Photograph 4 of 15
Group at Industrial / Power Plant
Landscape color photograph. Five men form a close group under an industrial canopy, with pipes to the left and open floor and vehicles to the right.
Content advisory: This section discusses Salah's later death in a roadside bombing.
Describe the photograph
Full visual description
The five main figures cluster slightly left of center, facing the camera. From the viewer’s left are a man in a dark blue shirt, a man in a pale long tunic, the central man in a dark short-sleeved shirt and camouflage trousers, a man slightly behind him in a dark vest over a light shirt, and a bearded man in blue coveralls. Several arms lie across neighboring shoulders. A thin blue beaded loop hangs at the central man’s chest.
A broad concrete ceiling shades the group. Pipes, stairs and metal framework crowd the background on the left. Cars and larger vehicles occupy the brighter right background. Open concrete floor gives the group space on that side. Part of another person’s head and hands enters at the lower right edge.
Look closer
More visible detail
The men overlap closely enough that their shoulders form one compact mass. The canopy edge presses down above them, while the open floor on the right offsets the crowded pipes and machinery at left.
What was happening?
Historical context
Kenny Bass stands at center with four Iraqi men at the power-plant position. Salah is at far left. The man at far right in blue coveralls gave Bass the blue prayer beads he wears in the photograph.
What does Kenny remember?
From Kenny
Salah had served in the Iraqi Air Force for about twenty years before the 2003 invasion. He volunteered as an interpreter and was assigned to my unit. After our unit left in late September, he continued working with an Army unit. About six months after I returned home, I found his name on an online casualty roster alongside some of the Army personnel he had been working with; they had been killed in a roadside bombing.
The man at the far right in blue coveralls gave me the blue prayer beads after returning from Baghdad. I still have them.
Who made the photograph?
About this photograph
Made with Kenny Bass's disposable camera; photographer not confirmed.
Photograph 4 of 15.
How does it connect?
Connections
- The close double portrait, the group photograph and Covered Position / Vehicle were made within the same small covered area at the power-plant position.
- Covered Position / Vehicle shows the shelter, vehicles and living area only a short distance from this group.
- Power Plant / Industrial Structure looks upward from beside this covered position; the same plant's smokestacks appear on the horizon in Foreign Armor I.
What remains uncertain?
What the photograph cannot settle
The names of the three Iraqi men other than Salah and the photographer have not been preserved.