Community | January 20, 2012 | 19 comments

We Are Not The Dead: soldiers' faces before, during and after serving in Afghanistan

source: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/picturegalleries/uknews/9013365/We-Are-Not-The-Dead-soldiers...

Image
TheBigIssue
Photographer Lalage Snow photographed and interviewed members of 1st Battalion The Royal Regiment of Scotland before they were sent to Afghanistan, after three months' service, and days after they returned home. Their faces show the toll that fighting in Afghanistan takes on our troops.
Private Chris MacGregor, 24
11th March, Edinburgh: “Obviously I’ll miss family but other than that I am going to miss my dogs more than anything. They are my de-stressers and keep me sane. I think I’ll miss TV too though. I try not to think about the worst case scenario.”
19th June, Compound 19, Nad Ali, after an IED incident: “Most people get used to being away from home but I find it hard. It’s your fear that keeps you alive here. But I believe if it’s going to happen, it’s going to happen and theres nothing you can do about it. If the big man upstairs could do anything, there’d be no dead soldiers. They’d all be alive. It still hurts when you hear about a soldier dying. You think about what their families are going through. You ask what they died for and what we are achieving here. I am not sure any more. That Afghan soldier losing his legs just now… I don’t know….”
28th August, Edinburgh, after being evacuated due to sustained knee injury from Iraq: “My legs just gave up. I think it was the weight – 135 pounds or something. I just had to accept, my body was telling me to give up as I had pushed it. I was telling it to go, it was telling me to stop. When squaddies come back they still have a lot of adrenaline and anger in them. I had to have anger management after Iraq. If I get like that now, I just go for a walk with the dogs. It is the best way to deal with it, instead of being all tense and ready to snap at folk. The first thing I did when I came back, appart from kissing and cuddling the misses and my bairn, was go for a massive walk with the dogs. I walked for miles and miles not caring where I stepped.”
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19 comments // We Are Not The Dead: soldiers' faces before, during and after serving in Afghanistan

  • Henry_Massingale
    • 0
      Henry_Massingale  
    • Image

    • Thank you for joining up at The Tea Party Independent Forum, you are not alone as more and more United States Military Personal join The International Boycott Of The Arabic Drug Empire at a great many sites. And this is in part of what our boycott is about, this Photo by CBS News and New York Times, our Solders Ordered to protect the Poppy Fileds and 3 were killed in action....

    • 1 month ago
  • oppressed1
  • bertfish
    • +1
      bertfish  

    • Who will be the first Mother to say that her once serving child is to be the last to die for these questionable, at best, military adventures?

    • 4 months ago
  • rosyjane
    • +1
      rosyjane  

    • why been amazed? there are many thieves and identity thefts who stole names and identity of others. I am one of the victim of identity thefts and suffered from Traumatic Brain Injury and those evil Terrorists here in Quezon Province stole my identity. Same as those soldiers that was near in me.

      They stole money using the names of many innocent lives to kill many Arabs and Americans and create Great War that produces unstoppable conflict in the world.

      Now that there are evidences of traces where they are. I want to return same as them who suffered too much like me because of thieves and identity thefts.

      The first victim of Identity thefts and thieves are Egypt. They destroy Egypt using the money that those US Military Soldiers left in my name. They forced President Mubarak to gave the money that was inside my name that came from US MIlitary Soldiers that are not just from Iran but also from Afghanistan and Iraq.

      Welcome back people to the community where i am leading against International Terrorists who stole names and identity of others to destroy the earth using the money and name that we have. Create the shield of Great Armor through the money that was inside the Al Qaeda network who feed you and help you to survived against Thieves and Identity thefts that killed innocent lives using our name."-Jane Zeta K. Bond

    • 4 months ago
  • jimstoner
    • +1
      jimstoner  

    • Reminds me of the " Drugs Not 4 Me" campaign in Canada. They have posters with three progressing photos of a girl called Stephanie, just like this. You could take this young mans images, put them on one of these posters, and no one would know they were not part of the campaign.

    • 4 months ago
  • Ambill94
    • +1
      Ambill94  

    • Man...WTF...and this is just one face of how many???And behind the...anger and what else...many of them will never know "normal" again...great job Uncle Sam...well done Congress and the POTUS'...this is so fucked!!!

