The problem is that there's nothing to shoot. Nothing exciting anyway, if you don't count wrestling. There are hundreds if not thousands of J-School grads out there photographing nothing more interesting than the local school board or the latest tornado victim. You might, just might, be able to expense a Big Mac with large fries as long as the accountant is sleeping. It's getting pretty boring.

So I've come up with an idea.

We need another war. A big one. Not one of those piss-ant little peace keeping operations we seem to get involved in but a big, fire-breathing armed conflict with guns and bullets, death and destruction and tragic consequences. The current generation of photojournalists hasn't had the opportunity to start mainlining testosterone and hit the ground running in some place you can wear fatigues and those funny soft camouflage hats. Some place where we, as a nation, can kick the crap out of people that are shorter, poorer and, yes, uglier than we are. Someplace where they'll put up a damn good fight, hand-to-hand. How in hell can someone carve out a photographic career without a little landing zone experience?

We need to see those dead and dying soldiers, and they have to be Americans. White guys. From the mid-west and the south. With names like "Bud" and "Hank." It's obvious that the average reader in the U.S. doesn't give a damn about foreigners in uniform and the whole starving-native thing just doesn't grab Ma and Pa Kettle in Des Moines by the short and curlies. The Kettles have to know that it's their grandson's life that's on the line before they'll tune in or buy a magazine.

The Gulf War was a good war, just not a great war. For one thing it didn't last nearly long enough. Five days? Come on. How can an up-and-coming shooter get his or her act in gear, scam an airline ticket and get half way across the world in only five days? We have to schedule the next one for a one to two year run, at least. Experience dictates that it should be in a temperate or semi-tropical zone since only the folks in Minnesota and the Dakotas can relate to guys on skis with guns.

What about those without the guts to go? What about those photographers with just too much good sense to walk into the line of fire between opposing armies?

Demonstrations! Yes indeed. Lots and lots of high school and college kids with banners and music and flowers and a few bottles of gasoline with a cloth cork and a match. Sure, sure there'll be problems in a decade or so when your world-traveling fellow photographers do that clucking sound and start flapping their arms when you meet at a bar but you'll be the one with all your toes and more of your liver so the benefits may outweigh the risks. You decide.

Write your Congressman. EMail your Senator. Log on to the Defense Department's web site and find the suggestion box. A war could be good for your career, good for your wallet, and leave you with some damn good tales to tell.

Why do you think the good ones are called "war stories?"
 

DISCLAIMER: The opinions expressed are barely my own much less my employer's so don't blame Time Magazine, Time Inc. or Time-Warner for anything written here. If you need someone to blame I'd go for the current state of network television if I were you.
 

Jim Colburn
(aka james.colburn@pressroom.com)