MA Photojournalism Student, Patrick Michels, 2007

Project overview:
Soldiers make up only half the people employed by the U.S. war effort in Iraq today. The rest are private contractors, many without military training and most doing the more mundane work of the war effort, like trucking, maintenance and laundry. The people who take these jobs are well aware of the physical dangers of working in a war zone, but find that with low pay and limited job options back home, moving to Iraq is the best way to support their family. For some the gamble pays off, and a few years at war is a ticket to easier living. For others, though, the dangers of war echo through their lives back home, as they struggle to cope with mental and physical injury. Beginning in Texas, I am documenting the individual, private costs of the war in Iraq, where the private sector employs more people than ever before.

Former KBR trucker Preston Wheeler was shot twice in the arm when his convoy was attacked north of Baghdad in 2005. Stuck in his broken-down truck, he watched as other drivers were killed in front of him.

Wheeler in his grandmother’s old home in Wickers, Ark. When he returned home to recover, Wheeler began having flashbacks and was diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder.

Air conditioner repairman Russell Skoug of Diboll, Tex., suffered severe injuries to his arm and leg when an IED exploded under a truck he was riding in. When he returned to Texas, he was charged for the cost of his flight from Germany and for his time in the hospital, and is in a drawn-out legal fight over his health insurance today.

Art Faust, a 61-year-old former truck driver for KBR, was driving behind Preston Wheeler in the 2005 convoy attack. Faust returned home shaken by the convoy experience and unable to sleep most nights.

Without a strong support network when they return, most former contractors and their families deal with their injuries alone. Faust often makes phone calls to former contractors to check up on them, and in late 2007, he hosted a conference for contractors on PTSD and handling insurance claims.

Photographer bio:
Patrick Michels is at work on a master’s degree in photojournalism at UT. After growing up in San Francisco, he graduated in 2004 with a journalism degree from Northwestern University, and taught middle school in Arctic Alaska before moving to Austin. He has interned at the Texas Observer, Texas Monthly, the Fairbanks (Alaska) Daily News-Miner and the Palo Alto (Calif.) Weekly. The Texas Observer featured part of his work on contractors with “Private Trauma” on March 21, 2008.

View “Private Trauma” at the Texas Observer.

All content on this page courtesy of Patrick Michels, and may not be copied, reproduced or otherwise redistributed without express permission. Info last updated 04/15/08.

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