PERHAPS it is because you are supposed to look happy on your wedding day.

Whatever the reason, the photograph 'A Wounded Marine Returns Home To Wed' by Nina Berman won the recent World Press Photo Award for Portraiture. It captures these particular newlyweds in an offmoment of quiet reflection, as they stand in a photographer's studio, peering in different directions.

"There will always be some kind of separation between them, " the photographer says. "I believe that with all soldiers coming back from war."

The bride, 21-year-old Renee Kline from the small farming town of Metamora in Illinois, holds a bouquet of red roses, with one startled white rose in the middle.

She wears a tiara and has a distant look in her eye. The groom, 24year-old marine sergeant Ty Ziegel, wears his navy marine uniform, decorated with combat medals and a purple heart for being wounded in action.

His face, ears, nose and hair have all melted away. He is blind in one eye, wears a prosthetic arm and has plastic replacing part of his skull. On his second tour of Iraq in 2004, he was nearly killed by a suicide bomber. His skin melted from the heat of the blast. Ty met Renee when he started working aged 18 as a mechanic at her father's garage. Today, he is disfigured beyond recognition. He is, however, lucky to be alive and spent 19 months recovering with multiple operations at an army medical centre in Texas.

There are several in the series: Ty and Renee on their porch, arms wrapped protectively around each other; slow-dancing at their wedding reception, Renee's hands clasped around his neck. In the picture that won the award, Berman says, "there was just one moment when the couple was together and were about to be placed in this happy pose. For me, they were just trying to get through the staged aspect of this ritual, it's a telling moment of what's going on in their relationships and the hardships in the past two years."

But the pictures have had an impact beyond Ty and Renee. We have seen the images of coffins draped in the Stars & Stripes at US air bases and read of the treatment of veterans in the ofmice-and-mould scandal at the once-venerable Walter Reed Army Medical Centre in Washington DC. But, while all of these stories crystallise the human cost, many didn't show the face of war, or how ordinary lives in the US have been damaged by it.

"Some people see it as a huge anti-war statement and others see the great courage, bravery and resilience of their troops, " Berman says. "I'm reluctant to say what I feel about it. I've been attacked for years by people who've seen my photos of wounded soldiers, saying I've got an agenda and I'm exploiting them. I'm walking a fine line as a photographer, artist and journalist. I just want to make the war real to people and they could decide their politics on their own as it hasn't been presented in a real way."

She can say that again. The US media documented the "Race for Baghdad" and the search for weapons of mass destruction with zeal.

Likewise, the televised rescue of Private Jessica Lynch was framed around a fictional narrative of a Rambo-style showdown during a firefight in Nasiriyah in 2003. In government-sourced accounts of her capture, Lynch "fought fiercely and shot several enemy soldiers. . . firing her weapon until she ran out of ammunition." On the contrary, Lynch recently said she couldn't bring herself to watch the TV movie based on her life. "I did not shoot a round, nothing, " Lynch said, "I went down praying to my knees."

Berman says, "There's a huge military and civilian divide. I didn't know anybody in the military and could have gone on in my life and pretended it didn't exist. I felt hugely misinformed by the media from day one. The Jessica Lynch story is disturbing when you realise how effective it was rallying people for war, while the poor fat black girl from Texas who got wounded was dismissed as a nonstory."

But Ty and Renee have remained immune from the other warf for the hearts and minds of the American public. "They are two of the most forward-thinking, unreflective people I've ever met, " Berman says. "They are not against the war. I don't think they even consider challenging what their government says. . . He was like, 'It happens, it just happened to happen to me.'" In Ty and Renee's hometown, the nearby state penitentiary is one of the biggest employers.

"That's a good job to have, " Berman says. "The federal government puts money in certain places: the prison system and military system, but they are not putting enough money in housing, education and healthcare. If you really think about it, and you start looking at the numbers, it's very frightening the picture you get.

Those discussions haven't happened yet, but you can talk about the mice at Walter Reed."

Having visited their town, does Berman think kids in these communities have been raised . . . or harvested . . . for war and blithely accept what might come? "Ty's mother told me his younger brother Zach, who is 19, has just volunteered. He was in the Marine Reserves like Ty. He asked his mom if he should enlist, his mom said he should ask Ty, who said, 'Yeah, it's an experience you should have, if you're training for it, you should go.' But I have also heard that recruiting has gone down in that area since Ty came home."

And Ty still believes in the cause? "If you question the purpose, you start to have a hard time, " she adds. "Ty's comfortable with it. I asked if he watches TV news and he said, 'If I need to know something someone will tell me'." Berman says Ty's mother asked Renee if she was sure she wanted to go through with it. So is it anxiety on her face? "Of course, you wonder. I had that question in my head for a split second. But what if that happened to you?

These pictures say a lot about our own values, too. She really does love him."