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Portraits from Nina Berman's Purple Hearts project

Published September 2, 2007

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'Marine Wedding' by Nina Berman, October 2006. Of this photo of Renee Kline and Ty Ziegel, Berman says: "I felt that it was a moment wher the entire enormity of what they've been through and all their struggle and pain was revealed as well as their love."
	[Nina Berman | Purple Hearts project]

ADVERTISEMENT Related links Portraits from Nina Berman's Purple Hearts project An interview with Nina Berman Special report: Our casualties of war

Purple Hearts: Back from Iraq

By Nina Berman

Trolley, $29.95

purpleheartsbook.com

These portraits were first published in Purple Hearts: Back from Iraq. In each case, we condense what the subject told photographer Nina Berman for her book. She tells us what she was thinking in making each photo and updates us on what has happened since.

 

Hours before their wedding in an Illinois farm town last fall, Renee Kline, 21, and Ty Ziegel, 24, a former Marine sergeant, were posing for studio portraits when photo-grapher Nina Berman, who was on assignment for People magazine that day, captured this moment. The People profile, "Coming Home: A Love Story," chronicled their teenage romance, their engagement, his two deployments to Iraq, the car bomb that hit his truck - and the resulting explosion that melted his face, pierced his brain with shrapnel, blinded him in one eye, cost him his left arm (he's wearing his prosthesis in this photo) and three fingers on his right hand. After his long rehab, the couple decided to go ahead and wed.

The Marine chaplain who married them told People magazine that "once the hoopla dies down and friends and relatives get on with their lives, it will be up to Ty and Renee to make this marriage work."

People didn't publish this photo. But entered in the prestigious World Press Photo contest, it was judged the portrait of the year. "It developed a life of its own," says Berman. "Everyone brings their own thing to it."

It became part of Berman's Purple Hearts project, a series of photographic portraits and interviews with American Marines and soldiers wounded in Iraq. "Purple Hearts" has been published as a book and DVD and has been presented as an exhibit, most recently in New York, where she lives. The project's preface says it "gives an intimate understanding of the human cost of war through the experience of severely wounded soldiers." It began because she wasn't seeing images of the wounded and felt people - whatever their politics - needed to know.

Medical advances mean that wounded troops survive what would have killed them in earlier wars. The raw numbers are more than 3,700 troops dead, nearly 30,000 wounded and untold and unknowable Iraqi casualties. Behind each number is a human being, the point of Berman's work.

 

 

 

 

Pfc. Alan Jermaine Lewis

"Death has always been around"

Photographed at home in Milwaukee, Nov. 23, 2003."I felt like this picture captured his loneliness," Berman said.

Lewis, 23, a machine gunner, had his legs blown off and his face burned on July 16, 2003, in Baghdad when the Humvee he was driving hit a land mine. He was delivering ice to other soldiers.

In his words: I've always thought about death way before I joined the military, just growing up in Chicago. I had a friend when I was 6 years old. His name was Charles and he got killed. He was shot in the head. I think it was a stray bullet. My oldest sister was killed by a stray bullet. I was just a few months old. And my father was killed when I was 7. He was being robbed. So death has always been around.

I remember every detail about my legs. Every detail from the scars to the ingrown toenails to the birthmarks to the burn marks. I made it a habit even before I even joined the military, to cherish every part of my body. I don't know why. Maybe it was God's way of preparing me for what was going to happen.

I always wanted to go into education and become a teacher but they just don't make enough to survive off. So I figure with my disability now and the money I'll get from the government, I can use that plus the money I'll get from being a teacher and live comfortable. So I want to go to college and study education - public school primarily middle school, six to eighth grade.

Photographer's postscript: Alan returned to Milwaukee and had a second child. He hasn't been able to fulfill his dream of going to school and becoming a teacher. He goes weekly for psychological treatment at the VA.

 

 

 

Spc. Robert Acosta

"All the reasons we went to war, it just seems like they're not legit enough for people to lose their lives for."

Photographed at his home in Santa Ana, Calif., April 13, 2004. "I photographed him a few different ways and I chose this picture because I liked how it showed his house, I liked the bird cages and the American flags, and how there is an element of danger as represented by the tree coming out of the chimney which looks to me like a smoky explosion," Berman said.

Acosta, 20, an ammunitions specialist, was in a Humvee near Baghdad International Airport on July 16, 2003, when a grenade was thrown into his vehicle. In the explosion he lost his right hand and the use of his left leg.

in his words: At Walter Reed, it tripped me out. I guess you hear about guys getting hit and this and that but you don't realize until you actually see them. Because when somebody gets hurt, they're out of there within hours. You hear rumors, you hear stories, some guy got hit, some guy that, but you don't really see the reality of it until you get there and see them in the hospital.

