April 29, 2013

Former U.S. Marine Corp. Lt. Tim McLaughlin, posted at the Pentagon on September 11, 2001, was a tank commander with the first marine battalion to enter Baghdad in 2003. His flag briefly covered the face on Saddam Hussein’s statute before it was toppled. McLaughlin captured the raw and unfiltered emotions of the moment in his diaries, as did Gary Knight in his astonishing photography, and journalist Peter Maass in his powerful reporting for The New Yorker. Though the three men were with the same unit as it entered the Iraqi capital, it would take nearly 10 years for them to actually meet back in the United States.

Together, their recollections of a long and costly war create an exhibit that makes us remember and reconsider the consequences of this conflict. Presented by the Kal and Lucille Rudman Institute for Entertainment Industry Studies, we welcome “Invasion: Diaries and Memories of War in Iraq” to the URBN Center lobby May 15-23. The exhibit has just completed its well-received run in in New York City, garnering national and international acclaim for its uniquely human view of life on the frontline – from the trauma of death to the relentlessness of boredom and the absurd humor of war. McLaughlin, Knight and Maass will be appearing at the URBN Annex May 15 with the exhibit opening for a panel discussion at 6pm, followed by a reception in the URBN Center lobby at 7pm.

McLaughlin joined the Marines after graduation and was a tank commander during the invasion of Iraq. Now living in Boston, he is the president of Shelter Legal Services, a non-profit that offers free legal advice to veterans and the homeless. Knight is an award-winning photographer for Newsweek, founder of the VII photo agency and director of the Program for Narrative and Documentary Studies at Tufts University. Maass is the author of “Love Thy Neighbor: A Story of War,” which chronicles his experiences covering the Bosnian conflict, and “Crude World: The Violent Twilight of Oil.” He has written for The New Yorker, New York Times Magazine and New York Review of Books and was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship in 2012.

Click here for additional information and videos on the exhibit.