THE THOUSAND YARD STARE

This is an anti-war image of a soldier, frozen with fear in the midst of battle. His reflection in the water is a skeleton, holding its arms and hands like the man whose death it predicts. The soldier grips his gun but cannot fire nor is he able any longer to use his ammunition. Instead, finished with fighting, his eyes open wide with terror and gaze out at nothing. That far away look in a soldier’s eyes in the middle of war when he is transfixed and overwhelmed is called “the thousand yard stare.”