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Photos of soldiers amongst their family members in scenes that are clearly part of the American suburbia create disturbing premonitions.

Jennifer Karady’s traveling photography exhibit, In Country: Soldiers’ Stories from Iraq and Afghanistan, is now on display in the Myhren Gallery through May 1.

Working with American veterans of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, Karady has created a series of images over the past four years to depict the psychological effects of war on soldiers who return home and attempt to live normal lives.

The nightmares and memories that soldiers maintain upon their return serve as the center of her work.

Capt. Elizabeth Codon, of the New York Army National Guard and a veteran of Operation Iraqi Freedom, is depicted kneeling near an Iraqi woman laying on the ground with her mother in the background holding flowers in front of their home and her son in the foreground wearing a diaper and holding a napkin looking toward the sky.

The story that goes along with this piece tells of Codon’s experience with an Iraqi woman, where she was asked by a civilian to take a look at his wife. In the room he showed her to a woman laid on a rug on the dirt floor with her black burka lifted to reveal a caesarian cut running from hipbone to hipbone.

The wound was being held together by thin, one-inch-wide box tape and was clearly infected. After cleaning the wound with rubbing alcohol and antibiotic cream, the woman’s family thanked her by kissing her checks.

Upon returning home, Codon was unable to deal with such affection from her family. She had become isolated and unemotional. As she explains, it was not until she visited the Sistine Chapel that she was able to feel emotion, where she began crying hysterically and is still unsure of how long she was standing there.

Another of Karady’s photographs depicts former Sgt. John Holman, of the U.S. Army’s 82nd Airborne Division and a veteran of Operation Iraqi Freedom holding two books as though they are a rifle looking up a stairwell to clear the area with two of his friends on the stairwell behind him.

Holman engaged in combat operations and explains that the hardest part of securing a home is the stairwells, because they are the most dangerous. Holman further admits that he is still unable to move up stairwells without missing his rifle since it became an extension of his body during his time serving abroad.

The soldiers are from a number of states, including New Hampshire, Florida, Virginia, New York, California and Nebraska. Karady intends on adding Colorado to that list in the near future.

In Country: Soldiers’ Stories from Iraq and Afghanistan is on display noon-4 p.m. daily in the Myhren Gallery in the Shwayder Art building.