Above photo: Stacy Pearsall spoke on her career as a combat photographer March 29 — an experience that brought her to more than 41 countries and earned her national recognition. Courtesy of Amy Diaz
By Amy Diaz
Only two women have won the National Press Photographer’s Military Photographer of the Year award, but only one has won it twice.
That woman is Stacy Pearsall.
Retired combat photographer, and now portrait photographer, Pearsall delivered her talk, “The Best of Me: A Woman’s Journey in a Man’s World” to an audience of over 50 people on campus March 29.
She was accompanied by her service dog, Charlie.
Since entering the service at 17 years old, she has traveled to over 41 countries, had work displayed in the Pentagon and the Smithsonian, developed a respected center for professional photography and has since been working on the Veterans Portrait Project.
The Veterans Portrait Project helped her cope with her post-traumatic stress. In doing so, she was able to educate others about “what the face of a veteran looks like” and start an important dialogue.
She has photographed 6,500 veterans of all genders and ages.
Pearsall acknowledged the usual shock that accompanies the news of her entering the service so young.
“Frankly, it was a family affair,” Pearsall said, likening herself to Lieutenant Dan from “Forrest Gump,” with family members in the service dating back to the Revolutionary War.
However, she and her sister were the first two females in the family to join the service.
Pearsall recalls her 5-year-old self with “chubby cheeks and short red hair” wanting to be a pilot. She was inspired by her Uncle Scott, who told her “there’s not little girl pilots right now … but I think you’ll be the first.”
She never became a pilot, but she did join the service and found a way to channel her artistic side by becoming an aerial combat photographer.
Pearsall immediately learned that while the position was challenging for anyone to get into, it was especially difficult as a woman.
“I learned early on that you were two things in the military,” Pearsall said, describing the sexism she faced. “You were either a bitch or a slut.”
After being objectified by men she worked with, she decided she was going to prove to everyone that she earned her spot based on her “talents and abilities” and “not what is on the exterior.”
And that’s exactly what she did.
In 2002, she was awarded the aerial combat photographer position, and later that year, she ended up finishing in the top 10 for Military Photographer of the Year.
Pearsall found that she had a unique point of view as a woman. At first, her gender was alienating, but she was eventually able to embrace it.
“I was okay with being the sister, the mother, the feminine and being the badass photographer holding my own among the men,” she said. “I believe that it allowed the folks that I was photographing to be vulnerable.”
Pearsall also discussed the emotional trauma she endured building relationships with the soldiers she photographed. While she says it was a “privilege to capture their heroism in battle,” she carried a lot of guilt in surviving while many of them died.
“I’m not a hero. I photograph heroes,” Pearsall said.
