A heartbreaking, tragic and controversial blast from the past (warning! extremely graphic!)

via Soldier of War Tumblr Page.

IRAQ. Fallujah. 2004. In November 2004, Stefan Zaklin, a photographer then working for the European Pressphoto Agency, was embedded with a United States Army company. Mr. Zaklin photographed this soldier, who was shot and killed in a house used as a base by insurgents. The photograph ran in several European publications, and Mr. Zaklin was immediately banned from working with the unit.
It was a scene occurring daily among American troops in Iraq and Afghanistan but one that has been deliberately hidden from the American public. There has been a relatively small number of journalists embedded with military units throughout Iraq and Afghanistan. There is also a decline in the power of news agencies to embed their employees overseas. New military rules on censorship have also reinforced this tendency, and consequently press freedom suffers.
Photograph: Stefan Zaklin/European Pressphoto Agency

Question.

Is it right to keep the media from reporting the terrible, unromantic part of war?  Shouldn't we insist that the American people see the price being paid by servicemen for the decisions made by leadership both on and off the battlefield, both civilian and military?

I don't know the answer.

All I can think is that's someone's little boy...someone's brother...someone's loved one.  Does their grief outweigh the public's right to know the unvarnished truth about war?

Would we be involved in a decade plus long war if the American people got a glimpse of images like you see above?  Would military leaders be shoveling the bullshit of it taking another 2 or more decades to win this war if these images were widely available?

I just don't fucking know.