Share This Article

Up Close and Personal: An Oral History of the Iraq War by Photojournalists

DURING THE IRAQ WAR, Ben Brody did two tours as a U.S. Army photographer. One night, he remembers, explosions on the horizon sent red mushroom clouds high into the air. “The red was so deep it was unbelievable,” he says. “Then five or ten seconds later [the shock wave] raced across the desert and hit me in the chest.”

Brody is one of 39 photographers featured in Photojournalists on War: The Untold Stories From Iraq (University of Texas, $65), a new book of gripping images and eyewitness accounts of the 10-year conflict. While in Iraq, author Michael Kamber, a longtime war photographer, routinely traded stories with his colleagues about what they had seen and heard—stories Kamber later collected because they “sounded like history,” he says.

Brody’s photo above is of Captain George Morris as he led B Company, 2-502 Infantry, on a 2007 operation that resulted in the capture of 10 suspected al-Qaeda operatives

Click For More From MHQ!