Questions for Thomas Sanders

What drew you to this project?

The first WWII veteran I photographed was Lt. Randall Harris. He showed me a six-inch scar on the bottom of his stomach. And of course, I asked him how he got the large wound. He told me that while in Gela, Sicily, his company's mission was to take the eastern half of Gela and form a perimeter. At the beginning of battle, his company commander triggered an S-mine and was killed instantly. An S-mine is a mine filled with steel balls; when it's set off, the mine explodes a massive amount of steel balls in all directions. Well, another mine went off, and several of those steel balls hit Harris in his lower abdomen and legs. His intestines started to come out of his stomach. Randall took his canteen belt, tightened the strap around his wound to keep his insides from coming outside, and continued fighting.

That day he made it back to the aid station at camp, and was waiting in a line of wounded soldiers. A medic was going through the line to see who needed immediate attention, and when the medic came up to Randall, he was holding his intestines in with his hands. The medic tried to move Randall ahead of everyone, but Randall did not budge. "No one touches me, until all my men have been attended to," said Lt. Army Ranger Randall Harris.

The year was 2006 when Randall told me his story. I was a twenty-one-year-old Cal Poly San Luis Obispo senior in college at the time, stressing about my future as a photographer, my finals, and the girl's phone number I was striving to get that weekend. When Randall was my age, he was trying to live to the next day. The thought of not knowing if I were going to live to the next day was something I did not know how to fathom. Right then, a bell went off in my head. I was going to photograph and document as many WWII vets as I possibly could.

The Last Good War is a mixture of photography and oral history. What does this book offer that conventional histories of WWII don't?

In the photographs, these WWII veterans show a wide variety of emotions: pride, heroism, sadness, stoicism... All these vets have stories, and it shows in their faces. The sincere emotion of each WWII veteran draws the viewer into the book. Once the viewer's attention is caught, they can't help but want to know each veteran's story. In comparison to a history book, showing the actual veterans who fought in WWII is an incredibly powerful tool. This way the reader gets to know each individual vet, and the feelings and stories they experienced. I hope The Last Good War: THE FACES AND VOICES OF WWII finds its way into classrooms all over the world, to be used as a tool to get students excited about learning about WWII, and to let them see the faces of the men and women that made our country what it is today.

How did you find the veterans pictured in The Last Good War? How many of them came from the Belmont retirement communities, and where did you find the others?

After I graduated college in 2006, I moved to down to Los Angeles and started my career as a photographer. In my down time, I would go to retirement communities up and down the California coast, photographing as many vets as I could. That meant about one to three a day, once a week.

I got my commission from Belmont Village in 2009, and they sent me all over the country to photograph their WWII veterans. I would photograph twenty to thirty WWII vets a day! It was amazing how many I could photograph in such a short period of time. Belmont helped speed up my process of photographing the vets. At first, when I found out I would be photographing so many in one day, I was quite nervous. After the first day, I realized it was going to be a piece of cake. The WWII vets were extremely cooperative, and they made my job rather easy. Out of the 400 WWII vets I have photographed, I would say about 300 are from Belmont Village.

Once I signed my contract with Welcome, they gave me specific veterans I needed to seek out, such as more women, and making sure we had an ethnically diverse group. We tried our hardest to represent every battle and group from WWII in the book. I acted as a detective and called veterans organizations all over southern California. It was extremely hard for me to find a WASP. There are only around 300 living! It turned out there was one living only five miles from me. A lot of the veterans I photographed currently live in California, but only a small percentage were actually born and raised there. They are from all over: Hawaii, the Philippines, little towns in the Midwest.

Was there a particular veteran or story that stood out to you in the course of taking pictures/talking to veterans? What person or story made the biggest impression?

I am going to give you a pageant queen answer: all the WWII veterans equally did their part. From the veterans who stayed in the States, and were prepared to go to war, to the veterans who did not return, they all did their part. Women built airplanes and transported supplies, and Army psychologists helped the returning soldiers deal with their traumatic memories of battle. The country came together as a whole.

Were there any common threads that you noticed—things that tied together the different veterans that you photographed and interviewed?

