The Falling Man - Tom Junod - 9/11 Suicide Photograph - Esquire

The Falling Man - Tom Junod - 9/11 Suicide Photograph - Esquire

"Dozens, scores, maybe hundreds of people died by leaping from a burning building, and we have somehow taken it upon ourselves to deem their deaths unworthy of witness -- because we have somehow deemed the act of witness, in this one regard, unworthy of us..."

"One of the most famous photographs in human history became an unmarked grave, and the man buried inside its frame -- the Falling Man -- became the Unknown Soldier in a war whose end we have not yet seen. Richard Drew's photograph is all we know of him, and yet all we know of him becomes a measure of what we know of ourselves. The picture is his cenotaph, and like the monuments dedicated to the memory of unknown soldiers everywhere, it asks that we look at it, and make one simple acknowledgment.

That we have known who the Falling Man is all along."

Read more: http://www.esquire.com/features/ESQ0903-SEP_FALLINGMAN#ixzz1XCAUVWV1