Gallery: Haunting Soldier Portraits Capture the Lasting Consequences of War
Lalage Snow01Adam 1 (1)
*Second Lieutenant Adam Petzsch, 25. Edinburgh, before deployment: "I suppose I am a bit apprehensive, but I want to see what it is really like. It is what I joined the army for, but I don’t know what to expect."*
02Adam 2 (1)
*Second Lieutenant Adam Petzsch, 25. Compound 19, Nad-Ali, during deployment, after the IED: "It was my first IED incident and first casualty. You don’t think about it ‘till afterwards, though, as your priority is getting the guy away and back into safety. Then you start thinking about what happened, if it was preventable, if it was your fault in anyway, and how the others are doing. Before we were on this op I was thinking about how quiet the tour had been and that we had to be careful and fight complacency."*
03Adam 3
*Lieutenant Adam Petzsch, 25. Edinburgh, after deployment: "We took over a new compound and if we ventured any more than 200 to 300 meters, we got shot at. At the start of the tour you could patrol kilometers away and no one would touch you. But I think yes, in parts we are making a difference."*
Lalage Snow, Lalage Snow04Gibby 1
*Corporal Steven Gibson, 29. Edinburgh, before deployment: "I am afraid of not coming back home. I have two children and a third on the way in August, and I love them and my wife more than anything in the world. Not coming back and seeing them again ... that would be the worst."*
05Gibby 2
*Corporal Steven Gibson, 29. Nad Ali, during deployment: "A lot of the guys have Bibles with them – they know it’s a split second from going from bad to worse. I have read up to page 27. I have never read the Bible before. This place opens your eyes up. You hear 'op minimise' come on and it brings it all home. You know that somewhere a soldier has been badly injured or worse, and you think about their families. So reading the Bible, well it is like trying to make peace with someone, the big man upstairs." \['Op Minimise' is an alert issued among military units when a casualty has been reported in the theater of war.\]*
06Gibby 3
*Corporal Steven Gibson, 29. Edinburgh, after deployment, after sustaining back injury in an IED explosion: "Without fail, I always had my St. Christopher on my dog tags. Apart from one day, when I couldn’t find them anywhere and had to use my spares. And then three hours later, boom. I don’t know how to describe it. It’s like ... you know when you are about to faint and you get that fuzzy feeling ... I never heard the bang, but I went up and over. Everything was fine until 10 minutes later when the adrenaline stopped. It was like someone had stuck something in my back. I fell to the floor and was just in agony ... I didn’t want to get sent home but had no choice. Without a shadow of doubt I am still finding it hard to adjust; I still look back. I’ll go out for a cigarette and constantly thinking about Afghan."*
Lalage Snow, Lalage Snow07Chug 1
*Private Dylan Hughes, 26. Edinburgh, before deployment: "I am not afraid of going out to Afghanistan. It's my job at the end of the day, but I am afraid of f\*\*\*ing up and someone else dying."*
08Chug 2
*Private Dylan Hughes, 26. Compound 19, Nad-Ali, during deployment, after the IED: "I was stunned after the explosion. And then we were contacted by Taliban snipers. It wasn't a nice feeling. Not nice at all. It makes you think, 'it could have been me.' It is just luck at the end of the day. Basic living is difficult. It is what I enjoy - living in the field and that - but I think even I will be at breaking point soon."*
09Chug 3
*Private Dylan Hughes, 26. Edinburgh, after deployment: "To be honest I felt quite sorry for the wee lassies as the women get treated like s\*\*\* out there. They’ve got that to look forward to ... I think we are just fighting a losing battle, to be honest with you. But it’s not my place to say. I don’t know about the politics side of it. I came back in August my misses was having a bairn. It wasn’t hard to adjust being back it was just the change in tempo - coming back and doing nothing. I found myself quite agitated a lot of the time and had to keep myself busy. I was kind of like, what gives me the right to go home early just because I am having a bairn \[Scottish word for 'child'\]?"*
Lalage Snow10Ando 1
*Private Steven Anderson, 31. Edinburgh, before deployment: "I think its going to be horrible to be honest. The work will be intense and there are going to be a lot of casualties. I am scared not of dying but of losing my legs - that would be the worst."*
11Ando 2
*Private Steven Anderson, 31. Nad-Ali, during deployment: "It's hard to explain the conditions, how dirty it is. Often when you phone your girlfriend or something and she asks why you aren't talking normally, it's ... you're drained, you're tired, you're dirty, you've not eaten properly for a few days. Lack of water. You're just drained. I was scared on the first patrol, but you think back to the training and remember all the drills. I haven't been in any firefights and am happy for it to stay that way, and to go home with all my fingers and toes intact."*
12Ando 3
*Private Steven Anderson, 31. Edinburgh, after deployment: "We try and go there to win their hearts and change their minds ... but those people are living until 45 and dying, as there’s so much poverty and not the medicines to treat them. And they put different value on life. A child got killed; it was nothing to do with the Army. It was just ill. They brought the body of that child to an army camp having shot it, saying that it got caught in a fire fight and demanding money. How can you change the mind of someone like that?"*
Lalage Snow13patty 3 (1)
*Private Sean Patterson, 19. Edinburgh, before deployment: "I am going to say goodbye to my family early, as I hate goodbyes. I am going to miss them. I’m not scared though; I can’t wait! I joined the army when I was 15 - it is all I wanted to do and I can’t wait to get out there."*
14patty 2 (1)
*Private Sean Patterson, 19. Camp Tombstone, during deployment: "Being TRIM-med" (Trauma Risk Management): ...It was horrible. When we got back to safety I broke down crying. We all did. I couldn’t sleep that night. I was thinking about home and staring at the stars. I had R and R a few days after that, and for the first couple of nights I had nightmares and flashbacks; I woke up in a pure cold sweat. When I got back and out on the ground again, we were under fire and another two guys had to be casevac'd after losing limbs. It was s\*\*\* seeing it happen all over again. It wasn’t nice at all. I say a prayer before I go on patrol now but I still think ‘am I going to come back in one piece or with a leg missing?' I’m scared every time I leave for a patrol. I hate it. It is 84 days left until I go home."*
15patty 1 (1)
*Private Sean Patterson, 19. Edinburgh, after deployment: "People think you can just sail through life, but it is not as easy as that. You could get hit by a bus and that would be that. You never know what is going to happen - especially out there. You could go out on patrol and that could be you. Finished. I reckon we should leave them to do their own thing. We have lost too many. You see guys coming back missing three limbs. They're not going to be able to get a job on civvy street are they? So I don't really see the point. It's not as if we are going to gain anything in Afghanistan are we? It's their own problem. Deal with it."*
