A VINTAGE TECHNIQUE TO CAPTURE MODERN WARFARE

 This is some of the photography that I had taken during my deployment. I didn't do it to intend to make money from it or to even become recognized for it. I kind of wish I had because I would have focused my down times on getting the right shot. That don't take away from the originality of it because these were in the moment shots. I will take this time to finally once in a life time explain a little about these photos because I would hate to pass away and let someone else tell my story through their perception of my photography. I want to tell you for the most part what I could remember about that photo and how I felt in that moment.

The photo above is of the showers we had built and used for the most part of our deployment. As you can see the mirrors and make shift sink holes. This is where you would catch soldiers shaving and brushing their teeth trying their best to stay clean. Although there was no drainage, where you see the sink hole we would stand in front with a bottle water and splash water on our face and you would brush your teeth and spit into the hole. Inside was wooden stalls and water was kept in a container behind. If the container ran out of water, then you were unable to shower unless again you washed down with a bottle of water. The water would then fall threw the boards and into the ground. The water was never heated and a lot of times was freezing ice cold  in the winter months. There was no privacy and you always had to wear flip flops and try not to drop anything!

These were some of the newer porter johns we got, they were not the most enjoyable place to have to pee or shit. If the johns weren't cleaned out then it would pill all the way up and sometime even been over flowed with shit and piss everywhere. The smell was something you could not bare and these would collect a lot of flies on the hotter days. You were lucky to ever find toilet paper so you had to make sure you had your own. 

This was the first weight room tents that were set up for extra exercise and for those fobbits that had to base work and extra detail. It was good for building strength and waisting time wile staying fit but make sure your well hydrated because theres no AC in this building. 

This was out bunker outside our tent area and rockets were lunched in at us this morning and one of them happen to land right outside our area but thank GOD for the heavens above that prevented this from blowing up. Only he know what would have happened to us if it had. Right were you see the soldier is the dirt a rocket is stuck into the ground and he is figuring out wether they can safely remove it or if the have to blow it up in place. Of course nothing is that easy and they had to strap C4 to it and blow it in place and my GOD when it went off it shook the whole area and messed our tents up. As you can see in the photo below as well just how close this rocket was. 

For me it was a love hate relationship. I was growing into a young man with more responsibilities than I could handle at times but I never gave up and never let anyone down. No matter how uncomfortable I was I tried my best to put forth my effort to make myself and others feel at home for time being when we would get time to ourselves. As you see all the wires coming to my area because I had set up a wired connection to play call of duty together if we had time. I was just waking up and I wanted nothing more but to rest and stay under the covers and do nothing but I had to face my reality. 

These guys were my battles and it took awhile for me to open up and fully trust anyone but after living together, going on mission together, eating together, living together, and training together you can't help develop a friendship and these men were much older than me and helped me with dealing and coping with situations I had faced. 

There were time you had to be prepared for mission and had no choice but to stand guard, maybe listen to a little music in the shade as we wait for our orders. Most days sucked even when you were doing nothing because you quickly realize how much freedom you have given up to accomplish such a daunting task. You didn't have the luxury of wondering off to do your own thing, you couldn't just go to the store when you started craving something or were starting to get hungry and you didn't have much of a choice in food to consume that was available.  Your made the best of what you could and what you couldn't handle you learned to suck it up and hold it in because you wouldn't want to be labeled as the bitch or complainer. 

Always kept track of ammo used and needed for missions making sure I was never caught off guard or unprepared to fight for my life. Its a heavy burden to carry but its between out lasting enemy fire or going home in a body bag. 

Our first shitters were the wooden oil burning shit barrels, trust me shit duty wasn't something you enjoyed doing especially if you wanted to use your time talking with family, writing letters or catching up on sleep but it had to be done and someone had to do it. It was never a good idea to breathe in the smoke but we all know when standing guard and winds you kind of can't avoid it.

This is what was left of a generator after being hit with shrapnel from a rocket explosion that hit inside our FOB. This rocket had taken out our medical tent and destroyed everything in the area even the T-walls. It affected me another one of my battle buddy because that morning we had just been preparing the trucks for mission and rocket literally started flying in right over our heads and this particular rocket had landed on yards away from where we were at the time. 

This was a robot checking to see if there was any explosives left around an area where an IED had just been set off. Trust me it wasn't something that just happened on the spot. Most of the time after an explosion you call in for QRF for back up and along with them will come EOD and at time you would be waiting a considerable amount of time holding down that spot for everything to be cleared. 

Ahhhh rest will get the best of you when its extremely hot, you barley sleep and you have no choice but to man the gun. 

Security security security is what kept us alive when conducting some very important missions and task. Everyone had place and duty to accomplish and you wouldn't want to be the one slacking off and be responsible for the death of a fellow soldier. 

Symbolism was a huge thing out where we were at. I didn't understand much of it but this was just one of the things I had noticed that made me question intensions and message? It appeared to be mud and was on the front gate of a home. 

These two photos show how intense a situation can get. One of the trucks in our platoon had been in a serious roll over and thank GOD everyone was prepared by being properly trained on how to hand such situations. This happened in the early morning, when reacting to rockets being launched in at our base from over our head. This put us in a hard situation we only had four trucks, one is rolled over and to keep enough man power we could not separate. We had no choice but to stand our ground as a team until we were able to receive the proper help. 

Enemies or common interest battling in an innocent arm wrestling match. Who knows but we tried our best to win the hearts and mind by building a friendship with those that had common interest. 

This is a look into my area I had done my best t keep myself organized. Who knew you needed so much shit just to complete a year long mission. The microwave I was luck to get my hands on but I loved it because it gave me the ability to heat up my meals. I had a computer but it was not connected to wifi or internet at the time so I mostly used it for entertainment to help the time pass by and also to organize and keep my videos and photography. This on christmas day and I had wanted to take a picture with some holiday cards I had received from a girl scout troop. I was grateful and filled with joy to know someone was thinking about me and what I was giving up back at home. 

This is on one of the holidays, I believe it was christmas. This is a couple battles enjoying a sparkling wine as we were extremely excited to eat some good food. Who truly knows if the food was healthy for us and believe it or not it would take the cooks over three days just to prepare our meal for the holiday. In those three days leading up to our meal we were stuck eating MREs or any food that had been sent by friends and family. 

This is our whole company together, looks like a lot but wasn't enough man power to truly complete our daunting task. 

This was once a laundry tent where we would bring any laundry and other soldier would be able use the trailers with washers and dryers. This tent was were you would bring your laundry, fold it and pick it up. On this day a couple rockets had blown up our whole laundry area.  Some of us did loose uniforms but we were able to get them replaced. How ever this did leave us back to doing our own laundry witch sucked because we would wash our uniformed our of buckets of water and hang dry. 

This is sitting in the helicopter as I was preparing to leave and go to a near by base. You looked forward to days like this where you are able to escape everything. 

I hope this shines a little light onto what it was like to be young and deployed. I didn't really know what to make of it even to this day but I know looking back on the photography and talking about it has helped me deal and even take a different look onto the stories behind the photos bringing more understanding to what it was we were doing and why.