Heroes

Last year, I interned for a documentary about Italian immigrants who came to Chicago and became successful. They needed some war pictures, so my grandparents gave me some portraits of Sicilian soldiers from our family.

The photos were in a bad shape, so I decided to touch them up on Photoshop, print them out on photo paper, and frame them. My grandparents left Sicily 40 years ago and they said that everything in their lives is right here in America, but I think that they'll appreciate seeing retouched photos of their (now deceased) family from Sicily.

The people in the photos:

My grandfather's brother. I think he was killed in World War II.

I'm not sure who he is, but I think he was one of my grandmother's brothers. His uniform tells me that he was a medical officer during WWII.

My grandmother's sister's husband. He became a high-ranking officer, and I think he died in the 90s.

I'm currently working on a photo of my great-grandfather. The tears and creases in the photo are a huge pain in the ass to remove, and I'm having difficulty manipulating the shadows in the picture, but I'll pull through. He fought in WWI and WWII.

Sometimes I forget how much soldiers go through. All the badges and recognition in the world will not be able to compensate for the heroic actions our soldiers make everyday. I hope they're all OK in Iraq right now.