I cannot believe or understand the decision by Rex Rhoades and his staff at the Sun Journal to print the two pictures of Marine Lance Cpl. Ross Carver of Rocky Point, N.C., lying mortally wounded (Dec. 5). I also don’t understand the purpose of the photographer or of The Associated Press to release such pictures.

If the young man had been their son, husband or brother, would the decisions to photograph and publish have been the same?

The loved ones of that young man will have as their final memory of him the pictures of his final tragic moments.

Shameful.

Yvonne Winslow, Sabattus

Editor’s note: The photos were published as part of an Associated Press report on the aeromedical teams of the 101st Airborne’s Task Force Destiny, and of one team in particular that evacuated more than 2,500 patients since spring. According to AP Managing Editor Steve Parker, photographer Brennan Linsley spent a week with the team in Afghanistan, and contacted the families of the two soldiers he had photographed who later died of their wounds to make sure each family was aware of the pending publication of the photos, including a personal visit to the widow and other relatives of Lance Cpl. Ross Carver. Carver died in September.

Linsley wrote about the project, knowing the photos would be disturbing to people, but said he felt obliged to tell the story in pictures because he had been told by soldiers and Marines he met in Afghanistan that “the people back home don’t have (any) idea what we’re going through here,” and his pictures would be able to show them that vivid reality.