The making of an American soldier

There has been no shortage of front-line photography from Iraq. Images of boot camps, training exercises and welcome home parades are familiar, too. But it's unusual and perhaps unique to follow the progress of a single soldier over an extended period – to watch a gung-ho but vulnerable young man in private moments of frustration, euphoria, tiredness and despair. The Denver Post filled that gap when it sent the photographer Craig F Walker, along with several reporters, to chronicle the recruitment, induction, training and deployment of a baby-faced American soldier called Ian Fisher. The journey begins with Fisher graduating from high school in May 2007 and ends, 27 months later, with him returning from combat and setting up home with his new wife. It's a remarkably intimate visual record of a young man's struggles to serve God and nation.

Since the age of 15, Fisher had dreamed of fighting for his country. The speed at which he's pushed through is alarming, nevertheless. Within three weeks of leaving school, he joins up; within three months, he completes his basic training; after a year, still in his teens, he's off to Iraq, where he serves in the Quick Reaction Force and where he remains, apart from a brief trip home, for the best part of a year. We see a drill sergeant use bullying and sleep deprivation to make men of wayward boys. But when Fisher holds a machine gun, it's as if he's a kid with a toy.

Armies are supposed to be well-oiled machines. But Fisher's progress is far from smooth. Here he is on the phone, 36 hours after joining up: an old elbow injury has flared up (an injury he had concealed when signing up) and he is so homesick he hopes they discharge him. Here he is six months later, back in Denver with his dad, having gone awol for a few days (a fine and punishment ensue but he isn't demoted in rank). And here he is, on the verge of going to Iraq, angry with his platoon sergeant and thoroughly demoralised: "I feel like just a number in the Army. That's all I ever was."

He injures his foot. He strains his back. He's on six or seven different kinds of medication ("at least it's not coke, ecstasy, weed"). But it's not his injuries that betray the strain he's under so much as the vacillations in his love life, which he pursues, even in Iraq, via his mobile phone. In June 2007, the day before he joins up, there's a photo of him at a fairground, on the big wheel, kissing his girlfriend Ashley. By December he's engaged to Kayla, who smiles as she shows her ring. Cut to March 2008 and he's with another Ashley after breaking up with Kayla. Then comes Kirsten, who lasts from August till November, when he tears up her photo. In March this year he meets Devin: they marry in a register office three days after his return from Iraq. "Everyone gets counselled in Iraq that life is not going to be like your fantasy when you get back home," Ian says. "Well, I'm checking this off my fantasy list."

The Denver Post blog on which this photographic essay appears is packed with comments. Some see a tale of pride and courage, others a propagandist endorsement of the US war effort. But the real story is the old story, unchanged since Wilfred Owen told it: the use of boys who know no better as cannon fodder. Ian Fisher may have survived but plenty haven't. And even his happy ending is only provisional.