Remembering David Gilkey

David Gilkey, photojournalist at NPR, was killed yesterday in Afghanistan, along with translator Zabihullah Tamanna. Those words cause my guts to churn and my chest to tighten. My friend was one of the most decent people I ever met.

Even though his job sent him to capture images of people in dramatic or tragic circumstances, he never lost sight of the fundamental dignity of every human being he photographed. And because he turned his lens on so much pain, I think he cultivated a crusty exterior in a futile effort to keep us from knowing just how much he cared. 

Photojournalists at work

We met because his passion for sharing the stories of America's veterans brought him to the nonprofit agency I raised money for. My most vivid memory of him from that visit is his spluttering indignation at seeing a party of reveling young people wearing army costumes and waving toy weapons in downtown San Diego to celebrate the release of a war-based video game. 

“They wouldn’t think the game was so much fun if they spent a little time in a tent city full of actual veterans, with broken bodies and messed up minds, who feel used up and tossed aside.” 

Another time, we talked about his repeated trips to Afghanistan and Iraq after other media had turned to Egypt, Libya, and Syria. He felt it was critical for him, and his network, to keep attention on the people most impacted by America’s recent wars, even when commercial media bounced journalists from one trouble spot to the next.

That’s why I wasn’t surprised by his most recent assignment, even if I worried about how many times he could be in the middle of the shit without paying a price. He was aware of the risks associated with his work. When we talked about a colleague who’d been killed in a war zone, he acknowledged the possibility something could happen to him. But he didn’t think it would.

Claire O'Neill, David Gilkey, Rick Ochocki, and Quil Lawrence

He was wrong. And we’ve all lost someone special.

David told me about struggling to write an assigned blog post once and coming up hundreds of words short. When questioned, he pointed out that he’d attached photos with his submission, and “a picture’s worth a thousand words.” 

His photos were worth so much more. Some of his best pictures can be seen here. 

Though our friendship was recent and all-too-short, I’m going to miss him more than words can express. Because I don’t have his talent with a camera, words are all I’ve got. 

May Light Perpetual Shine Upon Him. 

A Star for Mrs. Blake

A Star for Mrs. Blake, by April Smith, is a heart-breaking, poignant and hopeful novel of American women traveling overseas to visit the graves of sons killed in World War I and learning about themselves and each other in the process. Set during a Gold Star Mothers pilgrimage in 1931, six women of different social classes and races discover, despite common loss and a shared goal, much still separates them in President Hoover’s America and post-war France.

The title character, Mrs. Cora Blake, is a librarian in coastal Maine who takes the U. S. government-sponsored and paid trip to the grave of her son Samuel, who died in the final month of World War I. Smith uses an early episode of mistaken identity to call attention to the distinctly separate and not-equal treatment of African-American women whose sons and husbands equally made the supreme sacrifice for a country that wrestles with racial injustice to this day.

For most of the book, Mrs. Blake’s primary companions are a wealthy Boston socialite widow, a Jewish woman making the journey over the objections of her husband, a woman whose philandering husband has repeatedly institutionalized her, and an Irish working-class woman who lost two sons in battle. This small band grows as close together as a unit in combat, led by an idealistic recent West Point graduate and accompanied by a nurse contemplating her own future.

The horrific costs of the world’s first industrial-scale exercise in man-made carnage are demonstrated not only by the anguish of the mothers for their long-dead sons, but also through Mrs. Blake’s encounter with an expatriate American reporter grievously wounded during a gas attack years earlier. In enthralling prose and vibrant description, Smith ably builds sympathy for her characters while also offering a fitting memorial to all those who suffered during the World War and afterward.  

           

Smith’s book shines a sweet light on a little-known part of our nation’s history. It also subtly compels the reader to reflect more soberly on the meaning of country, honor, and sacrifice.  In this anniversary year of the start of the “War to End All Wars”, this book is sure to enlighten curious readers while challenging all of us to consider what support the troops means - before as well as after - the final shot is fired.