The Grief of Baghdad

By Evan Derkacz, AlterNet. Posted October 5, 2004.

After having seen a couple of his buddies turn up dead in a ditch during high school, Tyson Johnson decided to leave his Prichard, Alabama home and make something of himself "because I knew where my life was headed."

So he joined the National Guard first, and then, for a bonus of $2999, he joined the army.

Now 22, he's back in Prichard, his life in ruins.

Johnson's story is just one of many from Nina Berman's powerful new book, "Purple Hearts: Back from Iraq'' (Trolley Ltd.). It contains short testimonials and a photo essay illuminating one of the dark corners of the war in Iraq: the stories and pictures of the permanently wounded men and women home from the war. If the pumped-up "Army of One" recruiting campaign is the "before" photo, "Purple Hearts" is the "after."

Cpl. Johnson's photo in the book is subtly disturbing; it creeps up on you. On a sunny Southern day, he leans gently against a chain-link fence, eyes downcast. Baggy basketball shorts sit low, Hanes underwear defiantly above the waistline. His trim torso is a collection of scars, the largest of which snakes from the bottom of the breastbone, diving into his navel, disappearing finally into that exposed Hanes waistband. Others emerge from his back; there's a patch covering something over his heart; what appears to be the work of sprayed shrapnel across his left side.

Despite the message written on his body, it's his words that will haunt you: "Well, uh, shrapnel down the back, shrapnel that came in and hit my head, punctured my lungs. I broke both of my arms. I lost a kidney. My intestines was messed up. They took an artery out of my left leg and put it into this right arm. They pretty much took my life. Pretty much."

He has trouble teaching his son how to count on his hands because, "You can see my fingers is messed up." Cpl. Tyson Johnson is 100 percent disabled, cannot support his family – and the National Guard wants its bonus back.

"Purple Hearts'" succinct introduction by Verlyn Klinkenborg, a meditation on the concept of the "hero" since 9/11, paraphrases the stories within (though it serves as an adequate surrogate for the silenced stories of all the American boys and girls injured as a result of the war):

"Three of them were wounded in firefights. One was delivering ice. Another walked off into the desert on a bathroom break and stepped on a mine...The youngest of them all was wounded by a suicide bomber. Two of the solders who look the least damaged are blind, far more damaged than the camera can record. One soldier whose limbs are intact and who appears nearly normal is brain-damaged. A metal chunk from a bomb pierced his brain and left him a stranger to his family."

Thanks Mr. Bush

On the same day that the "Purple Hearts" exhibit opened at the Redux Gallery in New York City in early September, a family in Geauga County, Ohio (perhaps the mother of all battleground states), sent a huge message to President Bush – literally. Ken and Betty Landrus, the parents of Staff Sgt. Sean Landrus, who was killed in January, made an enormous sign which they held up from their front yard for passersby – and eventually news cameras – to see. The sign read: "Thanks Mr. Bush for the death of our son." The story was reported by the local NBC affiliate, WKYC-TV.

Interesting that during all its coverage of the war, the station hadn't bothered to contact the family of a local casualty of the war, to report on what it was like to have a child die in the war – to report on the consequences of our nation's policies. They never asked Staff Sgt. Landrus' widow and three kids what it was like either, though his youngest child, having been born shortly before Landrus left for Iraq, admittedly wouldn't have given a good interview.

A Mother's Tears

Meanwhile, a group of families who have lost loved ones in Iraq are launching a national TV ad campaign called "Real Voices." In the first spot, "A Mother's Tears," Cindy Sheehan addresses President Bush directly, the sadness and pain welling up in her voice as she describes the death of her son, Casey, and its aftermath:

"And his sergeant said, 'Sheehan you don't have to go'... And Casey said, 'Where my chief goes, I go'... And he died in his best friend's arms... I imagined it would hurt if one of my kids was killed, but i never thought it would hurt this bad. And especially someone so honest and brave as Casey, my son; when you haven't been honest with us, when you and your advisors rushed us into this war. How do you think we felt when we heard the Senate report that said there was no link between Iraq and 9/11?"

Evan Derkacz is a New York-based writer and contributor to AlterNet.

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