Marines Call it the 2000 Yard Stare

The image above is famously known as the “Marines Call it the 2000 Yard Stare”. Before discovering its actual title, this is an image that I recently discovered as it was circulating as a meme on platforms such as Reddit and X. It has been used to emphasize the shock of realization in a specific situation. For example, user Beaulooo on X used the image in response to finding out that the game Rainbow Six Siege came out eight years ago, saying “8 YEARS?????”. Aside from being used as memes, this image has a deeper story connected to war culture and the reality of those who serve in war.

“Marines Call it the 2000 Yard Stare” was created by Thomas Lea from El Paso, Texas. According to Ashley White, “From 1941 to 1946, Lea traveled more than 100,000 miles documenting life in the service during WWII, documenting important historical events like the bombing and sinking of the USS Wasp by Japanese torpedoes” (White). Over his time, he produced art that embodies the experience of war and how it is defined. Lea aimed to produce content as realistic as possible, saying, “I did not cuddle up with personal emotion, moral notion, or political opinion about War with a capital W. I reported in pictures what I saw with my own two eyes, wide open “ (Huard). 

The painting was featured in Life magazine in 1945. It features a soldier with a wide-eyed, deserted stare in the midst of the chaos of war. Behind him, we see smoke, tanks, and soldiers. The distant gaze possessed by the soldier can be attributed to post-traumatic stress disorders that cause dissociation among soldiers and veterans. Thomas Lea described the soldier's experiences in his painting as “He left the States 31 months ago. He was wounded in his first campaign…. Two thirds of his company has been killed or wounded but he is still standing. So he will return to attack this morning. How much can a human being endure?” (Dailey and Warner). These traumatic war experiences can lead to the effects depicted in this painting. It is common for soldiers to see and undergo things that can be very traumatic and detrimental to their psychological health. This image does a good way of encapsulating the aftershock of soldiers throughout their war experience for the viewers' grasp and comprehension. 

The painting “Marines Call It the 2000 Yard Stare” resembles Chris Kyle's experience in American Sniper. After returning home from war on his tours, Kyle seemingly suffers from PTSD and dissociation. There are multiple scenes in the movie where Chris Kyle exhibits dissociation due to war effects comparable to the one displayed in the painting. In one scene, he stares in front of his television, wholly shut out from his family around him, both audibly and visually. In another scene, Chris Kyle is at a child’s birthday party where he zones out as his wife speaks to him. He then blacks out and attempts to attack a dog that was playing with a child. It gets to a point where his wife begs him to be human again, showing that this affects not only the soldiers but their relationships as well. 

Parallel to the “Marines Call it the 2000 Yard Stare”, Chris Kyle also exhibits levels of dissociation on the battlefield itself. In his first kill, we see Chris Kyle with a firm eye on his sniper and target. The audience hears the focus of his breath and muffled noise after he makes his kill. He shuts out everything around him, making it comparable to the image as the unnamed soldier is distant from the commotion occurring behind him.

This cultural study of the famous painting “Marines Call It the 2000 Yard Stare” has forced me to reflect on war culture and its psychological effects on those participating in it. It appears that disorders such as PTSD and dissociation are something that is normalized or come with the territory for most soldiers, and this saddens me. Being a part of war, you must make many sacrifices, and mental health appears to be one of the biggest. It makes me contemplate if I would be able to handle an experience of that nature and trauma. Soldiers go into war already knowing that there is a potential that they will not come back the same. Not only are they going into a war between nations or territories, but potentially with themselves.

Works Cited

Dailey, Jason I., and Christopher H. Warner. “The 2,000 Yard Stare.” American Journal of Psychiatry, 30 Apr. 2015, ajp.psychiatryonline.org/doi/10.1176/appi.ajp.2014.13121682.

Fawcett, Kirstin. “Tom Lea Created Some of World War II’s Most Powerful Images.” HistoryNet, 14 May 2020, www.historynet.com/tom-lea-created-some-of-world-war-2s-most-powerful-images/.

Lacy, Robert. “Notes from a Nightmare Century.” The American Interest, 8 Aug. 2017, www.the-american-interest.com/2016/09/01/notes-from-a-nightmare-century/.

White, Ashley. “World War II Battlefield Paintings Featured in Life Magazine Now in Lafayette Museum.” The Daily Advertiser, Lafayette Daily Advertiser, 10 Nov. 2022, www.theadvertiser.com/story/news/2022/11/10/world-war-ii-paintings-once-in-life-magazine-now-at-hilliard-art-museum/69626604007/.