How I Became a Photographer (Twice)--And Why I Don't Own a Camera

A Crew Chief checking the tail rotor of his Blackhawk helicopter on the 

air strip at Camp Adder, Iraq, at Sunset, November 2009. 

Sometimes I get a good shot.

Twice in my long and varied work life, I was handed a camera and told to take pictures. Both times I was in the Army.  I took thousands of pictures in Cold War West Germany in the late 1970s and in Iraq in 2009. 

But I never became a photographer outside the Army, and I don't own a camera apart from my iPhone. 

In 1978, I left my tank unit for a year to work in base headquarters writing about our unit.  News articles need pictures. The brigade had a photographer, so the headquarters staff said Sgt. Anctil is the photographer. Tell him what you need pictures of and he will shoot them.

I went to Anctil. For him, photography was the lab, developing, printing. That was his happy place.  He did not want to go away for 3 or 4 days or a week and take pictures of tanks at gunnery, or infantry in war games.  He handed me an Olympus camera showed me how the f-stop, shutter speed and focus work and told me how to bracket pictures.

"Take lots of shots," he said. "Take a dozen rolls of film. Shoot at different f-stops and shutter speeds. I'll develop and print them."

Anctil wanted no part of playing Army. He wanted to stay on base and sleep in his private barracks room. So I learned by trial and error how to take pictures.  My pictures were good enough for the base newspaper. Once I got the cover of the "Stars and Stripes" newspaper in Western Europe.  

But as I learned more, I knew I did not have that deep feeling for light that separated a good photographer from a great one. I concentrated on writing and took the shots I needed to take. 

When I left the Army, I never bought a camera.  

Almost 30 years later I was back in the Army In Iraq and they handed me a camera. My job for the last half of our deployment was to write about soldiers. But someone had to take the pictures and that was me. So I took thousands of pictures.

Thirty years did not give me any more feeling for light and framing. So I would occasionally get a really good shot, but when I left the Army, I gave the camera back and did not get one of my own. 

I take pictures now, but when I see something I really like, I want to write about it.  Sometimes I forget to take a picture.  

I think of myself as a professional writer, a professional soldier, and a professional dock worker--I can load a truck full and all the cargo will arrive in good shape. But I am not a professional photographer.  I admire great photography in the same way I admire great cello playing: both are beautiful in their own, but I will never be a real  photographer or a cellist.  

But once in a while, I get lucky and get a really good shot. 

 

Psychiatry During the History of the Soviet Union: And the Person Who Choose that Topic

Anastassiya Schacht

Anastassiya Schacht and I were both walking toward the registration building at a history of science conference when we began talking about conferences. I told her about attending a live conference for the first time since COVID in June and how nice it was compared to on line. 

She agreed, but said, on the other hand, she got to participate in more conferences during the pandemic as not travel was required. Then she told me how one particular conference, the Austrian Annual Conference of Contemporary History, dealt with on-line in April 2020. The organizers had put together a software imitating classic 1980s computer games with simple icons like PacMan for characters – participants. 

Attendees could walk around a stylized computer game location, approach each other – and then a video chat would pop up, allowing people to meet and converse virtually. Later at a lunch we talked about her thesis. Anastassiya is a PhD candidate at the University of Vienna. 

Her thesis traces the history of how the profession of psychiatry in the Soviet Union from the beginning to the end of the former empire evolved. At this point I should say the future Dr. Schacht was born in Aktobe, Kazakhstan, to Ukrainian and Russian parents. The family spoke Russian at home. 

She worked as a social worker before switching to the university and enrolling as a PhD candidate in history, so she has work experience with people in difficult circumstances. She studied English, German and Literature in Orenburg, and English linguistics and then Global History in Vienna. 

Since completing her Master’s Degree she has been working on theories of cultural otherness, transformation processes and colonial studies in the post-Soviet space. With this background, her PhD supervisor suggested she might want to have a glance at the history of Soviet psychiatry – a tip she now calls one of the smartest suggestions of her life. 

Anastassiya recalls certain reluctance to go for this topic, as she has been avoiding working on “Russian topics” “just because she knew the language”. Yet the topic turned out to be of immense depth, dramatism, and analytical potential. Anastassiya works on the conflict revolving around the established practice of using psychiatry for suppressing political dissidents, cultural and religious non-conformists in the late Soviet Union. 

With many stories of the political abuse written, she approaches the issue from two viewpoints. First, she examines how individual doctors justified their cooperation with the regime – and how top rank psychiatrists helped their less renowned colleagues to not have a crisis of conscience when confining unwanted “troublemakers”. 

Second, Anastassiya studies how the rest of the world and especially psychiatrists in larger international organizations interacted with their colleagues tainted by cooperation with a totalitarian empire that used their expertise for oppression and torture. 

