In December of 2009, photojournalist Lynsey Addario was embedded with a medevac team in Afghanistan. After days of waiting, one night they got the call: a Marine was gravely wounded. What happened next happens all the time, but this time it was captured, picture by picture, in excruciating detail. Horrible, difficult, and at times strikingly beautiful, those photos raise some questions: who should see them, who gets to decide who should see them, and what can pictures like that do to those of us far away from the horrors of war and those of us who are all too close to it?

Special thanks to Chris Hughes and Helium Records for the use of Shift Part IV from the album Shift