The cavalry is moving out with a big bang
By Stefan Wermuth
When I got this assignment I was not sure what I could expect.
It was an early 6am start at the Barracks in St John’s Wood, home to The King’s Troop Royal Horse Artillery. I was looking forward to the breakfast as mentioned in the press release. First thing we were told was not to expect any breakfast because the kitchen was moved already.
It could become only better … and it did…
The unit has been stationed at St John’s Wood since their formation by King George VI in 1947 and they will take up residence in a new purpose built equestrian training facility and accommodation centre in Woolwich Garrison outside central London.
The struggles of a gay military family
The United States became the 23rd of 26 NATO countries to allow military service by openly gay people last week. An estimated 66,000 lesbians, gay men and bisexuals are serving in the U.S. military, according to a recent study by UCLA’s Williams Institute. Many are still afraid to come out. I visited a gay military family to hear the story they are now able to tell.
By Lucy Nicholson
A week ago, Luz Bautista, 30, and her fiancée Alejandra Schwartz, 24, both Navy petty officers, were celebrating the end of the U.S. ban on openly gay service members.
This week, they’re being forced to live apart.
Bautista headed to Illinois Monday, away from Schwartz and their daughter Destiny, 6, for a three year posting that could be extended.
KAT-
There is a lot you can do as a straight spouse. Get involved with the local spouses group. Ask them what they are doing for gay partners. How are they dealing with the fact that gay partners/spouses can’t even get on base while their loved one is deployed? Do they have an advisory board or a link to commanders? Ask the same of the commanders. There are too few gay spouses to have an impact. We really need our straight allies to speak on our behalf. Thanks!
Surf therapy
Matthew Doyle grew up by the beach in Santa Monica, California, and with his slim physique and tattooed forearms, looks as if he’s been surfing his whole life.
But it took three tours of duty half a world away, many sleepless nights, and meeting a woman named Carly before the 26-year-old U.S. Army veteran braved the waves on a surfboard.
On a recent Saturday, I met Doyle and a group of 11 other young military veterans trying to overcome the horrors of war at Manhattan Beach, just south of Los Angeles, where occupational therapist Carly Rogers led them in a surf therapy class.
With the exhilarating goal of riding down the face of the wave, the constant paddling out through the whitewater and occasional wipeouts, the motion of the ocean is helping former soldiers, sailors and Marines return to normal.
Crawling for honor
The problem with covering military events in Taiwan is that they are conducted in a controlled environment where almost everything is staged for the media. However, sometimes I would like to see the true grit of army life and the side that is rarely seen in public. Being conscripted to the military myself in Singapore, I have witnessed how tough training can be in the army.
My quest to illustrate this in Taiwan was fulfilled when I negotiated exclusive access to cover the final stage of a nine-week intensive Amphibious Training Program for Taiwan Marine Corps titled “Road to Heaven”.
Taiwan Marines’ “Road to Heaven” test from Nicky Loh on Vimeo.
Ironically, this final test is far from heaven. Trainees go through hell crawling through a 50 meter-long (50 yard) path of jagged coral while stopping to perform various exercises. All this while constantly taunted by instructors and graduates of the course. The crawling lasts 15-20 minutes, if you are lucky. If you are unlucky, unsatisfied instructors may ask you to start again when you near the end.
The test was created to simulate a marine assault on a rock and coral filled coast, as not all beaches in the region are soft sand coasts. It has become almost a rite of passage over the years and ritual a for all Taiwan marines.
Big chip gamble in Afghanistan
I’ve witnessed the U.S. military’s interaction with Iraqis and Afghans during several embeds with different units both in Iraq and Afghanistan, my latest embed with the U.S. Marines’ 1st Light Armored Reconnaissance Battalion in Helmand province was quite an experience.
I was told by an officer that they had a mission the next day to deliver snacks to a village called Deveelak on the second day of Eid al-Fitr celebrations.
Before leaving the camp, I saw soldiers loading boxes of chips, muffins and milk onto their armored vehicles. Each of the Marines practiced how many stacks of boxes they could carry for the upcoming trek.
We traveled in a convoy of armored vehicles from the camp to a location less than an hour away.
I anticipated seeing a crowd of people waiting for us to distribute the snacks.
We arrived in a remote place and the Marines carried snack boxes and hiked approximately 30 minutes to a location beside a small mosque where two elderly Afghans sat.
Glorifying the war or praying for peace?
On August 15, a few days after U.S. atomic bombs fell on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945, then-Japanese Emperor Hirohito announced in a rare public broadcast that the nation had surrendered.
This surrender ended the Pacific battle of World War II and liberated Koreans from Japan’s often-brutal 1910-1945 colonization.
Since then, August 15 has stirred different feelings in the two neighboring countries: bitterness of defeat for one, joy of independence for the other.
Untitled from KH Kim on Vimeo.
I’ve worked as a Reuters photographer for the last nine years in both Seoul (five years) and Tokyo (four years). The contrasting emotions on display around the August 15 anniversary have been reflected in my pictures.
