Photo exhibit bares wounds of US troops in Iraq

New York, Feb 15: Images of medics treating horrific injuries in Iraq and the anguished faces of wounded US soldiers are juxtaposed in a new exhibit with pictures of youthful veterans back home dealing with life as amputees.

''The Sacrifice,'' by award-winning war photographer James Nachtwey, shows US soldiers in Iraq receiving frantic medical treatment in a helicopter and medics working to repair the carnage of war at a field hospital.

That chaos is shown beside more tranquil views, such as a returned serviceman with a prosthetic leg holding his surfboard after riding a curl and a one-legged young man chatting with his fiancee during a break from his rehabilitation regimen.

''This is one of the costs of this war. The money is the easy part. This, the injuries and the people that are lost, is the real cost,'' Nachtwey said while hanging the exhibit, which opens tomorrow at 401 Projects.

''It's important for the people of our country to understand the nature of the sacrifice being made.

''These are mainly young people, mainly in their 20s, athletic, active people who have sustained a great loss and want to move on with their lives.'' Since the Iraq war began with the US-led invasion in March 2003, there have been 3,125 US personnel killed and 23,417 wounded, Pentagon data show. As the four-year mark approaches, US public opinion has turned broadly against the war.

The exhibit includes a 35-foot-long (10.6-metre) print comprising 60 images taken in a field hospital in Iraq, aimed at giving what Nachtwey called ''a sense of being on the edge of chaos and control in the emergency room.'' But it also includes more upbeat images -- a returned veteran stretching after a run on an athletic prosthetic leg and another recovered soldier, with two prosthetic legs and a prosthetic arm waiting his turn at a golf tee.

Nachtwey, who spent two months taking pictures in a field hospital in Iraq, said the preponderance of leg injuries in his exhibit reflected the human cost of the conflict.

''There are a lot of leg amputations. That is the signature wound of this war,'' said Nachtwey, who has charted conflict for more than 25 years in places including Rwanda, Chechnya, Afghanistan and Bosnia.

Nachtwey, 58, learned first-hand about the quality of medical treatment on offer in Iraq after he was wounded in a 2003 grenade attack and suffered shrapnel injuries.

''I had been through this system but I was on the wrong end of the process,'' he said. ''Now, this was like a through-the-looking-glass experience for me.'' Many of the photos were taken for National Geographic and first appeared in that magazine in December. The exhibit runs until April 8 and and proceeds benefit two charities for returning US troops.

Reuters

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