On a sunny autumn day last week, I took a trip down to the Lake County Discovery Museum in Wauconda to check out a photographic exhibit entitled "The American Soldier". I had read that the exhibit contained photographs from every American war dating back to the Civil War, but aside from that I wasn't sure what to expect. As I entered the corridor that began the gallery, I was greeted with huge, beautifully rendered photographs portraying scenes from 19th-century American history. The first word that struck me was the same word that I would use to describe the exhibit as a whole: powerful.

The first black & white prints showed small battalions of American soldiers, their faces reflecting emotions that formed a recurring theme throughout the gallery- a mixture of weariness and pride. Two portraits showed black soldiers embracing, former slaves who had fought for their freedom amongst thousands of others. Many photos stood out, and it was interesting to see shots that dated back to near the birth of the camera. A striking photo of a Union Women's Volunteer Unit showed a couple of dozen women in matching dresses, each holding matching rifles. A caption below the photo explained that the women in the unit came from every segment of the society, "from debutante to prostitute".

I entered the World War I section and marveled at a picture of smiling American soldiers drinking from steins. The caption told that the photo was from Verdun, France, 1918, and the soldiers were enjoying recently captured German beer. A nearby shot showed a massive parade of soldiers, thronged on each side by cheering citizens, marching down 5th Avenue in New York on November 11th, 1918, after the signing of the armistice. Flash forward a few decades and I found myself in the midst of World War II, where photos from early June, 1944, showed American troops during the famous siege of the beach in Normandy. A poignant picture nearby showed a fallen soldier with crossed rifles placed near his body in tribute.

Bundled-up soldiers rested in a snowy forest pass in La Roche, Belgium, in a photo from January 1945, and a crowd of cheering figures in striped uniforms eagerly greet soldiers in a shot from the liberation of the Mauthausen concentration camp in Austria on May 6th. Many photos were particularly solemn, such as one of the infamous "March of Death", where captured American soldiers were made to march 90 miles over six day from Bataan to Cabanatuan in the Philipines, their hands bound and without food or water. A fascinating portrait showed three American soldiers known as Navajo Indian "Code Talkers", a special unit that assisted in radio communication by speaking in their native tongue, which was indecipherable to outside forces.

I browsed through stunning portraits of soldiers from the Korean and Vietnam wars, and many of the images began to bear more familiarity to me as I entered the gallery of more "modern" wars- the first Gulf War, and the current wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Photos from Kuwait in 1991 showed soldiers dwarfed by a backdrop of a massive wall of fire, which turned out the be the blazing Burgan oil fields. Aside from combating enemy troops, soldiers were also made to fight against the elements, as shown by shots of soldiers hunkering down in near invisibility during violent sandstorms.

It dawned on me that American troops throughout history have fought in just about every environment imaginable, from snowy mountains to steamy jungles, to barren desert and urban streets. A photo from Afghanistan in 2002 showed soldiers patrolling rocky outcroppings as they wound their way through mountainous caves. I reflected that though the wars and soldiers were different, common threads seemed to run through the war-time experience. The faces of the men and women portrayed reflected grief and shell-shock, but also great courage, strength, and hope.

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