When I worked in Seoul, Korea’s relationship with Japan chilled as former Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi repeatedly visited the Yasukuni Shrine. A place which is dedicated to Japan’s 2.5 million war dead including about 1,000 war criminals and 14 Class A war criminals who were convicted by the Allied tribunal after World War Two.
Embedded in Taliban territory
One of the most challenging and exciting parts of my job is working with some of the toughest and best-trained men in the most dangerous and challenging spot in the world. Last January, Reuters photographers received a group email asking for volunteers for an embed in Afghanistan “during the two most dangerous months of the year, May and June”. I did not think much before responding. I was on my way back to my home base in Greece after a two-year assignment in Israel.
By mid-March I was back in the gym to be fit for the embed. After a series of emails with the U.S. military in Afghanistan and a bit of paperwork, I received the approval for a three-week embed with the 2-508 Infantry Parachute regiment, (the Red Devils) part of the 82nd airborne, based in Arghandab valley near Kandahar. I was very happy and relieved to get the go ahead. I arrived at Kandahar airfield (KAF) on April 30. After a two day wait at the airbase, and a few rocket attacks, I got the green light to fly on an Australian Chinook chopper to my base in the valley — a region considered the most dangerous on earth at that time. To whoever is a fan of extreme games, I suggest a flight with that “bird.”
We flew at a maximum of 300 feet over fields and small villages at high speed, zigzagging all the time with the gunners occasionally shooting their machine guns. The flight was supposed to be less than 20 minutes, but the “bird” stopped at several small bases to unload or pick-up soldiers. The flight ended up lasting for more than two and a half hours. At some point it had to go back to the KAF for refueling. Most of the soldiers were throwing up after the first 10 minutes of our long flight. Myself and two Canadian soldiers were the only ones not vomiting. We joked that our Australian crew had made a bet to see how many of us they could make sick.
After arriving at the base and getting a camping bed in a big tent with another 10 soldiers, I tried to find out who was who on the base and if I could start my work as soon as possible.
Thanks for sharing your experience. It shows again that its all about how you connect with the people you are photographing.
A shot in the dark
It’s 1:00am, I’m sitting in a small dirt hole. Not sure exactly where but somewhere in western Kandahar‘s Maiwand district. How did I get here? On a journey that has involved too much time spent waiting. Waiting at Forward Operating Bases, waiting for planes, waiting for people, waiting for helicopters, waiting for convoys, waiting for patrols.
The short version is it hasn’t been the most productive assignment. I am itching to get ‘out there’ and shoot. So I have jumped at the offer to join an observation post patrol on a moonless night in a flat and treeless landscape, looking for militants laying IEDs.
I’ve bumbled my way out the back of an armored Stryker, across rocky ground, closely tailing a few soldiers who unlike me are equipped with night vision gear. It’s inky black, no illumination permitted. I even have the small red indictor lights on my camera’s back covered with tape. So now I’m in this little dirt hole. It’s dark, really dark. No light at all…… Well, except the billion or so stars above.
f1.4 offers such a tiny depth of field I’d be wasting my time attempting to manual focus accurately in the pitch dark on anything close and even a soldier sitting behind a night scope wont stay still long enough to be sharp for such a long exposure. But those stars aren’t close and they aren‘t exactly whizzing past either. It takes about 10 exposures with some fine adjustment to get them sharp. My tripod for the evening is a convenient and infinitely adjustable model. A small pile of pebbles and sand between my feet.
It takes a while to get the combination of focus, exposure (including balancing the light from the night scope reflected in the soldier’s eye) and a subject that doesn’t move too much to make this picture but time is one thing I have plenty of.
For those of you who like all the details. Exposure – 20 seconds @ f1.4. ISO 2500. 24mm lens. Canon 5D MkII.
I must say you have got a courage, you deserve to fight the great warrior of history. The one thing you certainly do not have is the time. The Taliban snipers are famous for their accuracy, particularly at night when they are on the move. Enjoy your dark nights while you can. I sure would like to see you back safe with the family. What a waste of humans and for whatpurpose.
Rex minor
Being a bird
South Korea’s Armed Forces Day is an annual event held on October 1.
The country’s military puts on a variety of displays that include performances by military bands, drills by honor guard contingents and martial arts displays by special warfare units. There are also air shows with helicopters and fighting planes. One of the highlights of the event is a skydiving performance by South Korea’s Special Warfare Command soldiers.
The South Korean Defence Ministry invited the media for an opportunity to cover the airdrop exercise from their helicopters. I was one of the pool photographers. I’ve covered these type of helicopter missions several times before, but I was still excited albeit with some tension.
On September 29, 2009, two days before Armed Forced Day, Special Warfare Command parachuting team members prepared for their airdrop exercise.
The group was made up of about 40 of the top soldiers and including female soldiers. Before riding in the helicopters, they discussed their operation plan and safety precautions. They separated and boarded two Ch-47 helicopters at an airfield near the event spot, the Gyeryongdae military compound, about 140 km (90 miles) south of Seoul.
Warrior Ink
Reuters photographer Tim Wimborne documents the tattoos of members of the U.S. military serving in Afghanistan in the audio slideshow above.
View full coverage of the War in Afghanistan here.
Great way to show the world what the men in uniform and their stories that would share of what inspires them.
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