War by Other Means: Imagery as Argument in Operation Enduring Freedom

Sgt. Joseph Jaramillo (left), a native of Albuquerque, N.M., and Spc. Austin Valentine, a native of Chillicothe, Ohio, both serving as snipers for 2nd Battalion, 504th Parachute Infantry Regiment, 82nd Airborne Division, pull security and discuss movement at their observation post overlooking the Darwazgay Pass in Zabul Province, Afghanistan, June 24. The Soldiers were part of a joint air assault mission conducted with the 1st Kandak, 2nd Battalion, 205th Corps, Afghan National Army, to disrupt weapons from coming into the area.

Since Operation Enduring Freedom was launched in 2001, millions of American soldiers have deployed to Afghanistan. Thousands of those troops were armed, in addition to their rifles and pistols, with cameras. Those cameras collected thousands of images that did many things: they provided the American public a context in which to make sense of the war that affected so many of them personally. They increased morale by connecting deployed service members to family and friends on the homefront. They also made arguments about the war.

Communication scholar Cori Dauber wrote a series of articles examining how images from war intersect with policy makers’ perceptions about the public’s attitude toward military action. Her data set included news images of combat casualties and prisoners of war from Somalia, Bosnia, and the First Gulf War. She argued, before 9–11, that military planners and elected officials interpreted those images differently than their constituencies, and that Americans generally were more willing to countenance military casualties than government leaders were willing to risk. Her work is an example of how imagery from combat can be used to interpret arguments about war.

ARANAS, Afghanistan — Soldiers of B Company, 1st Battalion, 32nd Infantry Regiment, 10th Mountain Division, sleep through an early mountaintop sunrise at the “Ranch House,” an outpost in the Nuristan province.

So what arguments did visual imagery professionals in the Defense Department make about the War in Afghanistan?

I selected several images from a Defense Department imagery database for each year that the database existed during Operation Enduring Freedom. It was set up in 2004, and for the past 11 years has allowed military public affairs and combat camera professionals to upload released imagery for use by civilians.

While I didn’t choose from among every image produced in Afghanistan (there are at least 170,000), I did find a good number of representative photos. The Defense Video and Imagery Distribution System (DVIDS) displays statistics for downloads and web views of each media asset; I simply chose the images with the most web views, which tended to correlate to the greatest number of downloads.

The average download on my final image set was 89, and the average number of web views is nearly 500. To give an idea of how significant that threshold is, a photo the Navy Seal Team that participated in Operation Red Wing has (at the time of this writing) 430 web views and 141 downloads. Lieutenant Michael Murphy, the team leader, was awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor in 2007, and in 2014 the film Lone Survivor dramatized the events of the operation in which all but one of Murphy’s team was killed. That the photo didn’t get more traffic on the DVIDS site is evidence less of its popularity and more of the fact that all imagery on the site is in the public domain, so that once the photo is downloaded, it is able to be shared and distributed among civilians without attribution, such as on blogs, news site, and particularly social media. It is very reasonable to assume that 500 web views on DVIDS corresponds to many times that number through other media channels.

These images have been widely circulated. And they say something important about American military invovement in Afghanistan. Importantly, they make the argument that the U.S.-led NATO operation in Afghanistan was beneficial, necessary, and ultimately successful.

Marines with Weapons Company, 1st Battalion, 7th Marine Regiment, run to security positions after offloading from a CH-53E Super Sea Stallion helicopter during a mission in Helmand province, Afghanistan, April 28, 2014. The company’s mission was to disrupt Taliban forces in Larr Village and establish a presence in the area. Five days prior to the helicopter-borne mission, the company confiscated two rocket-propelled grenades in the vicinity of the village.

In her many analyses, Dauber used a “visual interpretive approach” to make sense of war imagery and its relation to public policy and public opinion. In her analysis of images of American military prisoners of war and combat casualties, she asserts that an explicitly rhetorical focus can shed a great deal of understanding to the meaning of photographs.

Sgt. Phillip Chang, Alaska Army National Guard, stands on a ledge at the King’s tomb in Kabul looking out as the sun dawns over a new day in Afghanistan.

