Soldiers take a selfie on the plateform at a metro station in Ho Chi Minh City on December 22, 2024. Thousands of selfie-taking Ho Chi Minh City residents crammed into train carriages on December 22, as the traffic-clogged business hub celebrated the opening of its first-ever metro line after years of delays. (Photo by Nhac Nguyen/AFP Photo)

Igor, a 40 year-old Ukranian soldier embraces his wife in front of his military basement in the center of Odessa on March 17, 2022. Odessa, which Ukraine fears could be the next target of Russia's offensive in the south, is the country's main port and is vital for its economy. But the city of one million people close to the Romanian and Moldovan borders also holds a special place in the Russian imagination. (Photo by Bulent Kilic/AFP Photo)

A Palestinian girl watches from the balcony of her house as Israeli soldiers conduct a security operation in the village of Aqraba, east of Nablus in the occupied-West Bank, on May 3, 2021. Suspected Palestinian gunmen carried out a drive-by shooting at a nearby junction the previous, leaving three Israeli civilians wounded, one of them in critical condition, with a manhunt underway. (Photo by Jaafar Ashtiyeh/AFP Photo)

A Russian soldier takes part in drills at the Kadamovskiy firing range in the Rostov region in southern Russia, Wednesday, December 22, 2021. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov says that Russian and U.S. negotiators will sit down for talks early next year to discuss Moscow's demand for Western guarantees precluding NATO's expansion to Ukraine. (Photo by AP Photo/Stringer)

A soldier supporting anti-government opposition groups carries a rocket-propelled grenade launcher on a street in the Fagah area of Mogadishu, Somalia Sunday, April 25, 2021. Gunfire was exchanged Sunday between government forces loyal to President Mohamed Abdullahi Mohamed, who signed into law on April 14 a two year extension of his mandate and that of his government, and other sections of the military opposed to the move and sympathetic to former presidents Hassan Sheikh Mohamud and Sharif Sheikh Ahmed. (Photo by Farah Abdi Warsameh/AP Photo)

Japanese Ground Self-Defense Force's 1st Airborne Brigade soldiers board a CH-47 helicopter for parachute drop training during their military drill at Higashifuji training field in Susono, west of Tokyo, July 8, 2013. Japan faces increasingly serious threats to its security from an assertive China and an unpredictable North Korea, a defence ministry report said on Tuesday, as ruling politicians call for the military to beef up its ability to respond to such threats. (Photo by Issei Kato/Reuters)

David Guttenfelder was born in Iowa and graduated from the University of Iowa with a Bachelor of Arts in cultural anthropology. He has worked for the AP since 1994 based in Kenya, the Ivory Coast, India and Japan. He is currently AP’s chief Asia photographer and his feature work has been used prominently in editorial publications throughout the world including Time and National Geographic. Photo: U.S. soldiers from the 2nd Battalion, 12th Infantry Regiment, 4th Brigade Combat Team, fire mortars at known enemy firing positions from a base in the Pech River Valley in Afghanistan's Kunar province, Saturday, October 24, 2009. (Photo by David Guttenfelder/AP Photo)