photogrammatical

My ‘Marine Families‘ project has been going well. I’ve been logging a lot of miles recently, traveling all over California to photograph the families of my Marines in Afghanistan.  It’s been a labor of love for me, and as rewarding as any project I can imagine.

I received a phone call on Christmas Day, and several emails back from the boys whose families I’ve photographed so far.  They’ve all been short and straightforward, much like the emails I’ve sent to them.  There is a lot that goes unsaid between us, but it will suffice to say that we understand each other perfectly.

I have been touched and deeply honored by the graciousness of these Marines’ wives and girlfriends.  Allowed to share in news from the front, to know the men’s hearts and mindsets in words that Marines never say to one another, only whispered in crowded phone tents with the clock ticking and other men waiting behind.

I see now the full measure of what these women shoulder at home.  A Marine deployed is surrounded by men in his same situation.  Everyone is lonesome. Everyone is homesick.  There is not much reason to talk about it unless the hurt is too great.  When men wait to read their mail alone, you let them.  Other than those few private moments at night, the men are in it together.  That’s how they get through things when being overwhelmed is not an option.

That’s not how it is back home.  The women don’t wake up together to share cigarettes and black coffee.  Their web of support is spread out and disjointed.  They are surrounded by people who don’t understand because they simply cannot.  Still they must go to work and take care of the children and run a household as though their men were on a camping trip together.  Knowing full well that the next Marine they see could be wearing Dress Blues and standing on the front porch.

Make no mistake, I’m not saying that one side of a deployment is easier than the other.  They are very different, and should not be viewed in competition.  What I am saying is that these women, these families, bear a burden that they have not been trained for, and that they bear it with a kind of poise and steadfastness that you’d expect from a Marine, but that isn’t something you learn in Boot Camp, and it isn’t something that requires a uniform.  I believe it’s that thing at the core of words like Honor and Patriotism.  Not all the partisan bullshit that has been attached to them, but the actual definitions, that even cynics know exist.

Can I show something in a photograph that I can barely explain in words?  Perhaps not.  But I can try.

Anthony Morfa and I went to High School together. We were bass trombone players in the school’s marching band together. As alumni, we were two of the 2000 piece band in the opening ceremonies of the 2000 Summer Olympics in Sydney, Australia. A few months later I would head off to Boot Camp, he would head off to college.

Today, Dr. Anthony Morfa is part of a team of chemists at the Nanoscience Laboratory, Bio21 Institute at the University of Melbourne in Victoria, Australia. During my recent visit, Anthony took me to work, introduced me to some of his colleagues, and together they tried to explain things to me that were a little beyond my comprehension, but they had great visual aids.

Dr. Anthony Morfa

Dr. Tich-Lam Nguyen

Dr. Matthias Karg

Aside from being surrounded by science-y awesomeness like bubbling beakers, spinning vials and a laser room, they are working with “nano-particles” and “quantum dots”, finding new ways of gathering and utilizing light and energy, and pushing the limits of current LED (light emitting diode) and solar cell technologies.

Some Science-y Awesomeness

What I did understand is that these ‘green sciences’ are being studied by young, energetic PhDs who are excited about the work they are doing and the possibilities that these nano-technologies can hold. They were excited enough to get me excited. Then we were all excited, then someone brought in a black light.

Dr. Karg

Dr. Nguyen and Blacklight in the Laser Room.

A big thanks to Prof. Paul Mulvaney for graciously allowing both myself and my camera into his lab, to the “Dr.’s 3″ who gave me both their time and a brief lesson in Really Tiny Awesome Science, and to the rest of the chemists in the Nanoscience Lab who did better than tolerate my presence in their workplace.

Dr. Anthony Morfa to be specific, but more on him later.

Our vacation Down Under was all we had hoped for and more.

Vacations have a tendency to be exhausting. While I’d admit to suffering the effects of jet lag over our first days home, this trip was a pleasant exception. We packed a lot into our two weeks, but we took it all in at a leisurely pace.

It is winter in Australia. Down in Melbourne, where we spent most of our trip, it was cold and raining off and on. We stayed bundled up a good deal of the time.

We walked around a lot, almost everywhere. To the farmer’s market, to the city center, to “our” local bar. It’s a shame that most of Southern California isn’t really laid out for walking. It was quite nice.

We wandered about the country a bit as well. A short flight here and there, but I logged a lot of miles (or kilometers in this case) driving on the other side of the road. Getting my equipment through airport security was relatively painless. Although, I did have to explain to one fellow what a softbox was and why I had metal poles in my carry-on. He also seemed troubled by the look of my speedlights in the x-ray machine, but I can’t say that I blamed him.

We were staying with a friend, a self sufficient bachelor, so I did most of the cooking for the three of us. I’d have a hot meal and a cocktail waiting for him when came home from work. On nights when it was raining too hard to venture out, we’d sit around drinking Shiraz and watching episodes of Mad Men. We joked that I had become his Betty Draper. I’d wager that Betty Draper never made Kangaroo Fried Rice.

I took a lot of pictures while we were there, of course. I’ve quite a bit of editing to do. Some of it I’ll post, but most of it I won’t. I was traveling for pleasure. I took plenty of travel snaps. A lot of pictures of buildings and bridges and beaches, and my girlfriend standing in front of said scenery. I won’t bore you with our vacation slide show.

Well… perhaps just a few.

The Twelve Apostles

Tara in Sydney

Tara and the Opera House at Night

We’d just pulled into Babylon after a long trip from the Iranian border. Our platoon would be occupying some empty buildings near a small man-made lake for a few weeks. Everyone was backing their vehicles in so we could pull the radios inside, but there was a small palm tree in the way of mine. I jumped out and grabbed the ax. With my first swing I caught one of the low fronds with my left hand. It went straight through the base of my fingernail like a staple gun. It hurt like hell, and my hand was shaking, but the vehicles still had to get parked and everyone was tired and pissed off. So I cut down that tree, and spent the next two months trying to dig that frond out of my hand.

I couldn’t go to the docs for something that small, I’d never hear the end of it. So I just put up with the irritation, but as the nail grew it was dragging the frond with it, and it hurt a lot. I put sanitizer on it often to try to stave off infection, but that didn’t work. I wore gloves to hide the swelling. I knew it was becoming a problem and if I went to see the docs at that point I might even get sent to the Army hospital for antibiotics. I couldn’t let that happen. I’d seen some guys get sent back to Kuwait against their will for seemingly minor injuries. I would have rather died.

So one night I got good and drunk, left the boys playing spades, and climbed into the back of my vehicle. I washed my hands as best I could with hand sanitizer and heated my knife up with a lighter. I slid the blade in quickly under the nail until it separated. It hurt A LOT.

I squeezed hard and the frond came out immediately. I was shaking from the pain, and I remember feeling relieved that it had come out on the first try, because I wasn’t sure I could squeeze like that again. I put more sanitizer on my hand and instantly regretted that decision, but I knew if it was going to heal properly I’d have to keep it as clean as possible.

I was surprised and a little impressed by the size of the frond, more than a quarter inch. I’d carried it with me through so much it didn’t seem right to just discard it. So I taped it into my journal, a little souvenir from my summer vacation.

When you talk about injuries sustained in war, a thing like that is not even worth mentioning. But it was something small that I carried with me for too long, a painful irritation that never let up until I dealt with it the hard way. Sometimes there are things like that in life. This one got taped into a little book I keep in my desk drawer.