MIRANDADEVINE

We’re all accomplices in

Britney’s torment >73 COMING
OF AGE
The enduring
appeal of Julie
Christie >67

THE FITZ FILES

Our much-loved
columnist
returns >66

LESLIE
CANNOLD
Disclosure rather
than cloak
and dagger >73

NAKED EYE
With Kerry-Anne
AnAustralianphotographer’s Walsh and
tourofdutyinIraq > 74 Lisa Carty >68
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74 February 10, 2008 THE SUN-HERALD
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Images that open

>COVER STORY

Combat photographer Ashley

Gilbertson’s tour of duty in
Iraq continues to haunt him,
writes MATTHEW HALL.

P
HOTOGRAPHER Ashley in the entire world,’’ the 30-year-old says. ‘‘I
Gilbertson claims his job is get to witness historical events as they take
the most satisfying in the place in front of my camera and give them
world but the Australian has to the rest of the world. That is one of the
learnt first-hand how quickly most fantastic things anyone could wish for.’’
a dream can become a But in keeping with the many complex
nightmare. contradictions in present-day Iraq, where
As one of a handful of Australians there is sun there is also shadow. Even a
working in Iraq for major international witness to history needs occasional clarity.
news organisations, award-winning ‘‘You need to look after yourself or it will
Gilbertson has spent most of the past five turn into a nightmare,’’ says Gilbertson. ‘‘You
years photographing combat and the daily need to convince yourself that reality is not
life of locals and the military in the war- bombs going off and being shot at every day.
ravaged country. You need to convince yourself that reality is
While on assignment for The New York actually going to eat a lovely meal with your
Times, Gilbertson was often embedded with wife and enjoying the day.’’
the US Army or Marines to experience and Gilbertson grew up in Melbourne and,
document conflict and its consequences barely a teenager, began photographing
close up. friends – local skateboarders and graffiti
‘‘This is a dream job, maybe the best job artists. He soon decided he was better with
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EXTRA

the world’s eyes

a camera than a skateboard and made his journalists were the last men standing and ‘‘You can see it in his eyes, you can see it
‘I wish I had
first step towards a professional career when
he sold his skateboard for film.
they could get their hands on discarded
weapons.
in his smile. It’s very easy and convenient to
forget that these are lives, real people, that
something
The plan was never to become a combat
photographer but Gilbertson was drawn to
‘‘You get scared out of your wits,’’
Gilbertson says. ‘‘It’s like a sixth sense. I
we’re talking about. This is not just some war
that we can get impassioned and crazy about good to say
the plight of people affected by war. In 1998, invest my cool in the marines, soldiers, and because we shouldn’t have gone in there in
he documented the experiences of refugees
from Kosovo recently arrived in Australia. He
Iraqis that I’m with. If they’re acting jovial
and nonchalant then I’ll be as cool. If they
the first place.’’
Gilbertson returned to Iraq last year to
about Iraq
was hooked.
So began a journey that led him across
start getting tense then something is very
wrong.’’
observe the US military’s ‘‘surge’’ intended to
stem the fractured nation’s disintegration but I don’t.’
Indonesia, Pakistan, and Afghanistan and Tragically, in the last days of the Fallujah into civil war. The success of that strategy
eventually landed him in northern Iraq just battle, something did go wrong. While continues to spark debate but, on the ground,
before the US launched the war in 2003. Gilbertson attempted to take a picture of a Gilbertson claims he witnessed more
Gilbertson points to Donald Rumsfeld, foreign fighter lying dead in a minaret, the violence in Iraq than ever.
former US Secretary of Defence, to help photographer’s reluctant marine escort was ‘‘What I saw was 30,000 more targets on rocket-propelled grenades, or dressed up as
summarise his experiences over the next few shot and killed. the streets. Anybody who saw the figures that [Islamic militant leader] al-Zarqawi
months. ‘‘Stuff happens,’’ Rumsfeld once said Gilbertson survived Fallujah to return to came out would see that there were more pretending to cut off [murdered American
of the Iraq war. This would certainly prove New York and win the prestigious Robert Americans killed in 2007 than any other year contractor] Nick Berg’s head. These are kids
true for the Australian photographer. Capa Gold Medal Award for his work but had and it was spot on. There was so much death. who are totally desensitised to violence. That
With an Iraqi fixer and another Australian, to seek counselling after his experience. ‘‘I will give it to the Americans that there is an entire generation that we have lost in
television cameraman Tim Grucza, ‘‘I think about it every day,’’ he says. ‘‘It’s was less Shiite-on-Sunni violence but there that country.’’
Gilbertson travelled from the north of Iraq, hard to come back from a story like Iraq and was more [violence] on the streets of He acknowledges there is common ground
through Tikrit, onto Baghdad and back to the focus on other things. It’s hard to come back Baghdad simply because there were so many on an ultimate outcome in the country. The
north as the country collapsed. to New York and photograph broken fire more Humvees driving around that they challenge, though, is how to arrive at that
He got sick, returned to his Paris base to hydrants in Brooklyn. could blow up and so many more soldiers destination. ‘‘At the end of the day everyone
recover, and met an American journalist in ‘‘I know that’s important to the people they could try to shoot.’’ in Iraq – the Shiites, the Kurds, the Sunnis, the
a bar who he would later marry and move whose houses are burning down around Gilbertson’s work, which is being Americans – all want exactly the same thing.
with to New York where he now lives. the fire hydrant but . . .’’ he pauses, ‘‘I just exhibited in Melbourne this month, also That is, to sit down and enjoy dinner and
His coming of age, perhaps professionally don’t care.’’ captures a forgotten element of the war in enjoy their family and have a peaceful life.
but most definitely personally, occurred Whiskey Tango Foxtrot, a book of Iraq – children growing up in an ‘‘I wish I had something good to say about
while accompanying the marines in the Gilbertson’s Iraq photographs, is haunted by environment where brutal and random Iraq but I don’t. There must be a solution but
infamous street-by-street nine-day battle for powerful images of war. Many pictures violence is an everyday event. it’s just a disaster. It couldn’t have been
Fallujah in 2004. capture his subject – a US soldier or Iraqi ‘‘These kids will grow up hating planned to be worse.’’
The day before the Americans began local – an hour, a day, and a week, before they Americans, hating Shiites, hating Kurds,
operations in the labyrinthine, militia- are later violently killed. hating Sunnis and the first thing they will do Whiskey Tango Foxtrot: A Photographer’s
controlled city, a marine sergeant took ‘‘To me, those pictures are a way of when they have a problem is go to the gun Chronicle Of The Iraq War by Ashley
Gilbertson and his New York Times colleague understanding that a soldier who died at 28 before the table,’’ Gilbertson says. Gilbertson is published by University of
aside and showed them how to fire a gun. years old is not just a military statistic but a ‘‘These kids are throughout the book, Chicago Press and distributed in Australia by
Just in case, the sergeant explained, the real human being,’’ Gilbertson says. whether they’re carrying real guns or fake Footprint Books, $60.
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