'Words are never enough''

by David Grand
May 6, 2004

As an editor of Life magazine, who printed pictures of dead American soldiers on the beaches of Normandy on D-day in WW 11 wrote: "Why print these pictures, anyway, of American boys dead upon an alien shore?" Is it to hurt people? To be morbid? "Those are not the reasons; the reason is that words are never enough." Or to use that timeworn cliche, that "one picture is worth a thousand words."

And when 25 years later in 1969 that same magazine published head shots of the smiling young men who'd lost their lives in Vietnam in just one week, another editor wrote, "more than we must know how many, we must know who." And adding, "that Americans have handled photos of their dead when they believe the deaths are justified as in the Civil War and in WW 11; unlike how they reacted badly in WW 1, Korea and in Vietnam to images of the dead when they discovered they were being misled about how the war was going."

Perhaps that explains to some degree why Americans reacted as strongly as they have to the photos of the flag-draped coffins arriving daily at Dover Air Force Base, and to Ted Kopple on "Nightline" reading aloud the names of the young 500 U.S. servicemen and women killed in action (along with the 200 non-combat deaths), with their photo, military branch, rank and age, including some teenagers among them.

Despite the late hour, I watched every moment of it and found it to be devoid of any political overtones as some have alleged, and that it was what ABC stated was its purpose: "to honor those who've laid down their lives for their country. And Sen. John McCain was right on in accusing the Sinclair Broadcast Group of being "unpatriotic" by pulling Nightline from its stations. The FCC should whack 'em for doing so.

Gosh, I sure wish he'd change parties and become Kerry's running mate. What a winning ticket that would be. Two highly decorated heroes of the Vietnam War taking on Bush and Cheney, who've never heard a gun fired in anger. (And Cheney shooting 66 ducks in one day on his hunting trip with Justice Scalia counts for nada.)

Unfortunately, the controversy that was ignited by showing the true products of war rapidly became a partisan issue, with those opposed to the war welcoming the photos, while those who support it and the ban-established by then Secretary of Defense Dick Cheney during the Gulf War in 1991- regarded them as antiwar propaganda. As one columnist responded: "Is it possible that some Americans do not know that war means, first and foremost, killing?" If so, "that'd be the political equivalent of the stork theory, according to which babies suddenly appear like nice, clean packages rather than being conceived in passion and delivered in pain."

The position of the Pentagon, with the backing of the White House, is that it's "defending the privacy of the families, and protecting the fallen from the prying eyes of the media, not to shield the public from the powerful images."

That's so much hogwash. For those military coffins have no names on them, so no one's privacy could be invaded. And to my knowledge there's been no outcry from the families over such photos being taken of the military coffins laid out neatly in rows in the belly of the planes or hangers, and treated with the utmost respect by those standing guard over them around-the-clock until they're turned over to their families for burial. Nor have they objected to the photos of their loved ones being shown on Nightline, when they were in the "bloom of life" and proud of being in the military.

The bottom line is, as Jonathan Alter of Newsweek magazine wrote in an article about the government's efforts to block the publication of photos revealing the human costs of war, "The government doesn't trust the people. It didn't trust them with the real reasons for going to war or the price tag, and the last thing it wants to do is fight an image war at home. They think that 'Joe Public,' as Bush calls 'em in Bob Woodward's new book, can't handle the truth." And I wouldn't "alter" one word of his.