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NEW YORK — AP Photographer Brennan Linsley spent a week in September embedded with an Army medevac team rescuing wounded U.S. troops from the battlefields of Afghanistan. Over a few intense days, he witnessed heroism, determination and tragedy.
He also witnessed — and photographed — two U.S. Marines who had been badly wounded in the fighting and who died of their injuries.
Images of the medics' unsuccessful attempts to save the two are part of a story and photo package on Linsley's time with the combat casualty evacuation unit. There also are photos of two wounded Marines who were rescued and survived.
Because of the delicate nature of some of the images, the AP transmitted the story and photos in advance to give editors more time to decide if and how they want to use the material.
The distribution and publication of photos of dead servicemen and women can be controversial because some people feel it disrespectful. Others feel such images reflect the realities of combat.
That is the AP's position, said John Daniszewski, the Senior Managing Editor responsible for international news and photos, including a number of conflicts around the globe.
"The photos show the work of the crew and the compassion and professionalism of the medics on board these helicopters in a way that is accurate, true and tasteful," he said.
Linsley's images "capture some desperately urgent moments," said AP Executive Editor Kathleen Carroll. "Those moments and those frantic efforts to preserve a life are completely familiar to the men and women in the fields of war. We are in the fields with them to document every aspect of war and death is simply a part of that reality."
As a courtesy to the families of the two fallen Marines, Linsley contacted them to inform them of the publication plans.
Linsley visited the widow and other relatives of Lance Cpl. Ross Carver, and spoke by phone with the uncle and family spokesman for Lance Cpl. Joshua Twigg.
In a story accompanying the photos, Linsley describes his feelings as a photojournalist witnessing such terrible scenes. "When a soldier or Marine dies, it makes the war horribly real," he writes. "As I was photographing the dying man half my age, I thought about all the things he would never see or do."
He also writes that he feels obliged to tell their story. "The words of soldiers and Marines I've patrolled on the ground with echoed through my head, always some variation of this: `The people back home don't have (any) idea what we're going through here,'" he wrote. "'You can show them.'"
Since the Obama administration overturned an 18-year ban on covering the return of dead U.S. service personnel, the AP has been the only news organization to document every repatriation for which families have granted media access through the military: 429 of them.
