Fair warning, this is confronting and hard to look at.
Four years ago, Hilda Clayton was serving as a photographer in the US Army, on assignment in Afghanistan. As part of her regular duties, she was sent to document a live-fire exercise that members of the Afghan National Army were conducting. Without warning, a mortar accidentally exploded directly in front of the group, killing Clayton, an Afghan military photographer she was training, and three Afghan Army soldiers. Eleven other people were injured in the blast.
What makes this story more notable than others is that Clayton was shooting photos when the blast occurred, and managed to capture an image of the exact final moment of her life. So did her trainee.
The US Army, with the approval of both her family and her unit, released Clayton’s harrowing images earlier this week.
Published in their latest issue of Military Review, the army noted that Clayton was the first combat documentarian and production specialist to be killed in Afghanistan, and were published as the journal turns its attention to issues of gender in the army:
“This edition of the Military Review is focused on promoting the concepts of gender equality and these photographs illustrate the dangers our military men and women face both in training and in combat.”
Clayton was from the town of Augusta, Georgia, and had been deployed overseas for less than a year when she was tragically killed in action.
Source: The Washington Post.
Photos: US Army/Hilda Clayton.
