Wikipedia:Featured picture candidates/Grieving Soldier Comforted

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Grieving Soldier Comforted[edit]

Original - A grief stricken American infantryman whose friend has been killed in action is comforted by another soldier. In the background a corpsman methodically fills out casualty tags, Haktong-ni area, Korea. August 28, 1950.
Reason
This is a touching image that shows the reality of war, even for a superpower such as United States. A soldier whose friend has been killed in action is comforted by a fellow brother in arms in his time of grief.
Articles in which this image appears
Korean War
Creator
Sfc. Al Chang. (Army)
  • Support as nominator --TomStar81 (Talk) 18:48, 6 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment: This may sound heartless, but I'm not really seeing what the image adds to the article on the Korean War. Yes, it's a powerful image, but loved people die in every war. What does it actually show? J Milburn (talk) 18:56, 6 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    • It shows the extent to which the service men paid for the mistakes of the Truman administration and the hubris and arrogance of both President Harry S. Truman and his so-called Secretary of Defense Louis A. Johnson. Each of these men were vigorous in there refusal to budget for the armed services, were adamant about refusing the request and pleas from the servicemen about the sad state of the service branches, and would not budge an inch from their position of unification and reduction. When the Korean War broke out, Truman assumed he had the military muscle to stop the invasion and was shocked and appalled to discover the US military was nothing more than a paper tiger. They lacked everything needed to conduct combat operations. It was this event that result in Truman firing Johnson, and it was this event that lead to a high initial casualty count as the US servicemen deployed to the peninsula lacked the ability to stop the advancing Korean Army. This was very much so the situation on 28 August 1950, and as such this shows not only a grieving soldier but the cost paid in blood for American politics at the presidential level. TomStar81 (Talk) 20:02, 6 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
      • Sorry, I'm really not seeing it. Oppose. J Milburn (talk) 22:02, 6 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
      • I think that's what they call original research. :-) However, while the EV to Korean War is limited without creating a symbolic interpretation, I wonder if it could be squeezed into War#Effects of war. Because that's what it is: a poignant picture of soldiers amidst tragedy. Whether it symbolizes the mistakes of Truman is up to the historians. Fletcher (talk) 15:08, 7 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
        • Again, that would be kind of pandering to emotion. It's a picture open to great amounts of interpretation- equally, I could argue that it is an image representative of the follies of modernism- someone calmly takes notes while someone besides them breaks down in tears. This isn't really featured picture material, it's "shocking picture on a slide show" material. J Milburn (talk) 10:45, 8 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Not promoted --Makeemlighter (talk) 02:15, 14 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]