Military Photographer of the Year Winner...Playing Dead Category
Tuesday, September 05, 2006
Combat medics train on a simulated battlefield using the Combat Trauma Patient Simulation system at Fort Sam Houston, Texas. The simulators realistically replicate a vast array of conditions to include trauma, weapons of mass destruction, and diseases. U.S. Army photo by Sgt. 1st Class Paul Ray SmithThe Department of Defense has made about 300,000 images available in their DefensLINK Multimedia Gallery. I noticed there's a sprinkling of "simulated" photos throughout, among each of the Armed Services. Here's one released just last week:
08/29/06 - From left, U.S. Air Force Tech. Sgt. Larry Forester, Capts. Michelle Cook and Andrea Whitney, and Master Sgt. Patrick McEneany, all from the18th Aeromedical Evacuation Squadron, fasten a simulated patient with a leg and eye injury to a litter in preparation for flight on a C-130 Hercules aircraft at Kadena Air Base, Japan, Aug. 29, 2006. The 18th Wing and the 353rd Special Operations Group is conducting a mass casualty exercise to test the rescue and emergency care capabilities of Kadena AB. (U.S. Air Force photo by Airman Kasey Zickmund) (Released)
Extraordinary. Have they been reading their Roland Barthes and decided their photo archive needs "innoculating" -- letting in a little bit of the disease to protect against a more virulent strain? He's French!
Military Photographer of the Year Winner 1996 Title: Playing Dead Category: Portfolio Brief Description: Two soldiers with weapons stand over another soldier laying on the ground. (black & white ) Exact Date Shot Unknown (Released to Public) DoD photo by: PH1 SUSAN M. CARL"Military Photographer of the Year Winner...Playing Dead Category." Baudrillard: simulation threatens the difference between "true" and "false", between "real" and "imaginary". Could they be that clever? He's French, too.
There's a picture of one dead American soldier -- a Civil War photo of a Confederate soldier. And there are pictures of bodies stacked at liberated concentration camps from WWII. Concentration camps in the DefenseLINK Multimedia Gallery. We're always fighting the last war, but the next Hitler.
No one expects the DoD to put dead bodies in their photo archive. Or coffins carrying dead American soldiers. Why the simulations? Is it to signal that our leaders are aware of the costs of war without actually showing those costs? Do historic photos contain the same signification from a temporal distance?
They've made an exception...by showing contemporary photos of the real coffin carrying President Reagan's body:
Members of the Joint Chiefs of Staff salute former President Ronald Reagan's flag-draped casket during the funeral procession June 9, 2004, along Constitution Avenue in Washington D.C. Reagan's body will lie in state in the Capitol Rotunda June 10. A state funeral will be conducted June 11 at the Washington National Cathedral, where President Bush will give the eulogy. U.S. Air Force photo by Staff Sgt. Shane A. CuomoI'm wondering -- does this WWII veteran not deserve the same respect as our dead in the Iraq War because, like President Bush, he was only a Reservist?
On further review, my theory is wrong: President Reagan was eventually called to active duty in the First Motion Picture Unit, where he served in California with Clark Gable and Dr. Seuss.
