It’s an instance of war that we’re not really meant to see, an unnerving blur of debris and fire before death. Nearly four years after a U.S. Army combat photographer was killed during a training exercise with Afghan forces, the military has released what is her final image taken in the moments before she died. 
 
 Spc. Hilda I. Clayton, a “visual information specialist” and a member of the 55th Signal Company, or Combat Camera, was photographing an Afghan National Army “mortar validation exercise” in the eastern Laghman Province on July 2, 2013, when a mortar tube accidentally exploded. Clayton, 22, of Augusta, Ga., was killed alongside an Afghan photographer she was training and several ANA soldiers. Her image was published with the Afghan photographer’s picture in the May-June issue of Military Review, a journal of the army. 
 
 An undated handout photograph of Spc. Hilda I. Clayton. U.S. Army/EPA 
 
 “At the critical juncture of the war, when it was necessary for the ANA to increasingly assume responsibility for military actions, the story was not in the fighting but in the partnership that was necessary between U.S. and Afghan forces to stabilize the Afghan nation. One of the Afghan soldiers killed was a photojournalist that Clayton had partnered with to train in photojournalism,” the journal article states. “Not only did Clayton help document activities aimed at shaping and strengthening the partnership but she also shared in the risk by participating in the effort.” 
 
 The article adds that Clayton’s death “symbolizes how female soldiers are increasingly exposed to hazardous situations in training and in combat on par with their male counterparts.” 
 
 Bill Darley, managing editor of Military Review, said in a phone call on Tuesday that the photos had been brought to the publication’s attention by a staff member who had served with Clayton. He said it felt a proper homage to Clayton and a fitting end for an edition that in part focused on gender equality. 
 
 Of the response to Clayton’s photo, which has been shared widely, Darley said she “was revered by her unit—they even named an annual contest in her honor—and she was a dedicated soldier, so we are gratified” that the public is interested in her story. 
 
 Contact sheet of pictures from LIFE photographer Paul Schutzer's last roll of film, 1967. Paul Schutzer—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images 
 
 As difficult it is to imagine that a photographer continued to shoot in their final moments, there is precedent. In the first hours of the Six-Day War in 1967, LIFE photographer Paul Schutzer was embedded in an armed convoy heading across the Negev Desert to Gaza when he was shot in the head. Schutzer’s camera was found near his remains; on the roll of 35-mm film was about two-dozen frames. In a special edition, LIFE honored his career and printed his final pictures. 
 
 Similarly, in the days after her death, Clayton’s spirit in the field was recalled. “She was always willing to take on any mission,” said Col. Bill Benson, the Augusta Chronicle reported, “and she pursued every opportunity to tell our story with her images. This week, in the hours after the image was released, a few new visitors signed an online guest book honoring her legacy. “I never knew you, but I just read about you in the news,” wrote Robert B. from Chico, Calif. “I am proud of you.” ||||| Spc. Hilda I. Clayton 
 
 May 21, 1991 to July 2, 2013 
 
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 Spc. Hilda I. Clayton, a visual information specialist assigned to the 55th Signal Company (Combat Camera), was killed while photographing a live-fire training exercise 2 July 2013 in Laghman Province, Afghanistan. Clayton and four Afghan National Army (ANA) soldiers died when a mortar tube accidentally exploded during an ANA mortar validation exercise being supported by U.S. Army trainers. She was attached to the 4th Armored Brigade Combat Team, 1st Cavalry Division, based at Forward Operating Base Gamberi in eastern Afghanistan. 
 
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 At the critical juncture of the war, when it was necessary for the ANA to increasingly assume responsibility for military actions, the story was not in the fighting but in the partnership that was necessary between U.S. and Afghan forces to stabilize the Afghan nation. One of the Afghan soldiers killed was a photojournalist that Clayton had partnered with to train in photojournalism. Not only did Clayton help document activities aimed at shaping and strengthening the partnership but she also shared in the risk by participating in the effort. 
 
 Combat Camera soldiers are trained to take still and video imagery in any environment. Their primary mission is to accompany combat soldiers wherever deployed to document the history of combat operations. Clayton’s death symbolizes how female soldiers are increasingly exposed to hazardous situations in training and in combat on par with their male counterparts. 
 
