Responding to War Photographer James Nachtwey

Once you see something so profound as Nachtwey's sample of war photographs, you can't pretend that you didn't see it.  You can't pretend that that side of our world doesn't exist.  I feel like much society focuses on the boundaries of their own lives.  The mundane problems of everyday life that they are personally dealing with.  Unless you personally know someone who is in a war, or who has been to war, you are generally sheltered from what really is going on.  Nachtwey puts these visions out there and once you see them, you can't go back.  Paris Hilton exposing herself really isn't that important anymore.  My credit card bill isn't really entering my mind.  In one of his photos there is a man who most likely on the brink of death from starvation.  

he literally is a skeleton.  Skin hanging on bones.  No muscles, no fat, it made me wonder, where are his internal organs?  Have they shrunk? I think of the bounty of food I have in my refrigerator-

 or the food that is wasted everyday by even just the homes on my street.  What would this man have given, just for my garbage.  Just for the leftover rice that was hard, and so I threw out.  I can never go back and act like I didn't see that man, who still found the will to move about.  Of course, I personally have seen other war photographs, and other photographs of starving people, however, there was something in the power of this particular photograph that stuck with me.  Something that made me feel ashamed on what I waste, what I am picky about, or my ridiculous complaints about the lunch i didn't care for.  I am ashamed.  I am ashamed for my own actions and for the actions of those I know.  I consider myself a compassionate person.  Someone who is fairly knowledgeable of the world, but seeing especially this one image-makes me really want to reexamine my own way of living.