Private Michael Swan, 20

Lance Corporal Martyn Rankin, 23

The title’s atypical wording is a subtle indicator of the mental twisting that war can do. A few publications incorrectly list the exhibit as “We Are Not the Dead,” a denial of what the experience has done similar to the difficulty of reconciling one’s morals with one’s participation in war. But the correct wording is an affirmative statement, “Not Dead” invoking the zombie-describing “undead” and implying the sort of emotional erosion war does to a person.

Private Fraiser Pairman, 21

Private Ben Frater, 21

Interestingly, Snow’s initial attempts to get the photos published were met with disinterest, and it was a year before she managed to print them in the press. Not surprisingly, the immediate reaction included accusations of propagandizing against the war. Snow has said that she tries to be neutral in all of her projects, but that she did become very close with her subjects. “It was a very personal project,” she said, “and stemmed from having embedded with the military on and off for 4 years in Iraq and Afghanistan and bearing witness to how many young men return as shadows of their former selves and, in many cases, with deep, psychological scars.”

Private Becky Hitchcock, 23

Second Lieutenant Adam Petzsch, 25

To date, Operation Enduring Freedom has killed over 3000 Coalition soldiers and a very conservative estimate of twenty thousand civilians. This past June saw the transfer of defense from NATO to Afghan soldiers, but total troop withdrawal remains unlikely. Until then, war will continue to devastate all who cross Afghanistan’s borders. If you would like to see the triptychs in full detail, you can download them at the artist’s website.

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