hmmmmmmmmmmmm

we wouldn't want to see our soldiers
1) without their 'gear' on
2) in a prone position
3) being human
4) being someone we can relate to (just in case they get blown away in an unjust, illegal and immoral war)

US soldier featured in the Soldier Billboard Project. Photographer: Suzanne Opton

US election: Billboards of US soldiers cancelled in host city of Republican convention

The photographs show the faces and close-cropped heads of nine youthful soldiers lying peaceful and prone

Daniel Nasaw in Washington

A series of portraits of American soldiers set to adorn roadside billboards in Minneapolis, site of next week's Republican convention, was abruptly cancelled by the billboards' owners, which feared they would be deemed disrespectful to the US military.

Although the artworks neither display images of violence nor are gruesome, the media company that owns the billboards said it feared pedestrians and motorists would mistake them for images of war dead.

The photographs show the faces and close-cropped heads of nine youthful soldiers lying peaceful and prone, flat against a surface.

"They don't look dead," said Suzanne Opton, the photographer of the series, entitled Soldiers' Faces.

"It's like you see someone opposite of you with their head on the pillow. We see our lovers and our children in that pose. They look like the heads of fallen statues, and they afford the viewer an intimate look at the face of the young person whose life is at risk, and that was the point.

"When you see soldiers on the news you have no idea who they are. They're representing the United States and they have all that gear on. I wanted to get past all that".

The shots of troops in between deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan by a New York City artist were to run in five US cities..............

so a couple of days ago, when our king said things were going swimmingly

who believed him? we all know i didn't. who did? how can we CONTINUE to sit by and allow this to happen?
19 Tense Hours in Sadr City Alongside the Mahdi Army
After Calm Year, Fighting Engulfs Shiite Enclave

By Sudarsan Raghavan Washington Post Foreign Service
BAGHDAD, March 28 -- The gunfire struck like thunderclaps, building to a steady rhythm. American soldiers in a Stryker armored vehicle fired away from one end of the block. At the other end, two groups of Shiite militiamen pounded back with heavy machine guns and rocket-propelled grenades. American helicopters circled above in the blue afternoon sky. As a heavy barrage erupted outside his parents' house, Abu Mustafa al-Thahabi, a political and military adviser to the Mahdi Army of Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, rushed through the purple gate and took shelter behind the thick walls. He had just spoken with a fighter by cellphone. "I told him not to use that weapon. It's not effective," he said, referring to a rocket-propelled grenade. "I told him to use the IED, the Iranian one," he added, using the shorthand for an improvised explosive device. "This is more effective."
After nearly a year of relative calm, U.S. troops and Shiite militiamen engaged in pitched battles this week, underscoring how quickly order can give way to chaos in Iraq. On this block in Sadr City, the cleric's sprawling stronghold, men and boys came out from nearly every house to fight, using powerful IEDs and rockets. ..........