Louie Palu's Kandahar Journals

Photojournalist Louie Palu spent five years covering the war in Afghanistan, from 2006 to 2010, much of the time in Kandahar Province, going out with NATO and Afghan troops on hundreds of patrols and combat missions. Palu wrote a series of journals reflecting on his personal experience, capturing the chaos and his own psychological state as he bore witness to the horrors, tedium, hard work, pain, and frustrations of war. Now Palu, along with co-director Devin Gallagher, has released a new documentary film titled Kandahar Journals, based on his writings and experience as a combat photographer, telling the stories of the soldiers and civilians in Kandahar, and contrasting that with scenes from a disconnected daily life taking place back home in North America. Palu was kind enough to share some images here from his new movie, which premieres in Washington, D.C. on November 7th, at the National Gallery of Art.
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