Gayeon Lee/My Reaction to War Pictures/Tues 5-6

 

People in Wars

 

             History repeats itself. So does the history of war. A war only makes people's lives fall into ruin, and leaves them with pain and grief. Nevertheless, wars continue to break out from all over the world and civilians are suffering from their nation blind with greed. Below are photographs which show how innocent people suffer from wars. There are countless numbers of wars, but they are Korean War and Vietnam War which are closely related to Koreans of nowadays. The two photos capture the tragic scenes of the survivors from the two different wars.

 

 

 

 

            First photo was taken by a photographer visiting Korea during its civil war. There is a frightening-looking armored car behind a teenage girl. She is carrying a baby on her back. The children are both wearing soiled clothes and their faces are covered with crud. I guess the little boy is her baby brother. In Korea, a mother holds her baby like the way the girl carries his brother. In that, we can infer that they lost their mother in the war and that the teenage girl has to make all the way through hardships while raising her own brother. I first saw this picture when I was in high school and I felt really bad imagining their lives afterwards.

             The other one was taken by AP during the Vietnam War. There is a woman wailing over the body of her husband. When I first saw this picture, I didn't know what the thing covered with plastic is. However, as soon as I found out the words 'Vietnam War' under the photo, I was sure that it is a dead body and he or she is somehow really important to the crying woman. Then the description under the photo revealed that the body is her husband's and he was dead during the Vietnam War. She is really small and looks quite young. Maybe they were newly-married, and the young husband had to fight in the war. Even though she is a total stranger to me, my heart aches for her when I think of her being left alone.

             The two photographs were taken in different periods and in different countries. However, they are quite similar in that they both depict the loss of their loved ones. A girl and a baby in the Korean War lost their parents in the incident and a Vietnam woman in the picture lost her husband in the war. Regardless of time and place, people's lives become disastrous after wars and photography has been played an important role to let the world realize the seriousness of wars.