Love and Grief

Lance Corporal Bryant Whalen farewells compatriot Corporal Jorge Villarreal, who was killed after stepping on an improvised explosive device in Kajaki, Afghanistan. Picture: Scott Olson of Getty Images. Source: The Australian.

I'm often asked how my experiences at Landstuhl have changed me, or what the most important thing is that I've learned through those experiences. The response surprises many, because the answer is love. The love the guys who fight together have for each other, and the love the military family has for its own.

Scott Olson, one of the best combat photographers currently in Afghanistan, captures "sequences of a journey that takes men such as Corporal Jorge Villarreal, 22, of the US Marines, from a patrol in Helmand to a stretcher, to a helicopter, to a coffin, to home" in a photo slideshow titled "Death of a Marine".

The name of the accompanying article says it all: "Images talk of love and grief as much as war and death".