When called a hero, none of the veterans thought of themselves as heroes. They all thought WWII was a job that needed to be done.

What surprised you most in the course of the project?

I get closer to some of the veterans than others. Now that my grandpa is gone, I see characteristics in some of these veterans that I saw in my grandpa. I meet veterans who I think will live for another ten years. Then I get a call or email, and I find out they have passed away. It always seems to surprise me. They are in their 80s and 90s; why do I act as if their passing is not going to happen? It breaks my heart that we are losing them so quickly.

It seems that one goal of this project is to raise awareness of WWII veterans and keep the war from being forgotten. Do you feel that the war is largely unremembered today?

The whole idea of the project is to foster an appreciation for the sacrifices that not only our WWII veterans, but all veterans, have made for us. I want people to realize, when they are having a stressful day and worrying about minuscule things, that there are veterans who have risked their lives in the past for us, and there are soldiers in the Middle East risking their lives for us right now. As the WWII veterans begin to disappear, the youngsters need to know the stories of the sacrifices their grandparents made for them.

What other ways are there for us to honor veterans and keep their memories alive?

It should not matter if you are a Republican, a Democrat, or a pacifist. When you see a veteran or soldier in your community, go up to them, look them in the eyes, shake their hand, and thank them for serving. The veterans need to know they are appreciated.

Do you have a personal or family connection to WWII?

My grandpa, Willis Sanders, was in WWII, and was at Omaha Beach on Day 3. His brother, Robert Sanders, was killed by a mortar at a battle in the European theatre. My grandpa did not talk much about the war, except to say that his brother died in WWII. As a kid it did not seem like such a big deal to me. Now that I am older, I could not fathom losing one of my siblings to war. I would fall apart. I have photographed WWII veterans who had the same scenario as my grandpa. I am not a soldier or veteran. I have not been to war. I have heard thousands of stories, and yet I still can't comprehend what it would be like to kill someone or just hope to live to make it back home to America. We have to make sure our veterans are honored, appreciated, and taken care of.

For Thomas: Some of the photographs in the book are in color, while others are black and white. Why did you decide to use a mixture of the two?

I chose an image to be color or black and white through a simple gut feeling. I would look at each image in black and white and color to see which tone would exude the most emotion to the viewer. The vets are always holding something from WWII. If I feel the image needs to be in color so that the item they are holding can better tell their story, then I will choose color. If it is a tight shot of their face, and you can tell they are thinking about their past, then I will pick black and white to make the viewer feel the veteran's feelings.

The veterans interviewed in your book include many with less-well-known wartime experiences, such as women who served in the military, and African American vets who served in segregated units. Was representing a diverse set of veterans a priority for you in assembling this collection?

Representing an ethnically and gender-diverse group of veterans was extremely important. Yes, American WWII veterans were mostly Caucasian, but I symbolized women and non-Caucasian WWII veterans as best I possibly could. They also played important roles. If women had not helped build bomber planes, the battle veterans would not have been as successful.

Do you see a connection between your work with World War II veterans and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan today?

WWII veterans grew up in the Great Depression, fought in WWII, and then returned back to society to build a family and start a career. These circumstances are somewhat similar to what we are facing right now, although today's situation is not as extreme. A veteran is a veteran, and a soldier is a soldier. They are going to have emotional anxiety about their combat experience. Earlier this year, soldiers who had fought in Iraq were flying into Los Angeles Airport, and people were going to the airport to protest the war. These people should not be protesting our soldiers; they should be at their local government location or the White House. Put yourself in our current soldiers' shoes. They just went through training, went to war, and risked their lives for their country, and then they come back and are yelled at. No matter what our personal feelings about this war, we have to treat our soldiers with honor and respect.

Who would be your ideal subject for a portrait/interview?

Photographing authentic subcultures that have a strong story to tell.

What is your next project? What are you working on now?

I have begun to photograph Vietnam veterans and elderly Native Americans. We have to recognize our past in order to learn about our future. Our upcoming generations have to be able to see the faces and hear the voices of those who came before them.