Through the Lens of Stacy Pearsall

8/6/2019 Through the Lens of Stacy Pearsall

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Te photographer, Stacy Pearsall, a veteran o more recent wars, sought to capture the characterand the experience etched in their aces while listen-ing to their recollections o war.

“Teir stories are amazing,” she said.Tis line o photos on a wall in the Ralph H.

Johnson VA Medical Center center in Charleston,South Carolina, serves not only as Pearsall’s tributeto veterans, but also a milestone in her recovery rom

physical and emotional wounds o war. Just a ew months earlier, Pearsall had nearly giv-en up hope o working as a photographer again.

Her photography career took o while she was in theAir Force. As a combat photographer, she took thou-sands o pictures that earned her accolades and awardsrom leaders at all levels o her chain o command.

She traveled extensively or her job, so she elt prepared when she was tasked to deploy to Baghdadin September 2003.

As part o her duties, Pearsall documented a schoolrebuilding process, and when the school marked itsopening with a ceremony in February 2004, she attend-ed. Ater the ceremony, as the unit prepared to head out,the Humvee she was riding in was making a tight turnon a dead-end street when a roadside bomb detonated.

Pearsall was sitting behind the driver’s seat. Teimpact threw her orward and her head hit the backo the seat. But more concerned about her ears,

which were bleeding rom the concussion o theblast, she didn’t eel the neck pain until hours later.She saw a doctor who chalked it up to whiplash and

was back out on a mission the next day.Months later, the headaches and vertigo lingered,

as did the severe neck pain. But concerned about hermilitary career, Pearsall didn’t seek treatment. Her de-

ployment ended in March and she became a studentat Syracuse University to hone her photography skills.

She had become accustomed to hiding her painand the emotional aer-eects o combat rom oth-ers, but was unable to keep them rom a riend—aellow photographer and Vietnam veteran—whorecognized the signs o post traumatic stress. He con-

nected her with a vet center or counseling.“It defnitely helped me work through a lot o emotions and stress,” she said. “I knew whatever I saidto [my therapist] wouldn’t go back to my active-dutycommand. Tere was no threat o losing my career.”

Ater school, Pearsall went on back-to-back deploy-ments, irst to Arica, then to Lebanon and inally, backto Iraq. he dierence between her irst and second Iraqdeployments was night and day, she said. In 2003, shenever ired her weapon. In 2007, she ired it constantly.

Her unit experienced heavy casualties in Diya-la province. Pearsall saw bodies o Iraqis who

had been executed and mutilated, and comradesshot just a ew eet away, which she later had to pho-tograph. People getting wounded or killed was adaily occurrence, she said.

A series o back-to-back events took their toll.Pearsall lost three teammates, and a day later, her

video partner was wounded and evacuated. Anotherriend had been shot in the head right in ront o her.“Nothing prepares you or the death o your

riends,” she said.Her photos rom that time are haunting.

36 | www.uso.org

An Iraqi army soldier tries to kick

open a gate during a cordon

and search for insurgents and

weapons caches in Chubinait,

Iraq, on February 3, 2007. Air

Force photo by Staff Sergeant

Stacy Pearsall.



In one photo, three soldiers are gathered in a dim-ly lit room, aces downward as i in reection, a sin-gle light shining through a window. wo days beore,their teammate had been shot in the head just 10 eetaway rom where they were standing. In another pho-to, two soldiers are comorting each other, one closeto tears, aer the loss o a riend the day beore.

“I’m eternally tied to the photographs that Imade and those soldiers who were in those photo-

graphs,” she said.

he photographer said she had to keep her emotionsin check, or her teammates and or the troops who

served under her. “I think I handled things pretty wellby just not addressing the emotions at the time,” she said.

Pearsall was injured again—urther damaging her neck—when a roadside bomb detonated dur-ing a mission. A ew months later, her unit was am-bushed. She was running out to help a wounded sol-dier in the street when a cord attached to her helmetsnapped her back. Her head slammed on a Stryker vehicle, again injuring her neck.

Te next morning, she elt neck pain unlike any-thing she had elt beore, and she knew it was time toget help. Te doctors did an X-ray and she was on a he-licopter that day. Her neck injury had grown so severe,the doctors told her, that i she had jolted her head onemore time, it would have severed her spinal cord.

Pearsall’s greatest ear—losing her career—wasnow at hand, she said. And her husband, a strong source o support, was deployed at the time. “It was areally ugly time in my lie,” she said.

Te years o wearing 85 pounds o gear had

wreaked havoc on her neck. Te doctors told her she wouldn’t be able to work as a photographer or pur-sue another passion, riding horses, again.

