She didn’t leave the country, but An-My Lê symbolically joined the ranks of embedded reporters when she photo-graphed the Marine base at Twentynine Palms in southern California, where soldiers train before shipping out to Afghanistan and Iraq. The resulting photographs recall the artist’s previous series of Vietnam War reenactments, which focused more on the forested landscape than on the pseudosoldiers. In her latest series, Lê’s lens gives equal weight to the vast desert and the troops, with their impending overseas mission.

Lê provides us with an unobstructed view of the maneuvers, but questions remain. For example, it is impossible to determine which side is which in Small Convoy Attack (2003-04); the image was shot from high on a hill and itsperspective distances viewers from the practice action in the stage-set village. (In another photo, fake bungalows bear tidy graffiti of phrases

like KILL BUSH and GOOD SADDAM, the latter embellished with an unlikely smiley face.) In Infantry Officers’ Brief

(2003-04), few of the depicted marines are paying attention to their commander; instead, they gaze distractedly off in other direct-ions––including right into the camera.

Lê does not sensationalize her subject. Her photographs are so remote from the action that the military exercises are revealed to be nothing more than the “war games” they are––games that appear to have unexplained rules. Because Lê keeps her distance from the soldiers as well, no psychological portrait of warriors preparing for battle emerges. Instead, the somber black-and-white photo-graphs disclose the limits of training and suggest that our soldiers may have a lot to learn when they arrive overseas.