 Clayton’s service and sacrifice were recognized during memorial ceremonies at Forward Operating Base Gamberi on 8 July 2013 and at the Defense Information School (DINFOS), Fort Meade, Maryland, on 13 December 2013. At Fort Meade, Clayton’s name was added to the DINFOS Hall of Heroes. 
 
 Combat Camera further honored Clayton by naming the award for the winner of its annual best combat camera competition after her. The Spc. Hilda I. Clayton Best Combat Camera (COMCAM) Competition consists of five days of events to test joint service combat camera personnel on their physical and technical skills. ||||| NPR Photographer, Interpreter Killed In Afghanistan 
 
 Enlarge this image toggle caption Michael M. Phillips/The Wall Street Journal Michael M. Phillips/The Wall Street Journal 
 
 Updated 3:15 a.m. ET 
 
 Enlarge this image toggle caption Monika Evstatieva/NPR Monika Evstatieva/NPR 
 
 David Gilkey, an NPR photojournalist who chronicled pain and beauty in war and conflict, was killed in Afghanistan on Sunday along with NPR's Afghan interpreter Zabihullah Tamanna. 
 
 David and Zabihullah were on assignment for the network traveling with an Afghan army unit. They were in an armored Humvee driven by a soldier of the Afghan National Army. All three were killed after the Humvee was hit by rocket propelled grenades in an apparent ambush. 
 
 NPR Pentagon correspondent Tom Bowman and producer Monika Evstatieva were also in the convoy, traveling in a separate vehicle. They were not injured. 
 
 Tom reports that when the journalists' remains arrived by helicopter at Camp Shorab in Helmand Province — where the U.S. Army 10th Mountain Division has a training mission — an honor guard of "dozens and dozens" of U.S. soldiers stood at attention and saluted. 
 
 David was 50 and Zabihullah, who for years also worked as a photographer, was 38. 
 
 David was considered one of the best photojournalists in the world — honored with a raft of awards including a George Polk Award in 2010, a national News and Documentary Emmy in 2007 and dozens of distinctions from the White House News Photographers Association, including 2011 Still Photographer of the Year. 
 
 It is fair to say that David witnessed some of humanity's most challenging moments: He covered wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. He covered the conflict between Israel and Hamas in Gaza. He covered the end of the apartheid regime in South Africa. He covered the devastating earthquake in Haiti, famine in Somalia and most recently the Ebola epidemic in Liberia. 
 
 His images were haunting — amid the rubble, he found beauty; amid war, he found humanity. 
 
 Back in 2010, after he covered the earthquake in Haiti, he talked about his craft. The camera, he said, made things easier. 
 
 "It's not like you put the camera to your face and therefore it makes what you're seeing OK, but certainly you can put yourself in a zone," David said. "It's hard, but you can't get caught up in it and become part of it. You still need to maintain your state of mind that you are helping tell this story." 
 
 Hide caption A little girl jumps across a flooded field containing the sewage runoff from the Mais Gate Camp after heavy rains in Port-au-Prince in 2010. Previous Next David Gilkey/NPR 
 
 Hide caption Alex Mertulus, age 10, the son of Magarette Brutus, stands in the mud in the Mais Gate Camp after heavy rains flooded the area in the middle of the night in Port-au-Prince. Both Magarette and her son Alex are fighting a loosing battle of moving around to different IDP camps trying to find a place were they can live. Previous Next David Gilkey/NPR 
 
 Hide caption A little boy tries to get his kite in to the air at Camp Corail in Croiz de Bouquets outside of Port-au-Prince Haiti on May 4, 2010. Internally displaced people living in makeshift camps in the city were moved to the Corail camp in an attempt to give the people a safer and more permanent living situation. Previous Next David Gilkey/NPR 
 
 Hide caption After the quake of 2010, a man stands on a rooftop yelling out for any sign of his missing relatives in a Port au Prince neighborhood. Previous Next David Gilkey/NPR 
 
 Hide caption A man carrying a shotgun walks through a collapsed building while trying to keep looters at bay on the streets outside in the commercial district of downtown Port-au-Prince on January 18, 2010. Looters and scavengers ransacked destroyed buildings with little police presence. Previous Next David Gilkey/NPR 
 
