War Is Personal

Eugene Richards

Reportage by Getty Images

RAMSEY, MINNESOTA, 2007. Clarissa Russell was twenty-two when she met Jonathan Schulze. “A very good-looking guy, a Marine,” she said. She knew Jonny had been in Iraq, but he would very seldom talk about the war. Only later did she learn that he had been a machine gunner who fought in intense battles during which dozens in his unit were killed and he was wounded. Months after their relationship began, Clarissa learned that she was pregnant. She gave birth to a daughter, Kaley Marie, who was less than a year old when Jonny, suffering from severe PTSD, took his own life.

Eugene Richards, "War Is Personal," in POYi Archive, Item #44704, http://archive.poy.org/items/show/44704 (accessed November 23, 2024).