently and as has been customary every since World War II, such sporting events begin with a standing salute to the “Star Spangled Banner—America’s national anthem.  During the seventh inning stretch, when one  expected to hear “Take Me Out to the Ballgame,” an announcer  implored all of the fans to stand facing in the direction of the American flag, to take their hats off, and to honor the singing of “God Bless America.”  This latest paean to American exceptionalism became a practice in New York after the tragic events of  9/11 and although it resulted in a law suit initiated by the NYCLU, it continues to the present day unabated. That said, such a flag fetish is not unique to New York, as we see in the  photograph of a red, white, and blue shrouded “Green Monster” in Boston’s Fenway Park on the Fourth of July.

There is of course nothing wrong in celebrating America’s heritage with displays of the flag, especially on the anniversary of our national “birth,” but notice here how the elongated flag (one of three U.S. flags in the photograph) is completely out of scale with its surroundings—both in size and dimension—as if to imply that there is nothing that can’t be covered by its reach.  Such hubris is accented by the military fly over and honor guard which frame the image across the diagonal from upper left to lower right. Though barely conspicuous in comparison to the magnitude of the flag, the martial presence in the image nevertheless emphasizes the normalization of a war culture in American life, even as the flag serves to articulate commitments to nationalism and militarism as if naturally and necessarily connected.

The relationship between nationalism and militarism is naturalized in no less subtle terms in this photograph of a young girl reaching for the flag that cloaked the coffin of her father, an Army Specialist recently killed in Afghanistan.

The child is absolutely beautiful; her skin soft and unblemished, her hair neatly combed into a pony tail, she exudes childlike purity and innocence. The expression on her face teeters between wonder and desire as receives the flag being handed to her from a member of the military honor guard. At some later date she might question with tears and anger why her father had to die in a war of occupation before she got to know him, but here her rapt attention is focused on the symbolic remnant that stands in simultaneously for his absence (as her biological father) and presence (as her national father), and she accepts it with open arms.  That she is dressed  in red, white, and blue only serves to accentuate the connection between the military hand offering her the flag and her own significance as a metaphorical representation of the nation.

The implication of these two images is no different than many more images regularly put on display in newspapers and website slide shows, and more is the pity, for the flag should be a symbol of patriotism—love of one’s country— and not an unguarded cipher for normalizing a military culture.

Photo Credits:  Elsa/Getty Images; Kelly Presnell/AP/Arizona Daily Star.

Cross-posted at BAGnewsNotes.

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