In Memoriam

Film 5 (365)

Under Fire: Journalists in Combat

A wall at the Newseum in Washington, DC holds the portraits of every American journalist killed in a conflict.

As a combat photographer in the Marines I expected to see more combat than I did. In fact I didn't see any real combat. The Grunts (what Marines call Infantrymen) would make light of this fact by nicknaming me "Combat". "Get over here Combat!"

This makes me feel two very complicated emotions. On one hand I'm blessed. I have no physical or psychological damage to burden my family with. On the other hand I'm upset. Does it make me less of a Marine having not seen combat? Often I question what I might have done under those circumstances. Would I have buckled or "maned up" and focused on my mission? Would I have hid behind my lens and captured the events or picked up my rifle and fought back?

Under Fire interviews a group of men and women who never had that last option. They had their cameras, a vest, and sometimes a helmet - but never a rifle. Their only choice and their only job was to take photos.

I'm closer to this subject than most having just finished up my most recent short film Soul Stealer, about a female combat camera Marine who takes a photo that results in her friend's death. In fact I watched Under Fire as research for the feature script version of Soul Stealer.

What I'm finding is that a lot of people didn't believe my character would take that photo. As my good friend said in Screenwriting class, "Bullets are flyin' and people are dyin', Shawn! This girl ain't gonna grab her camera!" But she does. And so do the very real people in this film.

And that's what Under Fire is all about. It's about those moments of taking pictures when common sense dictates otherwise. One journalist admits thinking, "Is it worth my life to take a silly photo?"

The final interview is the most powerful, in which the journalist feels personal guilt for taking the photos of a dead Army Staff Sergeant being dragged around the streets of Somalia in his underwear (inspiring Black Hawk Down). But the U.S. government was denying what was happening, so the only way to prove they were lying was to take the photos.

And that's what photojournalism is all about for me. Proof. Proof that all this tragedy exists.

But this film delves deeper than this. It's really about the psychological costs of covering these incidents. Most of those interviewed have some form of PTSD, and the film spends more time than I'd like it to have discussing this disease and its specific effect on the journalists interviewed. More interesting is understanding what type of person goes into these situations in the first place.

All of the journalists believe it's like a drug, likening it to heroine more than not. When asked if he'd ever return to cover a conflict, one journalist replied, "No. Never. That's like asking a heroine junkie who's finally sober if he plans on shooting up again."

You can watch Under Fire now streaming on Netflix.