These OEF images have rhetorical dimensions, as well. The military personnel who go out with maneuver units and acquire the images have one foot planted firmly in the realm of photojournalism, and the other in the very subjective realm of the warfighter family. This duality often gives them access to spectacular and intimate scenes that civilian photojournalists might never see, even while constraining their ability to describe them in their full depth.

Their products make an argument about the military’s involvement in Afghanistan and the institutions’ performance, and can be grouped in four categories that parallel arguments in favor of continued moral and emotional support of the war. These categories are: personal sacrifice, power, success, and security.

Ready to Deploy

Many of the most popular, and compelling, photos are of service members working hard in austere conditions. Very few of the photos selected were taken indoors. They frequently incorporate dusty, barren, forbidden terrain. They also include portraits- close-ups of soldiers who embody the notion of duty. In fact, duty has become a watchword of the modern volunteer force, and since 2004 soldiers have trained and organized around a creed which says in part, “I stand ready to deploy, engage, and destroy the enemies of the United States in close combat.”

Sgt. 1st Class Lance Amsden, platoon sergeant for 1st Platoon, Company C, 1st Battalion, 501st Infantry Regiment, 4th Brigade Combat Team (Airborne), 25th Infantry Division, watches as CH-47 helicopters circle above during a dust storm at Forward Operating Base Kushamond July 17 during preparation for an air assault mission. (ISAF photo — U.S. Army)

Army Sgt. Jim McKinzie, a mechanic, squad leader, and truck commander in Headquarters and Headquarters Company, 782nd Brigade Support Battalion, 4th Brigade Combat Team, 82nd Airborne Division, helps secure a drop zone in preparation for an air supply drop in Paktika Province, Afghanistan, Oct. 10. McKinzie is originally from Ft. Worth, Texas, but now lives in Fayetteville, N.C., with his wife Angela and daughter Brianna. (U.S. Army photo by Spc. Micah E. Clare)

Deploying to unforgiving places is inherent in these photographs. Sometimes the subjects are stoic, stone-faced, and ready to execute an order unquestioningly. Other times they are smiling, assuring the viewer that the mission is not too unbearable, and in some ways satisfying. They argue of a force in service, willing to do what other Americans aren’t.

Soldiers from Kandahar Air Field Quick Reaction Force (QRF) brace themselves against snow whipped up by an incoming Chinook. The team accompanied Afghan medical personnel and vaccinations to the site of a whooping cough outbreak in a remote part of Central Afghanistan. Humanitarian missions are becoming increasingly more common for combat units as the country finds peace in the strength of a newly elected government. The QRF is from 2nd Battalion, 35 Infantry Regiment, part of the 25th Infantry Division, Scholfield Barracks, Hawaii.

If this argument sounds a bit too idealistic, it might be because it is carefully crafted by military public affairs professionals. Never would they promote messages — visual or otherwise — of service members in distress. Even in those images that clearly convey the hard and dangerous life of the deployed soldier, it is couched in terms of duty and sacrifice — martial virtues that seem to have pervaded among the American public.

Combat Power

Another frequent visual argument is that the American military is unmatched in its combat power. From sorties of Marine aircraft to heavy tanks and fighting ground vehicles, technologically superior weaponry has always been at the heart of American fighting doctrine and the imagination of the public. That some of the most celebrated and symbolic weapons systems of the United States played only a minor role in OEF doesn’t prevent them from appearing in some of the most popular photos. Tanks, fighting vehicles, fighter jets, and artillery projected power but weren’t decisive in very many engagements.

A mounted U.S. Marine patrol returns from patrolling nearby villages during Operation Backstop Dec. 10 in Helmand province, Islamic Republic of Afghanistan. The Marines of Company I, 3rd Battalion, 8th Marine Regiment, are the ground combat element of Special Purpose Marine Air Ground Task Force — Afghanistan. The Marines of 3/8 focus on enduring efforts, those operations which create a foundation for the future of Afghanistan.

U.S. Special Operations service members conduct a training mission using live munitions, Dec. 1, 2009, near Kandahar Airfield, Kandahar province, Afghanistan. The training course is the last step to certification as a Master Breacher. (U.S. Department of Defense photo by TSgt John Herrick)

Marine Corps and Royal Air Force helicopters fly in formation after departing Camp Bastion, Afghanistan, Oct. 27, 2014. The Marine Corps ended operations in Helmand province and transferred the base to the Afghan National Army.