 Hide caption Lance Cpl. Jake Romo does physical therapy at the Naval Medical Center in San Diego, Calif. He lost both legs in an explosion in Sangin, Afghanistan, in February 2011, while serving with the 3/5 Marines. Previous Next David Gilkey/NPR 
 
 Hide caption Amy Murray at home with her daughter Harper in Oceanside, Calif. Her husband, Capt. Patrick Murray, with the Darkhorse battalion, returned home from Afghanistan, in April 2011; 25 Marines from his unit did not. Previous Next David Gilkey/NPR 
 
 Hide caption Josue Barron lost his left leg and eye in Sangin, Afghanistan, while serving with the 3/5 Marines from Camp Pendleton, Calif. He now has a glass eye which is emblazoned with the 3/5 insignia. Previous Next David Gilkey/NPR 
 
 Hide caption Men watch the fires of a cremation along the banks of the Yamuna River against the backdrop of the Wazirabad Barrage and floating industrial waste in May 2016. Previous Next David Gilkey/NPR 
 
 Hide caption Earlier this year, a woman walks between two of the tents that house the hospital wards at the U.N. Protection of Civilians site near Bentiu, South Sudan, home to more than 120,000 people. Most of the camp's residents are women and children. Previous Next David Gilkey/NPR 1 of 10 i View slideshow 
 
 His craft, he said, was about more than journalism. 
 
 "It's not just reporting. It's not just taking pictures," he said. "It's, 'Do those visuals, do the stories, do they change somebody's mind enough to take action?'" 
 
 In an email to staff, Michael Oreskes, NPR's vice president for news, said David died pursuing that commitment. 
 
 "As a man and as a photojournalist, David brought out the humanity of all those around him," Michael said. "He let us see the world and each other through his eyes." 
 
 toggle caption Zabi Tamanna/AFP/Getty Images 
 
 Keith Jenkins, the general manager for digital at the National Geographic Society who edited David at NPR, said he and David talked a lot about the dangers of the work David was doing and how much longer he could keep doing it. 
 
 "Ultimately, he felt it was really important to tell those stories and to tell them to a society that can very often forget that we have people in harm's way on a daily basis," Keith said. 
 
 David also understood those risks. 
 
 "It's a very hard thing to put into words, the peace you sort of make with what you're gonna be doing," David said. "I'm not saying you walk into these situations and you're fatalistic about it but you also are preparing and making decisions based on the sort of level of threat that is there." 
 
 Zabihullah, who was known as Zabi, worked as a photojournalist for the Chinese news agency Xinhua. More recently, he wrote for Turkey's Anadolu News Agency. Zabihullah kept a tick-tock on the country. He wrote the big news — when a new Afghani president was sworn in — but also covered the daily attacks and drone strikes that killed militants and civilians. 
 
 NPR's Philip Reeves recruited Zabihullah to NPR. He called him a "great colleague." 
 
 "He was a lovely man, with a great eye for a story and deep wisdom about his country," Philip said. "He clearly loved his family." 
 
 Zabihullah leaves behind three young children. 
 
 Secretary of State John Kerry released the following statement:
– It's a jarring image, and that's before learning that the Army photographer who captured it was killed moments later. The photo shows the first instant of a mortar tube explosion during a training exercise in Afghanistan in 2013, a blast that killed 22-year-old Army Spc. Hilda Clayton, reports Time. The explosion also killed the Afghan photographer she'd been training, along with three Afghan soldiers, reports the Army Times. The Army has published final images from both photographers in its journal Military Review. (The feature on Clayton is on the second last page, while an Army press release has the images here.) A staffer who served with Clayton brought the images to the journal's attention, and they were published with the consent of her family in Augusta, Ga., reports Stars and Stripes. "Not only did Clayton help document activities aimed at shaping and strengthening the (Afghan) partnership but she also shared in the risk by participating in the effort," says the story, adding that Clayton’s death "symbolizes how female soldiers are increasingly exposed to hazardous situations in training and in combat on par with their male counterparts." Clayton was the first "combat documentation and production specialist" killed in Afghanistan, the Army says. Her unit, known as Combat Camera, has created an annual contest in her honor.