But Dr. Patrick Lovegrove, an Air Force ight sur-geon at the time, oered her hope through prolother-apy treatment—which involves insertion o a 4-inchneedle down to the bone—that lasted or more thantwo years. Pearsall was able to get o o the pain kill-ers and fnally on the road to physical recovery.

Invested in her recovery, her doctor separatedrom the Air Force, but continued to donate his ser- vices to her until the therapy ended in 2009 and sheswitched over to the VA system.

“I’ll always owe him a debt o gratitude,” she said.Te therapy enabled her to ride horses and take pho-tos again, but she knew she’d always have some de-gree o pain rom her degenerative condition.

“It was either adapt to lie or shrivel up and die,”she said. Pearsall chose to adapt.

But the loss o her Air Force career aected her,as did the emotional wounds o war that she had pushed aside so she could ocus on her physical re-covery. She started seeing a mental health therapistabout a year aer her deployment.

“Te military told me I couldn’t be a photographer or them anymore,” she said. “Mentally, that putme on a roller coaster. What am I good or?”

Pearsall ound an answer at the VA medical

center in Charleston. While she sat or hours in waiting rooms, she began to notice the men and women around her. Most o the veterans there were rom the Vietnam era, and she reached out

Summer/Fall 2011 | 37

Army Specialists Chris Jankowskiand Joshua Philbeck, and Staff

Sergeant Lawrence Washington

take time to reflect on their

departed friends during some

down time in Buhriz, Iraq, on

January 27, 2007.

Continued on page 40



ENDURING FREEDOM: MARIA BAIRD VIETNAM: LARRY SCHWAGER

DESERT STORM: LAWRENCE GREENIRAQI FREEDOM: JESSE ALBERT

P h o t o s

b y

S t a c

y

L .

P e a r s a l l .



GULF WAR: KATHLEEN AULL KOREA: JAMES CUMMINGS

VIETNAM: ROBERT FRAZ WORLD WAR II: REGINALD SALISBURY



to hear their stories. She elt inspired to bring hercamera and take their portraits, leading to the proj-ect that now flls a wall there.

“Just because I was disabled, didn’t make meunable,” she said. “Once I wrapped my own mindaround that, I could do more.”

Pearsall plans to keep up her veteran portrait work at VA hospitals in Georgia, North Carolina, Washington, D.C., Maryland, and Virginia.

In another eort aimed at helping veterans, Pears-all provides horse therapy to veterans through aCharleston-area nonproft group.

Most recently, she oered to have her story doc-umented or the Deense Department’s “Real

Warriors” campaign in hopes o encouraging other veterans and military personnel to seek help. Tecampaign is sponsored by the Deense Centers o Excellence or Psychological Health and raumat-ic Brain Injury, and it eatures stories o troops whosought psychological treatment and continued suc-cessul military or civilian careers.

“My hope is that i they watch my story, they’llfnd a way to ooad their burden,” she said. “Ev-eryone wears a dierent amount, but it’s not neces-

sary to carry it around with you all the time.”Pearsall said the stigma that kept her rom getting

help has been greatly reduced through projects like

the Real Warrior campaign and through eorts bythe Deense and Veterans Aairs departments.

For troops still leery about getting care, Pears-all recommended online support networks, blogs,and orums where people can go and shed theirburdens. “You’ll see you’re not alone,” she said.“Te loss o sleep, nightmares, anxiety, road rage—they’re products o war.”

Pearsall also hopes leaders will gain a greater

understanding o mental health issues and, aboveall, avoid judgment.“Be positive and supportive,” she said. “You’re the

frst in line or that service member.” While it’s been dicult to discuss, Pearsall said

she believes it’s important to share her story.“I I get one person to get help i they’re having

issues, then I eel like I’ve been successul,” she said.Stacy Pearsall’s Real Warriors profle is available or viewing at www.realwarriors.net/multimedia/pro-

fles/pearsall.php. ★—Elaine Sanchez is a writer or American Forces

Press Service.

Previous page: A collection of

of Stacy Pearsall’s photographs

chronicling the ages.

Below: A soldier from the Iraqi

army provides security during

a foot patrol in Baqubah, Iraq,

on March 30, 2007. Air Force

photo by Staff Sergeant Stacy

Pearsall.

Right: Then Air Force Staff

Sergeant Stacy L. Pearsall, anaerial photographer based out

of Charleston Air Force Base,

Charleston, South Carolina,

poses for pictures outside of

her home unit, 1st Combat

Camera, on March 31, 2004.

Pearsall was the 2003 and

2007 Military Photographer of

the Year.



Documents

Through the Lens of Stacy Pearsall