A Marine with Battalion Landing Team 1st Battalion, 6th Marine Regiment, 24th Marine Expeditionary Unit, NATO International Security Assistance Force, escorts an armored vehicle outside of their Kandahar Province, Afghanistan base. The Marines began going outside the wire to test fire their heavy machine guns, mortars and rockets.

Of course the soldier is often a part of the combat power calculus, and becomes even more powerful as an icon when framed with rifle, a shoulder-fired weapon, or leading a fighting vehicle down a path. While the actual success of OEF was up for grabs for many years, the images that made it through official channels left little doubt about which side had the power to win, and that power seemed to have been consumed eagerly by the public.

Success Is Assured

Just as an image is open to many interpretations, though, so is success. Yet many of the most popular DVIDS imagery argued that the American military was on a course to victory. It is the most basic message of war propaganda, after all — we will win. Winning, as such, was more difficult to claim in Afghanistan than successfully meeting mission requirements. Understood since 2006 as a long-term counterinsurgency campaign, success was at the same time easier to declare and harder to explain. The U.S. wasn’t celebrating enemy body counts, or territory under control, necessarily, but civil, social, and political conditions that couldn’t be reduced to a photograph like the flag-raising at Iwo Jima.

U.S. Marine Lance Cpl. Dylan Bolt, a 20-year-old mortarman with 2nd Platoon, India Company, 3rd Battalion, 3rd Marine Regiment and Prosser, Wash. native, learns how to count in Pashto from a local boy while helping Afghan National Army soldiers clear strains of illegal activity remaining among the bazaar’s legitimate vendors during Operation Sandman here, Dec. 28. Safar Bazaar was once a hotbed for insurgents, its shops teeming with illegal drugs and streets laden with improvised explosive devices. Over the last two years, four Marine infantry battalions and their Afghan National Security Forces counterparts have labored to make it safe. Today, the buzzing bazaar is the commercial hub of southern Garmsir district. Thousands of Afghans from around the district travel to the bazaar each week to purchase goods.

Rather, success in OEF was achieving milestones of limited scope, and making sure that Afghanistan’s government could appear to be functional and legitimate. The headline for the photo to the left is, “From insurgent hotbed to commercial hub: Afghans, Marines clear Safar Bazaar of remnants of illegal activity during Operation Sandman,” and clearly demonstrates the Americans’ goal of making Afghanistan safe for Afghans. That a young boy teaching a 20-year-old Marine how to count in Pashto was an indicator of success. These images convey a calmer tone than many others from the war. With rifles and body armor, Americans have restored an environment of order and peace, one where civilians, even kids, are frequently seen interacting with the soldiers.

Afghan commandos of the joint force halt a suspected militant from their fighting position, Wardak province, Afghanistan, Oct. 21, 2009. (Photo by U.S. Air Force Senior Airman Jonathan Lovelady)

Chief Warrant Officer Byung Kim, a Marine embedded tactical trainer from Alexander, Virginia, walks up the mountain with Afghan national army soldiers during a patrol to Combat Outpost Warheit in Nuristan province, Afghanistan, March 2.

Got You Covered

Often, success meant allowing Afghan forces to participate or even lead. It became a theme of U.S. military public affairs to showcase Afghan forces. Ultimate success there, after all, would be an Afghan state able to secure its own border and cities with limited U.S. assistance.

U.S. Army Staff Sgt. Matthew J. Bubb, and Staff Sgt. Jeremy N. Butler, both with 2nd Battalion, 23rd Infantry Regiment, scan grape row fields after the unit received small arms fire during a traffic control point (TCP) in Panjwai district, Kandahar province, Afghanistan, May 23, 2013. The TCP was to assist with the transfer of nearby combat outposts to Afghan National Security Forces. (U.S. Army photo by Staff Sgt. Shane Hamann/Released)

The final major argument of these OEF photographs is that the U.S. is a force that keeps people safe. In Army operations, the principle of “overwatch” is always at play, with soldiers in a tactically superior position are able to keep an eye on routine activities. Snipers maintain overwatch on assault teams; drones keep overwatch on convoys; and all soldiers take turns in an overwatch position guarding their buddies in almost any circumstance.

