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Vet who photographed Iraq loses some sight

Oct-29-2005 » Filed Under: 1/25 SBCT

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ANTONIO CASTANEDA, Associated Press

OLYMPIA, Wash. - Army Sgt. Walt Gaya spent his time in Iraq peering - through the scope of his sniper rifle and through the lens of his camera, snapping black-and-white pictures of his unit and of life in the turbulent city of Mosul.

Becoming a professional photographer was his dream. Losing his sight was his nightmare, which he sometimes mentioned in long-distance phone calls to his wife, Jessica, in Washington.

Then on a routine patrol last July in Mosul, with his trusty Leica wedged among the gear in his backpack, a roadside bomb ripped open the hull of Gaya's Stryker combat vehicle, wounding all nine men inside.

Gaya felt his leg throbbing as he helped the others escape the 19-ton vehicle. Shrapnel had torn through the leg and shredded a knee ligament.

Then he felt a sharp pain in his left eye. His vision began to blur.

While attention has focused on the more than 2,000 American soldiers who have died in Iraq since the U.S. invasion in March 2003, another 16,000 have been wounded, nearly half so severely they didn't return to duty. Their injuries have altered their lives, in some cases leaving hopes and plans in tatters - or futures uncertain like Gaya's.

Evacuated back to a U.S. base in Germany and then to the United States, Gaya had to leave behind his camera, still tucked in a backpack inside the crippled vehicle on a Mosul street.

In the first moments after the explosion, Gaya was just grateful to be alive. He had survived an earlier roadside bombing with burns on his lower back and some hearing loss.

But then, with each painful blink as he helped set up a security perimeter around his disabled vehicle, his mind raced with fears that the blurred vision would never clear.

Gaya, 30, had pursued his passion for photography in Iraq not only to relax but also to help document life in a country in turmoil. [...]

Gaya says he won't let his injury define his life. On his lunch breaks at Fort Lewis, he uses a camera he bought from a pawn shop, venturing into the morning mist to snap shots of soldiers training.

His old Leica was retrieved from the blast site in Iraq, but he chuckles when he thinks of its battered condition. He still takes black and white shots, but now he sometimes uses color film to take pictures of his children.

Gaya's enlistment is up next spring, and he's busy compiling a portfolio of his photographic work. He hopes news agencies or magazines will look past the dark patch he wears over his left eye and hire him as a photographer.

"I feel like I'm going to have to work extra hard to demonstrate that it's not going to be a problem," he said. "I never even considered stopping. It's not me to just quit."


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