Shortly after moving to Atlanta in 2012, photographer Raymond McCrea Jones got a commercial assignment at Fort Benning, Georgia. “I’d seen pictures out of Iraq, Afghanistan,” he says. “But I realized I knew little about the men and women involved. How do they maintain their sense of self, even as they’re absorbed into a larger mission?” For 10 weeks in 2013, Jones practically embedded with 162 recruits as they were transformed from everyday citizens into soldiers. “There’s so much pressure,” says Jones. “But I saw a fraternity develop like I had never witnessed before.”
On the calendar: In a new photo book, Birth of a Warrior (available now), Raymond McCrea Jones peeks behind the curtain of basic training.
This article originally appeared in our September 2015 issue under the headline “Basic Training.”