    • 4 months ago
  • Leen61
  • TheBigIssue
  • bailey78
    • +1
      bailey78  
    • TheBigIssue:

      Thats just what I was thinking. Plus it's a life long ordeal that one never gets over. My Dad was in Korea. We learnt real young if Dad was asleep don't touch him. He would take your head off if ya did. My Mom would poke him with a broom handle to wake him. That was Years after he returned home.

    • 4 months ago
  • Truthitswhatsfordinner
  • TanzaniteDiamonds
  • cantucwearebrothers
    • +2
      cantucwearebrothers  

    • Wow...what powerful photography! I love it.

      The emotion behind it all is amazing. You can almost feel what they're experiencing.

      This is a story that needs to be duplicated everywhere.

    • 4 months ago
  • circlesquared
  • DEM46
    • 0
      DEM46  

    • I always thought how nice it was for President Bush to see his daughters graduate from college and there wasn't even a passing mention of them becoming military officers and serving their country. Jenna went on to be a roving correspondent for the Today Show and I have no idea what the other twin did/or is doing.

      Even if they had been sons and not daughters I can guarantee that there would have been little discussion about them serving.

      "That's for other sons and daughters to do." Not the rich and powerful, if they join at all they show up in the Texas ANG and then never show up for their once a month duty.

    • 4 months ago
  • percipi224
    • +2
      percipi224  

    • who would fight their wars if no one went? i was watching occupy london late one night. it was about 4 in the morning there. a soldier, i couldn't quite see in the dark feed, was describing to a small group what they had to do in Iraq. he described breaking into homes, grabbing the men and turning them over to the americans. he is haunted by what happened to the women and children left behind without protection from the roving rape gangs. with the door broken open.

    • 4 months ago
  • Truthitswhatsfordinner
  • JangoFetish
  • HenryMassingale
    • +1
      HenryMassingale  
    • Image

    • As it is in the true world, TV Media and Political Officials build up this ...jump up and down in support of our Troops, wave the pam, pams, like in a foot ball game....go team..., but when a issue comes out of the dark, the hip hip perrrra, ends on that issue.
      There is a few of us that fight to end this damn Afghan War and the lie in part of why we went to War in the first place.
      Then one day I asked a I Need To Know and the whole world saw this War in a different way, and a new truth came from the input.
      I asked, " What if Bin Laden did not act like a Terrorist / Drug Lord and filed a Law Suit against our Government for violating a Drug deal ?"
      The 2012 elections.
      By Henry Massingale
      August 13, 2011
      To Strategically Rebuild America. Why we built a Anti Crime / Anti War
      Forum with a Health Care Concepts.
      I am only human and I can not see into all of the issues, but what I
      do see, I have found that if I allow a person to read and make up
      their own minds that what I write holds a moral value of truth, then
      they add there heart to it, in disagreement or their concepts of what
      if, but what is most important is a balance is formed.
      1st Debit Ceil Issue, WAR-We as a people world wide are against War,
      some say a unnecessary evil. But still we have War. This issue with
      the Afghan War, The year is in the 1970's United States help Bin Laden
      in Afghan to defeat Russia, and by the 80's the War ended. Around 1989
      not long after, Bin Laden orders the first strike against the World
      Trade -Twin Towers, then 9/11. Now we are at War in Afghan, the
      Taliban has portrayed all American's as a aggressive Specise with a
      foot hold on their territory. But to see photos of American Military
      Personal Shoot protecting Poppy Plants. I am sorry but this is true. A
      War fought to control a Heroin Empire.

      2nd Debit Issue, between Canada and the USA, 1.2 million people died
      from Oxy Heroin. June 30, 2011, C-Span-3 on TV, the Capital Hill,
      Director Senator Sheldon, Senate Judiciary Sub Committee for Crime and
      Terrorism. Announcement Oxy. Heroin, this Heroin Health Care Concept,
      in 2007 that 27,000 Americans died, from this Opioid.So if this Oxy
      Heroin is so good for the economy, where is the money.

      US/NATO Troops Patrolling Opium Poppy Fields in Afghanistan
      ...publicintelligence.net/usnato-troops-patrolling-opium-poppy-fields-i...Cached
      3 American Solders Dead Protecting Poppy Plants, and we are at War with the most Power Drug Empire in the World.
      Government Officials have turn the United States into another Gotham City.

      just a hi for now,
      Henry Massingale
      Founder and Director of the International Boycott Of The Arabic Drug Empire Phase 4
      and The Tea Party Independent Forum

    • 4 months ago
  • TheBigIssue
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