day of the dead

It's the last day of the month. Last weekend. I used to do the work every Sunday, then it got too much for me. The nightmares started. The faces in rows—just as I had created—the image haunting.

Now I only put the pictures of the troop members killed in Iraq on the last day of each month. Bad enough to have to do it at all, but it is the page most viewed on my 700+ page website. So here it is.... and the faces are many.

As an old photographer and color printer, I sometimes choke at the awful color balance on some of the faces. I have taken to photoshopping them a bit before I add them to the rows of ten across, infinity down. It doesn't help, I just get to know that face a bit better.

When Koppell read the names, I knew each one of the faces. I knew the names, the ages, the home towns. That is all on a different page. Rows again, this time two columns. I strip the whole ghastly description of how they died, where, when, whose unit, what letters come before the name... that shit doesn't matter any more. Brother sister cousin mother father daughter son . That is all that matters. The ages just piss me off. 18. 58.

And when they hail from an area I am familiar with I find myself wondering about their lives. Did they ranch out there in Wyoming? Was their school East High if they came from Denver? How close to my home town is that one in the Black Hills from? Is that the daughter or son of someone I attended school with?

No, they are all postage stamp sized pictures, rows of names, numbers, towns. And the keep adding up. I quit adding. I just download, work on the pictures with love and set them on my website. Done for another month.

I don't want to do this shit again next month.

But I will.

http://www.duckdaotsu.org/valor.html
http://www.duckdaotsu.org/rows.html