Combat Eyes - a war veteran's poem
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Uploaded by marktwain4president on Apr 18, 2009
(Caution: contains several graphic and disturbing war images. Viewer discretion is advised.)
The poem, Combat Eyes, by Vietnam veteran Curtis D. Bennet.
The color portraits were taken by Suzanne Opton.
The black and white portraits of American soldiers were taken by photographer Ellen Susan(http://www.soldierportraits.com/photographs.html)
She captures the intimate psyche of her subjects, showing in each photograph the dichotomy of what it means to be a soldier: the fragility and the toughness, the vulnerability and the machismo, the thousand-year-old eyes set in faces that seem far too young, the humanity and the bloodlust, the whole labrynthine complexity of what it means to be made Fate incarnate and given the power over life and death. The use of the wet plate collodion technique makes the portraits look as if they were taken in the 1800s, giving them a timeless quality and also quietly becoming a commentary on how the time and the politics and the war always change, but the soldier remains throughout the ages, young and soul-fractured and hardened before their time. Of course there's portraits of the career soldiers too, the ones with lined faces and the dirt and blood of so many wars caked on their souls that it will never be washed off.
I do not own the copyright to the music or the photos. The music used is Any Other Name (American Beauty) and Cathedral (Road to Perdition) by Thomas Newman, Journey To The Line (The Thin Red Line) by Hans Zimmer, and London (Blood Diamond) by James Newton Howard.
Can also be watched on megavideo:
http://www.megavideo.com/?v=ZV13NDKE
Uploader Comments (marktwain4president)
All Comments (4)
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War only temporarily solves problems.
But as a whole ... it will never end.
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Welcome home brother. Rags, Mekong River, 1968-1969. Mobile Riverene Force. U.S. Navy.
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I've seen that look... just a quick glance then it was gone. It is in the eyes of my son, a Marine with two tours in Iraq...... He tries to hide it from me.
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this is so moving and true. i couldn't stop crying. i was there... it speaks to my heart.
poemsBeer 2 years ago 3
This is the only poem I've found that is able to touch the truth of what it is to be a combat vet. It is an experience for which there are no words, no language, no sufiicient form of expression. There are horrors deeper than language. I'm glad the video spoke to you. I hope you are able to find peace.
marktwain4president 2 years ago 3