February 2016 – Page 3 – I Don't Get It

A Person’s A Person, No Matter How Small

Chances are high that you may have seen this image, taken by photographer Max Aguilera-Hellweg for LIFE magazine. That little hand belonged to Sarah Marie Switzer (a six-month-old fetus) during her 1999 operation to close a lesion on her spinal cord. Tests had showed that she would be born with spina bifida (often prevented by taking folic acid supplements in pregnant mothers).

What a powerful moment as Dr. Bruner gently placed Sarah’s hand back into the uterus.

Problems with spina bifida include poor ability to walk, weak bladder or bowel control, hydrocephalus, a tethered spinal cord, and latex allergy. As Sarah grew, leg braces helped her walk, and her disability didn’t slow her down. Here she is at the age of nine, water-skiing. Yes, water-skiing.

Medical science is amazing!

Free At Last

Allied prisoners liberated by the US Seventh Army at Bad Orb, Germany.

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You Came To My Rescue

An American private receives a grateful welcome from an Italian woman after the Battle of Anzio.

On May 25, 1944, General Lucian King Truscott, Jr’s men captured Cisterna, and on June 4th, General Mark Clark led the American forces into Rome. Here the US tanks pass the Colosseum.

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“As Good As Ever Went Down Your Throat”

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I had to break the image in two, so’s you could really take in the amber glow of Old Crow. 031061LIfe004

If Aliens Came And Stole All Our Coke, And Only Then

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Confederate Troops, Manassas, Virginia 1861

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I don’t know about y’all, but I love jumping inside Civil War photos. Not that war is fun, but it’s so interesting to see images from when photography was in its infancy, 155 years ago.

By the late 1850s, most American artists had switched from taking mainly portraits made with the daguerreotype process to large glass-plate negatives (allowing them to capture entire scenes) that combined the clarity of the daguerreotype and the endless reproducibility of paper-print photography (metmuseum.org).

And aren’t those two little boys dressed as soldiers just precious? I bet that was a sight for them to see. I wonder if the taller one enlisted, a few years down the road.