My friend Travis Heying (right) just got back from a couple months of photographing in Baghdad for Knight Ridder newspapers. A group of us went down to Wichita to throw him a “glad-your-not-dead party”. The weekend was spent with this strange dichotomy of listening to him play very American guitar chords (think “Sweet Home Alabama”) and telling stories of the hellish city where he just came back from. It pained me to hear about the children whose young bodies were pierced by American bullets. It all left me with this strangeness where I am glad to be in the United States, where I am safe and largely free; but it’s hard to be proud of my citizenship.