As Anastassiya talks about her path to a PhD, she is bright, optimistic and funny. It is strange to think of her being interested in such a dark topic; but not too strange, since my friend Cliff and I, too, pursue academic interests that often come off as somewhat unexpected (In the past five years we visited almost a dozen death camps). 

In her talk at the conference, Anastassiya told the audience how the Soviet Union has been engaging and disengaging with international organizations promoting Public Health throughout the whole 20th century. In the 1930s, the Soviet Union and the League of Nations (the world body like the UN between the world wars) hated each other, but had reasons to try to work together. 

The League of Nations Health Organization (LNHO) wanted to stop typhus and other epidemics in the Soviet Union from infecting Europe, so they made compromises with the Soviets in other areas, such as psychiatry. After World War II, the Soviet Union was a hostile and troublesome member of the United Nations. 

The Soviets joined the World Health Organization (WHO) in 1948, then quit the organization the following year in a public dispute. After Stalin's death the Soviet Union attempted to rejoin the WHO, but in 1971, the Soviet suppression of Czechoslovakia led to the Soviets being expelled from the WHO again. 

In 1977, a psychiatric conference in Hawaii overwhelmingly condemned Soviet abuse of the discipline. The New York Times reported: 

HEADLINE: World Psychiatrists Vote To Censure Soviet ‘Abuse’; Moscow Charges ‘Slander 

HONOLULU, Sept. 1 (AP)—The General Assembly of the World Psychiatric Association voted today to censure the Soviet Union on charges of abuse of psychiatry for political purposes and to establish a committee to review such practices in any country. 

By a vote of 90 to 88, the governing body of the association adopted an amended resolution by Britain's Royal College of Psychiatrists condemning “the systematic abuse of psychiatry for political purposes in the U.S.S.R.” 

The General Assembly also voted, 121 to 66, to approve a resolution submitted by the American Psychiatric Association. The American resolution did not mention the Soviet Union by name, but said the association opposed “the misuse of psychiatric skills, knowledge and facilities for the suppression of dissent wherever it occurs.” About 4,000 delegates from 63 countries are attending the‐ World Psychiatric Association's sixth congress. Each country has representatives In the General Assembly. 

Both resolutions were strongly resisted by Dr. Eduard Babayan, the Soviet Union's delegate to the General Assembly, who called the accusations “slander.’ 

In her talk, Schacht talked about the self-legitimation that the profession of psychiatry and the Soviet doctors themselves used to justify their support of Soviet abuse of the profession. She talked about political abuse of this discipline in the by the Soviet Union as well as the impact of state actors and their agendas in science under authoritarianism. She also addressed the problems of academic autonomy and responsibility. 

The very dark talk ended on a brighter note as Anastassiya showed how Soviets explained its population why it internationally acted the way it did through caricatures in a satire magazine Крокодил (Crocodile).

In-person conferences are the best!

Meeting Protesters in Darmstadt and While Marking A Sad Anniversary of the City

 

Leon and Vanessa on the way to protest low wages in Darmstadt

I am in Darmstadt visiting my friend Cliff. We were walking the perimeter of the city the day before the anniversary of one of the worst days in the history of this German city:  the bombing known as Brandnacht (fire night) was the night of September 11/12, 1944.

We began at the area where the three formations British bombers coming from three directions crossed paths to begin their bombing runs. After that point they dropped the bombs that would destroy most of the city. 

Just as we were entering the area, we saw a group of forty or fifty people with red and white flags across the street. Cliff and I crossed to see what they were protesting.  We talked to Vanessa and Leon. They said they were protesting for higher wages for entry-level jobs. 

We talked for a while about how wages for blue collar workers had stagnated in America. I was sorry to hear their experience was the same. We had kept them from the group so they hurried off to catch up to their protest group.  

Cliff and I then walked more of the bustling city on a Saturday afternoon, noting the vast contrast between the vibrant city around us and and the wreckage in photos such as these:

Two years ago, I wrote about the bombing. Cliff told me one reason the British selected Darmstadt was it had a lot wood structures. Darmstadt and the state of Hesse were also very conservative and very strong supporters of the Nazis.  Hesse is the site of the first concentration camp in Nazi Germany. Cliff and I visited that camp in 2017.

Most every time I have visited Cliff since 2017, we have visited concentration camps and Holocaust memorials. Since we did not visit any camps on this trip, we did manage to visit a disaster site. 

We also met young people standing up for a better life for themselves and their fellow workers.  It was a good day. 

 

Axl Rose T-Shirt Leads (Naturally) to a Discussion of the World War II and the Holocaust

Three fans of Axl Rose meet at a history of science conference

On the first day of a history of science conference, I met the author working on a book about Le Résidence Palace, the revolving door of history of a building that is now home to The Europa building, the seat of the European Council and Council of the European Union, located on the Rue de la Loi/Wetstraat in the European Quarter of Brussels, Belgium--the follow up to a book she wrote about her father's escape from Nazi-occupied Europe and service in the American Army.  

