They smile. They smirk. They look stern, bored, jazzed or indifferent.
Some wear glasses or goggles or radio headsets. They're helmeted and bareheaded, bushy locks and shaved pates, ponytails pulled into buns. All manner of military head gear is represented: ball caps, berets, Marine white dress hats, floppy camouflage caps, "Dixie cup" sailor's hats, black U.S. Cavalry Stetsons.
All gaze directly into the camera. It's their eyes that haunt - for what was and will never be, for futures cut short, for friends and families who mourn them.
The faces of more than 6,500 American military members who died in the Middle East since 9/11 cover a wall at Mount Mary College in a powerful exhibit that opened Sunday -"Always Lost: A Meditation on War." Created in 2009 by students and staff at Western Nevada College - Carson City, the exhibit also includes Pulitzer Prize-winning photos of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and poems and portraits of U.S. veterans. It will be on display at Mount Mary College through Feb. 16.
John and Lori Witmer searched the faces of the fallen for their daughter, Michelle. It was not an easy task. The photos are not in alphabetical or chronological order just as the thousands killed in Iraq and Afghanistan have not died in alphabetical order. Viewers must search each face if they're looking for someone in particular.
"It's really moving," said Lori Witmer.
"We really got pulled in. I did not expect to get moved like I did," added John Witmer. "These are all people and they all have stories."
Michelle Witmer was killed in Iraq in April 2004. The 20-year-old Wisconsin Army National Guard specialist was the first female Guardsman in America to be killed in combat.
Among the photos shot by photojournalists is a picture of a young Iraqi girl wounded by war and held by an older woman, possibly the girl's mother. The picture brought tears to John Witmer.
"I heard a story after she died of how Michelle held a little girl who was injured by shrapnel," said John Witmer. "She died in Michelle's arms and it was really difficult for her."
"Michelle was such a tender spirit," Lori Witmer said.
Mount Mary board member Mary Staudenmaier first saw the exhibit in 2009 when she was visiting her niece in Carson City, Nev. Her niece Teresa Breeden wrote a poem featured in the display about an Iraq veteran who suffered from post traumatic stress and committed suicide in 2007.
Staudenmaier asked where the exhibit would be displayed next but learned it was likely to be dismantled. She decided to do something about it.
Staudenmaier, who lives in Marinette, helped organize a display in 2010 of the exhibit at University of Wisconsin-Marinette.
"It just blew me away. It moved me," said Staudenmaier, a Mount Mary College alumna.
The gallery space is used as a learning environment for the community as well as for students at Mount Mary College, which has a strong focus on social justice and offers a certificate in peace building, said Susan Shimshak, senior manager for media relations and external communications.
Mount Mary officials are making the gallery available to groups - such as veterans organization Dryhootch - to use during the war exhibit.
Remembering our fallen
For more photos go to jsonline.com/photos.
If you go
"Always Lost: A Meditation on War" is on display at Mount Mary College, 2900 N. Menomonee River Parkway, Milwaukee, in the Marian Gallery at Caroline Hall. The exhibit is free and can be viewed from 9 a.m. to 7 p.m. weekdays and 1 to 4 p.m. on weekends through Feb. 16.
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