Shooting the War: A Marine Combat Photographer Remembers Fallujah

Photos by CPL. TREVOR GIFT

One Christmas morning, Trevor Gift’s parents gave him a 35 mm film camera. He started shooting photos for the high school paper, and when he saw Full Metal Jacket, in which the main character became a combat photographer during the Vietnam War, he couldn’t shake his curiosity.

People told the self-described “scrawny” kid he couldn’t cut it in the Marines. “I took it as a challenge,” he says.

His first assignment was at Camp Lejeune, North Carolina, where he photographed everything from change of command ceremonies to victims of suicides and domestic violence for NCIS. At the base, he befriended Marines from the 1st Battalion, 8th Marine Regiment, including The War Horse founder, Thomas Brennan.

After eight months, Gift headed to Iraq, eventually joining up with Brennan’s platoon to capture images on the Second Battle of Fallujah, the bloodiest of the Iraq War. As luck would have it, Gift’s childhood friend, Grady Campbell, was also in that platoon. Armed with a Canon 10D and an M16A2 rifle, Gift shot thousands of photographs in Iraq that were used for historical documentation, intelligence, and counterintelligence.

Gift joined Brennan and members of his platoon for a five-day reunion in Washington, D.C., earlier this year. We caught up with him to ask about some of his most memorable images and what it was like to be the one surrounded by artillery with the job of shooting photos. 

Gift captured this photo in Fallujah. “This photo, I believe, was taken from one of our armored amphibious assault vehicles. I went on a resupply run to get new memory cards for my camera and had to stand with my upper body outside of the top hatch to provide some security as we made our way back to the command post. We stopped, and my eyes caught this image, and I recorded it,” Gift says. “I remember smelling so many things all at once that it was almost overwhelming at times—burning flesh, feces, trash, lingering gunpowder.”

The War Horse: What is it like trying to capture a combat zone?

Gift: I still honestly don’t know how I did it. These infantry Marines train for months together. They’re constantly going over their weapon systems. They are going on these long marches. They’re conditioned. They’re trained well. And then there’s me who had one month of basic training.

It was challenging. I think my biggest thing was learning when it’s appropriate to use the camera, and then when I need to be aware of my surroundings and not be a liability to the Marines around me.

As the combat photographer—a POG (Personnel Other than Grunt) in a grunt unit—you kind of have to earn your spot. You have to earn their trust and let them know that you’re not going to be a liability, that you can contribute. I was taking shifts to go on patrols and do fire watch so other guys could get sleep. I was always volunteering myself and trying to earn my place.

Gift took this photo a few days before the Marines entered Fallujah “during our operations to soften the city, which was called a ‘feint.’ We would drive outside of the city and shoot flares and white phosphorus to illuminate the skies. Aircraft would drop pamphlets written in Arabic to tell people to leave the city as a big fight was coming. … The red light inside the vehicle was to minimize light pollution and avoid giving away our position.”

TWH: What’s the one lesson you had to learn quickly once you were in Fallujah?

Gift: When we first went into the city, it was just very quiet. It was eerily quiet. And it wasn’t until we got into the mayor’s complex that I stood up to take some photos as our interpreter stood up. There was a group of civilians walking with white flags and waving around white shirts or whatever. But as soon as I stood up to take photos of it, we started taking fire. That was one of the wake-up moments for me, where it’s like, I need to be aware of what I’m doing. It got real very quickly that just because I’ve got a camera doesn’t mean they’re not going to kill me.

After that, it became kind of a situational thing. I kind of kept myself back because I didn’t know how to room-clear properly, and I didn’t want to be that person that causes someone else to be killed. And I would just kind of take it one situation at a time.

Gift says he took many photos like this one because he could safely position himself away from potential fire and out of the way of Marines. “If you zoom in hard on his helmet it says: RIP FAIR.” Lance Cpl. Bradley Faircloth was killed during the Second Battle of Fallujah.

Gift would make sure to never put himself in vulnerable positions. “You don’t want a combat photographer to be the lead guy or the rear guy,” he says.

Gift took this photo of Lance Cpl. Thomas Brennan, founder of The War Horse, handing a child a piece of candy in the town of Al Nasr Wal Salam. “It was just after Christmas or New Year’s,” Gift recalls. “Care packages had stuffed animals and candy galore, and we would patrol some of these towns with Beanie Babies and other toys stuffed in our pockets to hand out to the kids.”

TWH: Do you have a photograph that really sticks with you?

Gift: Absolutely. I recently learned when I was in D.C. with all of the guys, I learned that they called this one house the Alamo. One [picture] that sticks out in my brain that I cannot find for the life of me, and was not archived or whatever, was one of Nate Fox. I guess he was a squad leader, or section leader. He and others were on top of the roof of the Alamo taking fire.

I remember Fox coming downstairs because [he was] injured. I was terrified to take the picture because Fox was pissed that he got hurt. But he sat there on those steps, and you could tell his adrenaline was up. He was kind of shaking, smoking this cigarette with this thousand-yard stare. His entire shoulder was just covered in blood.

I remember taking this photo, and I wish I could see it, but because of whatever failures, whether in actually transmitting the imagery, saving it properly, or some sort of failure back in the U.S., you know, a lot of my imagery was not archived.

“Obviously, it was a very somber time. His hands are bandaged up. Their camis are dirty. I don’t know if this was a debrief or if this was a memorial, but I do remember some of the faces,” Gift says.

TWH: Yes, I wanted to ask you about this. A lot of the images you captured, and that you put yourself at risk to take, are nowhere to be found. What do you know about that?

Gift: Our imagery used to get sent to the Joint Combat Camera Center, I believe, in the Pentagon. Every branch of the military would send their imagery to be archived. I started seeing some of my imagery being used for motivational posters. I believe Leatherneck magazine published some of my imagery.

So it became apparent that my imagery was used in so many different places, but why can’t I find any of it?

Thomas [Brennan] and I started trying to dig around and find out. I was told that DVIDS [Defense Visual Information Distribution Service], apparently, sometime, a few years back, they had a crash, and they lost a bunch of stuff from certain times. It was either not saved or it was lost. Learning that, it’s kind of crushing. Whether it was good or bad memories attached to these photos, it was still something that I put my life on the line for, for the Marine Corps, for my brothers.

Gift remembers taking this photo of a Marine next to a cardboard cutout of President George W. Bush in Camp Fallujah before the push into the city.

TWH: In Fallujah, were there moments when you were shooting photos that you really enjoyed? Like pictures of daily life or kids that you encountered?

Gift: I found enjoyment just during the daily activities. Anytime I came around, I always got a smirk or a grin or a smile [from a Marine]. Whether it was a split second or so of them just kind of forgetting about things and thinking, oh, this guy’s taking my picture. I can send that to my mom or my wife or whatever.

“I remember this one,” he said. “They’re sitting on that porch. They put the Company A on their wall. This kind of makes me think of the [movie] The Sandlot.”

TWH: Anything you want to add?

Gift: I can look back at this as obviously a very traumatizing time in my life. But I turned 21 years old while we were in the thick of it. My birthday is Nov. 25. I remember I got a lemon poppy seed pound cake with peanut butter for the frosting and a cigarette for the candle. These Marines brought me in and didn’t write me off. And you know, there wasn’t that, that negativity surrounding me as a POG. They were very accepting. The fact that I got to fight and live next to them through this deployment was one of the biggest honors.

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