Look at these pictures.

They are of soldiers, sailors, marines, guardsmen and airmen, the best and bravest of us, the ones who stand post on the front lines between America and an often threatening world. They are pictures of isolation -- one figure usually, two sometimes, but even when paired, there is a solitariness to them, an elemental aloneness as the camera captures them lying on beds or climbing stairs, sitting in chairs or facing mirrors, watching television or staring out on an eternal sea.

Look at these pictures.

Look at what isn't there, at what the images withhold. You see the figures. But always, a hand is raised, a shadow intervenes, a head is turned, the top of the body is cropped away, and you are denied what you instinctively seek: identity. You are denied their faces.

What's going on here? Don't ask, don't tell.