The conversation began with an Axl Rose t-shirt. Neither I nor Nina Wolff was wearing the t-shirt. We were at the registration desk for the conference.  One of the graduate students registering attendees, Noemie Taforeau, was wearing Axl Rose.  I asked if she was a fan or just like the shirt. She said, "A fan. Definitely."

Nina said she met Axl Rose in a movie theater on Long Island. Then the conversation went from Guns and Roses and "Welcome to the Jungle" to the Army, to her father and war.

Walter C. Wolff, U.S. Army Intelligence

We talked more at the evening reception. Late in his life Nina's father, Walter C. Wolff, handed her a box of letters which turned out to be a trove of information about a part of his life he had spoken very little about. Walter Wolff came to America as a young refugee. He volunteered to serve. He and other young immigrants worked in Army Intelligence.  They became known as the Ritchie Boys:

The Ritchie Boys^[1] were a special collection of soldiers, primarily German-Austrian units, of Military Intelligence Service officers and enlisted men of World War II who were trained at Camp Ritchie in Washington County, Maryland. Many of them were German-speaking immigrants to the United States, often Jews who fled Nazi persecution.^[2][3] They were used primarily for interrogation of prisoners on the front lines and counter-intelligence in Europe because of their knowledge of the German language and culture. They were also involved in the Nuremberg trials as prosecutors and translators.^[4] 

A documentary film was made in 2004 about the Ritchie Boys. I will order the book about Nina's father Walter "Someday You Will Understand" when I return to America.  

Life is Crazier than Fiction! Cochrane: The Real Master and Commander by David Cordingly, Book 31 of 2022

 

Life really can be stranger than fiction.  In the case of Lord Thomas Cochrane, the actual man behind the Captain Jack Aubrey of the "Master and Commander" novels and the "Captain Horatio Hornblower" novels, real life is more dramatic and more tragic than the characters in the novels.  Cochrane: The Real Master and Commander by David Cordingly, tells the real life of a truly great military commander.

I have not read the Hornblower series, but I read all 21 of the "Master and Commander" series.  The real Cochrane had more wild and dangerous battles against incredible odds than Jack Aubrey did in all 21 novels. Aubrey has a lot of flaws, but is overall, a better man than the real Cochrane, who was, especially later in life, greedy, suspicious beyond all reason, conspiratorial, and vengeful.

But the great things he did are simply amazing.  Brazil became a free country because of several audacious battles in which Cochrane defeated the Portuguese Navy--at the time, still a powerful European navy.  He also won battles that led to independence for Chili, especially an amazing battle at Valpariso, and Peru. 

The whole time I read this book, I was comparing the novels and the life in my mind.  In the Epilogue, Cordingly wonders how Cochrane would be remembered if he had died at 34 years old, before all of the scandals that led to dismissal from the Navy and imprisonment.  The real Cochrane lived till 84, declaring his innocence and making great claims of money due him from many battles for several nations. Anyone who goes into old age rehearsing grievances after a life of true greatness would certainly be better off dead.  

Near the end of the book Cordingly describes the lives of Cochrane's children.  His older sons ran up huge gambling debts. One was dismissed from the Army. Another went into hiding from his creditors under an assumed name. The sons of great men (I suppose the daughters of great women are similarly afflicted) are notorious for dissolute lives.  In the history of Rome, the worst emperors were the sons of the greatest emperors.  

But the accounts of Cochrane capturing a 50-gun Spanish warship with a 16-gun sloop made me want to go back and re-read Patrick O'Brian's wonderful novels. Or maybe I will give the Horatio Hornblower novels a try. 

First 30 books of 2022:

QED by Richard Feynman

Spirits in Bondage by C.S. Lewis

Reflections on the Psalms by  C.S. Lewis

The Pope at War: The Secret History of Pius XII, Mussolini, and Hitler by David I. Kertzer

The Last Interview and Other Conversations by Hannah Arendt

Galapagos by Kurt Vonnegut

The Echo of Greece by Edith Hamilton

If This Isn't Nice, What Is? by Kurt Vonnegut

The War That Made the Roman Empire: Antony, Cleopatra, and Octavian at Actium by Barry S. Strauss. 

