War Is Personal

Eugene Richards

Reportage by Getty Images

KANSAS CITY, MISSOURI, 2006. Tomas Young is constantly dropping his cigarettes on the floor and into his lap, but can’t quit smoking. “It’s the nicotine,” he says, “I guess I need it to keep going. I’ll be smoking in bed, with my wife Brie sleeping beside me, have a hand spasm, and the cigarette will end up rolling under my back or legs. I can’t feel the burns, don’t feel them at all.”

Eugene Richards, "War Is Personal," in POYi Archive, Item #44679, http://archive.poy.org/items/show/44679 (accessed November 23, 2024).