War Is Personal

Eugene Richards

Reportage by Getty Images

KANSAS CITY, MISSOURI, 2006. Taking a hard look at Tomas, you see nine or ten cigarette burns, the entry wound the bullet had left in front, just beneath his collar bone, the much larger exit wound in his back, the zipper-like scar along his spine. Immediately after he had been shot during an ambush, there had been no pain. But he knew right away that the thing that had just happened to him was something that he would have to deal with for the rest of his life. He tried to scream for someone to kill him, but all that came out was a whisper.

Eugene Richards, "War Is Personal," in POYi Archive, Item #44680, http://archive.poy.org/items/show/44680 (accessed November 23, 2024).