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Medic Tends Fallen Marine, With Skill, Prayer and Anger:
Medic Tends Fallen Marine, With Skill, Prayer and Anger: The main front cover headline on New York Times this morning it's below a moving image by photojournalist Joao Silva. A very arresting front cover lead photograph. In the image the medic marine's bloodied hand is pictured as he holds up the sniper's bullet that had 15 minutes before struck the head of his friend. The medic has done everything he could the helicopter has evacuated the critically wounded comrade, now the 'Doc' is left to asses his own performance and contemplate the extent of his friends wounds. Now as the adrenaline eases and the lasting enormity sinks in, 'Doc' speaks movingly to the reporter about his friend and Joao makes the picture . This image has both the right shock value and the right subtly to allow you to view it without turning away, to be moved by the soldiers' plight without being overwhelmed by the gore of battlefield wounds. Its a telling image. Joao Silva has made many telling images, this is not his first. This is not his first trip to Iraq or assignment to cover conflict.
I knew Joao from covering his native South Africa. I did not know him well, but I still feel a connection with him....... His image of today, for me brings back a terrible day..... in Tokoza a township just outside Johannesburg........... a day when my hands were bloodied........ a day when we fought to save his great friend and another gifted photojournalist Ken Osterbrook. At the end we were all bloodied our hands and clothes our faces and hair as we attempted to give heart massage and mouth to mouth resuscitation to Ken . I went with Ken in the armored car that took him to the emergency room....... in the heat of it all I had said he would be OK..... it wasn't for me to pronounce him dead..... but he clearly was...... when he arrived at the hospital they rapidly pronounced him dead.....obviously it was devastating to be present at the death of a fellow photojournalist......I remember pushing aside his cameras to give him heart massage......even at the time I was aware that I was roughly handling his precious cameras.....of course to try and save his life...... but even at the time a duality of feeling....... a reverence for the physical tools...... the cameras....... and simultaneously the opposite sensation of 'these damned cameras that have brought us to this'.
Afterwards my hands and clothes bloodied...... I felt awkward with Joao and other close friends of Ken......I had not saved him......nor could I have....a bullet had passed through his vital organs.....but I had said he would live......
Respect to Petty Officer Third class Dustin E.Kirby for his skill and diligence as a battlefield medic and respect to the critically wounded Lance Cpl. Colin Smith I thank them for their service and my sincere best wishes and hopes for a recovery to Colin and my thoughts too are with his family and friends. Respect and thanks also to Joalo Silva and C.J. Chivers for their moving coverage in the New York Times. Good Luck to them all.
nytimes.com
nytimes.com/2006/11/02/world/middleeast/02medic.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1
...Doc had scrubbed himself clean. A big marine stepped forward with a small Bible, and the platoon huddled. He began with Psalm 91, verses 5 and 11.
“Thou shall not be afraid for the terror by night, nor for the arrow that flieth by day,†said the big marine, Lance Cpl. Daniel B. Nicholson. “For he shall give his angels charge over thee, to keep thee in all thy ways.â€
Then he asked for the Lord to look after Lance Corporal Smith and whatever was ahead, and to take care of everyone who was still in the platoon.
“Help us Lord,†he said. “We need your help. It’s the only way we’re going to get through this.â€...
from C.J Chivers article.
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