Nobody really knows what the soldiers are going through. They see on TV, oh yeah, two soldiers got wounded today and they think, yeah, he'll be all right. But that soldier is scarred for life both physically and mentally. But like they don't understand. They see one soldier wounded and they'll forget about it like as soon as they change the channel.

I loved the military. It was my life. I loved it. I miss being in the military because it's like I had a routine. I was good at what I did. I had friends. I was successful. I was happy. And it was kind of like all taken away from me.

Yeah, I got a Purple Heart. I don't care. No soldier wants a Purple Heart. I'll tell you that much. No soldier wants it. Awards don't mean nothing to me. I don't need anything to prove I was there. I know I was there. I got a constant reminder.

I mean like all the reasons we went to war, it just seems like they're not legit enough for people to lose their lives for and for me to lose my hand and use of my leg and for my buddies to lose their limbs.

Photographer's postscript: After being active with many antiwar groups and veterans advocacy campaigns, Robert retreated from public life and left California to move to central Oregon where he could be closer to his family. He works on a farm and has a dog and has become a private person. He still struggles with post-traumatic stress disorder and his physical injuries.

 

 

 

 

Spc. Sam Ross

"It was the best experience of my life."

Photographed in the woods near his trailer where he lived alone in Dunbar Township, Pa., Oct. 19, 2003: "Sam had a big black brand-new pickup truck parked near his trailer that he was never going to be able to drive because of his blindness. I asked him if there was a spot close by in the woods where he used to play as a child and could we go there and could I drive the truck? As I drove, he directed me from memory up a long curvy road and recounted to me many of the things he did along those hills and woods. When we got to a place near the top we pulled off and I asked him to get out of the truck and to stand on the gravel and roll up his leg so I could see his prosthetic. I turned on the brights of the truck lights and took the picture. To me he seemed like a fragile, wounded animal caught in some sight, like a deer stuck in a car's headlights, trapped in that moment between life and death. It is a deeply sad and disturbing picture for me and every time I think of Sam I cry," Berman said.

Ross, 21, combat engineer, 82nd Airborne Division, was injured May 18, 2003, in Baghdad when a bomb blew up during a munitions disposal operation. He is blind and an amputee.

In his words: I don't have any regrets. No, not at all. It was the best experience of my life. Twenty-one years old and I've seen a couple of countries. I've been pretty much everywhere and done everything. I've jumped out of airplanes. I got to play with mines. I got to see how the Army works. I got to go mess around with a bunch of guys that feel the same way that I do, that all enjoy it. I got to interact with people of another culture, people who live their lives 100 percent different than the way we live here.

Photographer's postscript: Sam Ross was sent home to Dunbar, Pa., where he lived alone in a trailer. He attempted suicide several times, and despite help from a veteran's advocacy organization, which built him a new home, Sam's life spiraled into depression and despair until earlier this year he was arrested on three counts of attempted homicide and placed in a psychiatric hospital.

 

 

 

Sgt. Josh Olson

"If they want to go see Allah, then we'll send them."

Photographed in his room at the Walter Reed Military Hospital, April 24, 2004: "This is in the Mologne House where wounded troops recuperate while at Walter Reed. It looks like a motel room, like so many rooms I've been in over the course of my travels. I was struck by how ordinary and uninteresting it all seemed. In place of the prosthetic, could have been a briefcase or someone's paperwork. It seemed casual and common and this was kind of frightening as though this is the look of the new traveler - you put your keys down, your picture of your loved one on the night table and your prosthetic leg on the next bed ... no big deal, all very mundane," Berman said.

Olson, 24, was on patrol in Tal Afar Oct. 22, 2003, when an antipersonnel rocket exploded during a firefight, severing his right leg at the hip.

in his words: We bent over backwards for these people but they ended up screwing us over, stabbing us in the back. A lot of them, I mean, they're going to have to be killed. They're not going to go quietly. I know that. You have to take them out and kill them.

As Americans we've taken it upon ourselves to almost cure the world's problems I guess, give everybody else a chance, I guess that's how we're good-hearted. You know from day one, we've always been about making the world a better place.

I'm not really boned up on the whole Muslim religion but from what I've heard they're all about Allah, and if you're a Muslim and you die a martyr, heaven for you will be so much better. If they want to go see Allah, then we'll send them, as long as I get to go home safe, and my boys get to go home safe.

Ever since I was a little kid I always thought being a soldier was the best thing in the world.

When the president came in December, that's when I got my Purple Heart. It was pretty cool. I was real fortunate to live my life's dream.

Photographer's postscript: I believe Josh was able to stay in the Army and continue his dream of being a soldier despite his amputation.

To see more photographs from the Purple Hearts project, see NinaBerman.com

[Last modified September 12, 2007, 16:55:26]