IRAQ. Baghdad. 2006. More than 90 percent of this soldier’s body was burned when a roadside bomb hit his vehicle
and ignited the fuel tank. His camouflage uniform dangled over the bed, torn open by the
medics who had treated him on the helicopter. Clumps of his skin had peeled away. What was
left was mottled and nearly translucent. He was in and out of consciousness, his eyes stabbing
open for a few seconds. As he was lifted from the stretcher to the ER bed, he screamed, “Daddy!
Daddy! Daddy! Daddy!” then, “Put me to sleep, please put me to sleep.” There was another
photographer in the ER and he leaned his camera over the heads of the medical staff to get an
overhead shot. The soldier yelled, “Get that fucking camera out of my face!” Those were his
last words.