As the seventh anniversary of the United States' 2003 invasion of Iraq approaches—and as American and NATO forces gear up for a major push into a Taliban stronghold in southern Afghanistan—LIFE asked five outstanding photographers who have covered both wars to reflect on the conflicts, and on their own work. Collectively, these four men and one woman have taken tens of thousands of photographs from the two wars; here, they've each chosen a handful of images that, for reasons as varied as their utterly distinct styles, resonate most deeply with them. The pictures that follow, and the photographers' words that accompany them, comprise a chronicle of courage, folly, misery, hubris—in short, a look at humans at their best, their worst, their most guarded, and their most vulnerable. WARNING: Some of the images depict extreme violence.
