“These images were practically asking to be in a book together -- everything about them -- the conception, the subject, the fact that we’re still at war, the way the pictures were taken. Benjamin’s work is an opportunity to see as an American soldier sees when in Iraq -- nobody I know of has ever shown that, especially through night vision goggles.” —William Eggleston
"As a contractor for the U.S. State Department during the early phases of the Iraq war, I idealistically thought that language training would be a useful tool for diplomats and soldiers doing their job in Baghdad, but the reality of Green Zone living and the extreme security concerns limited conversation and interaction with locals. As daily media coverage in the U.S. showed the same kind of imagery, I searched for other perspectives and found them from Iraqi ex-pats who still had family there, Al-Jazeera, and the photographic work by Ben Lowy. Within the constraints of being an embedded photojournalist, Lowy creatively reveals glimpses of everyday life in Iraq in the context of war through the bulletproof windows of military Humvee and night-vision goggles—which in essence is the everyday perspective of our U.S. soldiers. As printed outlets for photo essays have disappeared it is all the more important for this kind of work to be published in book form." —Larissa Leclair, Founder of the Indie Photobook Library
"It is an important, memorable and arresting photobook, and for all these reasons I’m left rather without anything to say. This book is hard for me to talk about simply because the work speaks so extraordinarily well for itself. The images that are compact and succinct, presenting at once the literal and metaphorical. It is among the best representations of the day to day realities of our soldiers and the psychological boundaries keeping us from comprehending Iraq and this war." —Sarah Bradley, Photo-Eye
"Lowy’s subject is both what the soldier sees and how the soldier sees. The pictures contain the clues and tools that encourage the audience to consider photojournalism as practice. Lowy’s frames do what all photography does, but they do it exceptionally well: they simultaneously invite us to look, and hold us in place." —Leo Hsu, Photo 8