War Is Personal

Eugene Richards

Reportage by Getty Images

BUTLER, PENNSYLVANIA, 2005. The townspeople who’d been waiting at the armory for most of the day begin to clap, cheer, weep. The sounds of sirens have them bunching together on the hill, then crowding the road. They wave flags, fly balloons, hold up handmade signs, then let out a roar as the buses carrying the guardsmen home come into sight.

Eugene Richards, "War Is Personal," in POYi Archive, Item #44674, http://archive.poy.org/items/show/44674 (accessed June 23, 2025).