War and Peace: The Art of the American Soldier

The modern view of the American soldier at war is invariably shaped by television. Beginning with the Vietnam War, the first war brought literally into the living rooms of private citizens halfway around the world from the actual shooting, even the most remote conflict seems nearby thanks to modern technology. Since the very beginning of the fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan, when news cameras literally rode in the first wave of tanks, those conflicts, too, have been defined by the immediacy of video (and, perhaps, even lost to public consciousness in the sea of images that assault us daily). Art of the American Soldier, an exhibition at the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia, PA, restores the human touch and human vision to the daily experience of men and women in combat. Finally brought out of storage, many of these images have never been seen by the public before, and may never have been needed to be seen by the public before as they need to be now. Please come over to Picture This at Big Think to read more of "War and Peace."

[Image: Peter Hurd. War and Peace. World War II, 1942.]

[Many thanks to the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia, PA for providing the image above from the exhibition Art of the American Soldier, which runs through January 10, 2011.]