A member of an Afghan-international security force provides security during clearing operations. The security force set in containment and cleared multiple targets in Suri Kheyl, Zadran District, Afghanistan, August 14, 2010.

As in the photo above, overwatch signifies a position of omniscience and omnipotence. It is a metaphor for the good guys having your back, so it is comforting in a way. Inherent in the metaphor is that these soldiers — almost all young men — have been adequately and expertly trained to wield the weapons with which they keep us safe.

Spc. Ronald Turner provides overwatch protection from atop a hill while other members of his platoon search a village in Mianashin, Afghanistan Oct. 21, 2005.

Interestingly, the subject of Dauber’s essays is turned on its head in these photographs. In the 1990s, conventional wisdom held that the American public was casualty shy, and wouldn’t stand for a long-term conflict in which a stream of America’s young men and women came home in flag-draped coffins. These photos argue that, far from being unsafe and at the mercy of events, these service members are in total control of their environments. They decide who goes home in a coffin, and it is likely to be the enemy.

PATROL BASE HANJAR, Helmand province, Afghanistan — U.S. Marine Corps Cpl. Joshua Labombard with 2nd Battalion, 8th Marines, Regimental Combat Team 8, salutes after placing the helmet onto the battlefield cross for U.S. Marine Corps Cpl. Kyle R. Schneider during a memorial ceremony held at Patrol Base Hanjar, Sangin, Afghanistan, July 7. Schneider was killed in action while conducting combat operations in the distrcit on June 30. (U.S. Marine Corps photo by Corporal Logan W. Pierce)

Of course we know this is far from true — nearly 1,900 Americans were killed in OEF. But sometimes arguments can appeal to emotion; though many DVIDS photographs depict war memorials or caskets of service members, they aren’t among the most popular.

It is important to bear in mind that all of these images were produced by military personnel. While this speaks to the DOD’s institutional commitment to documenting the battlefield, and to the technical competence of many service members, it also puts hard limits on the category of photos that one will find in DVIDS. All of the imagery is associated with a “release authority,” who is almost always an officer, and usually a senior one. Many photos are taken, but few are released. And while many photos are simply excluded from release because they are superfluous, redundant, irrelevant, or of poor quality, often photos are withheld from the public because they cast the military in a bad light.

Defense Department rules and regulations prohibit withholding information simply because it is embarrassing; nevertheless, public affairs officers wear dual hats — public relations and marketing on one hand, and information officers on the other. Moreover, Defense Department guidelines allow withholding of images that might violate security, a rationale that can be used flexibly.

U.S. Army Sgt. Brian Samaniego from D Company, 2nd Battalion, 35th Infantry Regiment, monitors an intravenous fluid flow for one of his soldiers after a fire fight during Operation Hammer Down in the Watapoor District of Kunar province, Afghanistan, June 28. 2–35th Infantry Division deployed through out Afghanistan in support of Operation Enduring Freedom. (U.S. Army photo by Spc. Tia Sokimson)

It is impossible to know who is really consuming these images. Are they merely going to a subset of the population that is more likely to support the war anyway? The idea would square with recent scholarship that suggests interaction with the military is becoming less common for a growing number of Americans, that the burden of military service is borne by a narrowing segment of the population. But given that military is held in historically high estimation, perhaps the trends don’t render the analysis meaningless. At any rate, the photos are representative of something, and understanding what that something is has to begin somewhere.

I have been disappointed in the lack of in depth combat photography and documentary during the past 15 years — a period that should have seen a renaissance in the form. There are notable exceptions, of course, but service members have become the best source of photographs in the theater.

DVIDS photos represent a collective professionalism that rivals civilian photo journalists, and though they are trained to craft and create propagandistic imagery, they function as journalists to some degree. They gather information. They attempt to inform. They tell the stories of Soldiers, Airmen, Sailors, and Marines in the combat zone. According to Julie Newton, “photojournalists study humankind through their reportage; they are professional observers. But the best journalists are indeed social scientists.”

DVIDS gives us insight into how an information war is fought, and as ever the American service member is in the middle of the fight.