Thursday, February 21, 2008

Army Ink


As the Iraq war is whitewashed by the mainstream media, and the major candidates for president rarely discuss the reality in the Middle East and make only vague promises about the removal of troops, I thought I would do a little advertising for a photojournalist that my brother turned me onto: Zoriah. His work, which can be seen at http://zoriah.com/ is an amazing collection of photojournalism from some of the world's most oppressed and troubled places: The West Bank, China, and Iraq.


I was particularly struck by a short series of photos entitled Army Ink. Here is the description from the collection:


A member of the United States Army shows off a tattoo. The US Army has recently lifted a ban on certain kinds of tattoos in order to address one of the worst recruiting crisis in US military history. Tattoos have long been a source of pride, tradition and a rite of passage for soldiers as well as a way for them to express their individual personalities in a world of conformity.

The tattoo in the above picture reads:

Walk peacefully in heavens streets, you've done your time in hell

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