- Joined
- Sep 12, 2012
- Messages
- 12,828
Happy birthday Marines.
In the years after WWII, when the legendary photojournalist W. Eugene Smith sold prints of this image through his studio, he gave it the title "Sticks and Stones and Bits of Human Bone".
It's at first easy to miss the four figures in the foreground of the photograph. The eye is drawn to the explosion, then upwards, and back down and only then began to analyze the detail and to eventually spot the Marines crouched behind a bolder. There's not one inch of ground, one rock or gnarled tree that doesn't have a halo of dust being shaken off of it because of the concussion of the blast. It's a powerful image, one of my favorite war images ever.
Critics analyzing the photo will tell you that the presence of humans in the photo is important, because this gives scale to the image, but I say, no sir. Their presence is important because they are United States Marines. In that moment of blasting out a cave complex on Iwo Jima, those four Marines of that demolition unit represented the fist that our enemy was certain they would never feel. It really and truly comes down to "Somebody has to do it" and that's the United States Marine Corps.
In the years after WWII, when the legendary photojournalist W. Eugene Smith sold prints of this image through his studio, he gave it the title "Sticks and Stones and Bits of Human Bone".
It's at first easy to miss the four figures in the foreground of the photograph. The eye is drawn to the explosion, then upwards, and back down and only then began to analyze the detail and to eventually spot the Marines crouched behind a bolder. There's not one inch of ground, one rock or gnarled tree that doesn't have a halo of dust being shaken off of it because of the concussion of the blast. It's a powerful image, one of my favorite war images ever.
Critics analyzing the photo will tell you that the presence of humans in the photo is important, because this gives scale to the image, but I say, no sir. Their presence is important because they are United States Marines. In that moment of blasting out a cave complex on Iwo Jima, those four Marines of that demolition unit represented the fist that our enemy was certain they would never feel. It really and truly comes down to "Somebody has to do it" and that's the United States Marine Corps.
)
I kid, I kid)
