Personal Vergil

Before February 24, 2022, I was a photographer, human rights activist, surfer, and freedom lover. Joining the army was the last thing I dreamed of. I’ve always hated hierarchies, careers, and orders. But that day changed everything. Like Atticus Finch in Harper Lee’s novel “To Kill a Mockingbird” (1960), I realized some decisions in a man’s life leave no room for choice if you want to keep your voice. The question wasn’t ‘if’ I’d go, but whether I could trade my life for at least five Russians. That was my grim calculus for my country to survive that war. Jumping ahead a bit, how naive my understanding of war was back then.

“Personal Vergil” tells the story of civilians who joined the army to defend their homes, how this path transformed them, and what they witnessed along the way. We travel through the endless circles of war, facing reality like a sequence of strange road-movie stills. The camera lets me shift perspective: from first-person, breathing inside the moment, to a distant gaze where I watch myself from outside.

This constructed vision feels like walking through my own circles of inferno, guided by an invisible Vergil. I move between silence and explosions, faces I know and faces I’ll never see again and most of all, between virtues and vices within. The journey goes on, and I wonder what twist of this war will burn itself onto tomorrow’s frame. I just dream of not seeing new circles anymore.

I dedicate this to my fallen comrades: Zvirobiy, Chornyy, Kazhan, Tesak, Izolenta, Pierre, Iskander, Virus, Sova, Krava. See you on the other side, buddies.

Alex Charey is part of Issue 18 by Guest Editor Hank Willis Thomas.