Civil Rights Baby by Nita Wiggins

Lecture's on Kant's Political Philosophy by Hannah Arendt

Le grec ancien facile par Marie-Dominique Poree

The Netanyahus by Joshua Cohen

Perelandra by C.S. Lewis

The Federalist Papers by Alexander Hamilton, James Madison and John Jay

First Principles by Thomas Ricks

Political Tribes by Amy Chua 

Book of Mercy by Leonard Cohen

A Brief History of Earth: Four Billion Years in Eight Chapters by Andrew Knoll

Prisoners of Geography by Tim Marshall

Understanding Beliefs by Nils Nilsson

1776 by David McCullough

The Life of the Mind by Hannah Arendt

Civilization: The West and the Rest by Niall Ferguson

How to Fight Anti-Semitism by Bari Weiss

Unflattening by Nick Sousanis

Marie Curie  by Agnieszka Biskup (en francais)

The Next Civil War by Stephen Marche

Fritz Haber, Volume 1 by David Vandermeulen

Evolution Has No Direction--Advanced Cultures Can Sink into Tribalism

In popular culture evolution has a direction, but in reality

evolution is simply adaptation to environment.   

In a session of the weekly book group discussing "The Human Condition" by Hannah Arendt, evolution came up as one aspect of modern science and how science changed the way we humans see the world and changed the world itself.

The comment reminded me about discussions in the Evolution Round Table that evolution does not have a direction. There is no inevitable progression from bacteria to Bruce Lee. Sometimes species that struggled from the water to the land return to the water.  

Evolution occurs when a species in a particular environment endures stress, adapts and passes the adaptation to the following generations. Evolution is most evident when a population is separated into two or more groups and put in different environments with little or no contact.  Over time the members of these groups will become unlike each other, possibly even becoming different species, no longer able to mate.  

Cultures as well as species evolve.  Iran, Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Afghanistan and many other countries in the middle east were somewhat free and had intellectual culture at some point in the 20th Century.  In the current century they are all under some form of predatory theocracy which is tyranny with a god label.  

Germany was by some measures the most civilized country in Europe at the beginning of the 20th century.  Then it was the most vile totalitarian autocracy in history. Now it is very civilized again.  

Under tyranny, thinking is discouraged. In its later stages, intellectuals are murdered. A culture that is anti-intellectual brings the corrupt and craven to the centers of power.  Art and science die when the corruption is in control.

People who have risen to the challenge of self government can sink back into tribalism.  Their culture evolved away from the energy required for civilization and sank back into tribalism.  

Recently I read Galapagos by Kurt Vonnegut.  He writes that the world ended in 1986 because our brains were (are) too being. The survivors evolved into fish--with small brains. 

Spirits in Bondage by C.S. Lewis. Book 29 of 2022

Spirits in Bondage is the work of a young man, a teenager.  In those years, between ages 15 and 18, C.S. Lewis lived through some of the highest and lowest experiences of his young life. 

He finished his preparation for University (Oxford) being tutored by W.T. Kirkpatrick.  In his autobiography Surprised by Joy, Lewis said these were the best years of his early education. By contrast, the title of the chapter about his first school was "Belsen." 

At age 17, Lewis went to Oxford. Soon after arriving he volunteered to serve in World War I. He was Irish and did not have to serve, but he did.  He was twice wounded, nearly killed both times.  

When I read these poems I tried to keep his life experience in mind.  The range of the poems and beliefs they express gave me a feeling of what this brilliant and sensitive young man must have felt in the rapid changes his life endured from the intense learning with Kirkpatrick, the wonder of Oxford, then leading men in battle in the horror of World War I.

If you are a fan of C.S.Lewis, these poems will give you a window into his early life. He wanted to be a poet. He became a literary critic, novelist, Christian apologist, and essayist, but not the poet he hoped to be. 

 

First 28 books of 2022:

Reflections on the Psalms by  C.S. Lewis

The Pope at War: The Secret History of Pius XII, Mussolini, and Hitler by David I. Kertzer

The Last Interview and Other Conversations by Hannah Arendt

Galapagos by Kurt Vonnegut

The Echo of Greece by Edith Hamilton

If This Isn't Nice, What Is? by Kurt Vonnegut

The War That Made the Roman Empire: Antony, Cleopatra, and Octavian at Actium by Barry S. Strauss. 

Civil Rights Baby by Nita Wiggins

Lecture's on Kant's Political Philosophy by Hannah Arendt

Le grec ancien facile par Marie-Dominique Poree

The Netanyahus by Joshua Cohen

Perelandra by C.S. Lewis

The Federalist Papers by Alexander Hamilton, James Madison and John Jay

First Principles by Thomas Ricks

Political Tribes by Amy Chua 

Book of Mercy by Leonard Cohen

A Brief History of Earth: Four Billion Years in Eight Chapters by Andrew Knoll

Prisoners of Geography by Tim Marshall

Understanding Beliefs by Nils Nilsson

1776 by David McCullough

The Life of the Mind by Hannah Arendt

Civilization: The West and the Rest by Niall Ferguson

How to Fight Anti-Semitism by Bari Weiss

Unflattening by Nick Sousanis

Marie Curie  by Agnieszka Biskup (en francais)

The Next Civil War by Stephen Marche

Fritz Haber, Volume 1 by David Vandermeulen