Excerpt: One-thousand words is never enough

Who are these men? I want to understand their history. I need to

understand their sun flared spotless shoes, and their perfectly polished

brass. I want to understand how they ended up in this moment. Look at the way they are stiff as a board. Look even closer now, corners of their mouths turned up at the side. Are they happy? I want to understand their thoughts. How can one bring themselves to smile when there is so much chaos?

Look at the tree branches on the right side of the photo; they are raw, naked to the elements, maybe its winter. Their shadows are long becoming one shadow in the distance where this photo does not exist. What made this moment a need for a photograph? Their dress blues are perfectly pressed and polished and behind them, the American Craftsman style house is indicative of the year. Look at the detail attached to the house beam behind them. A house that most assuredly has its own history longing to be retold.

I want to be in this moment, a moment where presumably, there is a great deal of history;

their World War II dress blues perfectly pressed and polished. But I don’t want this moment

because it is filled with fear, fear of losing things that are so dear. Fear of the unknown. Maybe

that’s why they don’t look at the camera. But what was before this? And What came after? A full

life, maybe a life lost at war, not physically but mentally. Another tragedy to words we now

understand as PTSD, Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, known then as shell shock. But mostly I

want to understand the photograph, so that I understand me...