What does the war in Iraq look like? When I conjure up snapshots in my mind, I think of dramatic images: The toppling of the Saddam statue, a Humvee blasted to bits by a roadside bomb, Iraqis weeping in the street. But there are calmer moments, too, and some of them are captured in Private Soldiers: A Year in Iraq with a Wisconsin National Guard Unit, an exhibit at the Perhaps the most poignant image is one Buchholz took of a clay pot made by his five-year-old son. In the captain's tent, the pot sits amid everyday items: a deck of cards, a paperback dictionary. The picture, Buchholz writes in a caption, "made me wonder how much I had been changed by the experience of being deployed."
"Private Soldiers" runs at the Wisconsin Historical Museum through March 8.