Today’s Lens, the excellent New York Times photoblog, discusses the incredibly sensitive topic of photographing and publishing pictures of the victims of war, combatants and non-combatants alike. This controversy has been around ever since the Civil War, and impassioned opinions exist on both sides. Recently, a photo of a Marine mortally wounded in Afghanistan has fueled the debate anew. [For the sake of good taste and my own personal opinions of this most recent example, I will not republish nor point to the photo. The curious may search on the name of the photographer, Julie Jacobson, to find the photo in question.]

There is hardly anyone in their adult years who has not seen some of the most iconic war images taken – the horrific scene of Vietnamese villagers, including one screaming young girl, running from a napalm attack; the execution by handgun of a suspected Viet Cong spy; and most remarkably the dramatic images taken by perhaps the highest practitioner of the art of wartime photography, Robert Capa.

Capa is credited with creating two of the most remarkable photos of war ever taken.

The first, depicting a soldier in the Spanish Civil War, shot and falling to his death. The second, an image of American GI’s wading through the surf on D Day, did as much as anything to show the sheer terror of being in the first waves of soldiers that fateful morning.

As a boy, exposure to these images helped me form opinions about war, it’s costs and it’s sacrifices, but it did not turn me into a pacifist, nor did I consider myself unpatriotic for viewing them. I saw those images as necessary elements of trying to understand war. Later, as a student of history, reading about the bloodshed at Shiloh and Antietam, the horrors of Bastogne and Market Garden, and many other battles too numerous to mention, it was photos which put a real face on the descriptions in the texts.

My parents bought me a subscription to the excellent Time Life series for World War II, chock full of large format black and white photos of every aspect of the war – boredom and panic, land and sea, home and overseas. I think those images helped cement my love and interest for studying history, and I can’t ever remember thinking that viewing them was something I should not be doing.

I had a conversation with my brother a few months back about the controversy surrounding the publishing photos of the coffins of soldiers being unloaded at Andrews Air Force base. I tried hard to understand his point of view that the photos were nothing more than a cynical media ploy to undermine the war effort and embolden our enemies. My take on the photos was that it was important for all Americans, not just the families of servicemen and women, to witness the cost of war, and to understand the incredible sacrifice being made. We agreed to disagree, and with two sons having served in combat, he and his family deserve the utmost respect from a beneficiary of their service such as the likes of me.

Similarly, my friend Steve, a former Marine, has spoken to me several times about his disgust with the publication of recent photos depicting the horrors of war. I think his take is less about the politicization of the photos, but rather the intrusion on the families of the soldiers, and I find it hard to disagree with that point of view.

In this latest instance, for example, the father of the fallen Marine pleaded with the Associated Press to not publish the photo. As someone sensitive to the rights of the people whom I capture in my lens, I could not in good conscience publish a photo like the Jacobson image when I knew the parents objected strongly.

There’s no clear answer to this controversy, but I do know that publishing photos of war is not going to stop anytime soon. I don’t feel that doing so necessarily emboldens the enemy – personally, if we as a people believe a war is worth fighting, it’s important for everyone to know the sacrifices involved and do whatever they can to help.

I try to think about what life must have been like during World War II, with average American families affected by the war effort in a multitude of ways. Rationing of gas, rubber, and a host of other common items, for example. When reading about our troops needing equipment, I can’t help but feel as if the vast majority of Americans would rather squawk about their taxes than get involved in solving the issues by raising funds and increasing output at the factories making armor, or munitions, or whatever.

Publishing a photo of coffins or soldiers dying or civilians caught in the chaos doesn’t win or lose a war, but rather it helps everyone understand the nuance and complex nature of conflict. We shouldn’t go to war casually, without shared sacrifice. Seeing the faces of young men and women who have served our country in the greatest possible way should strengthen us in our resolve.

But, above all else, I am a believer in the right to privacy, and if the family of a serviceman or woman does not want their loved ones’ image used for any reason, I fully respect that, and would hope that we as a society would, too.