Original painting
the two-thousand yard stare
The 2000 Yard Stare is a painting by World War II war correspondent Thomas Calloway Lea III who had traveled extensively in the Pacific theater.
The painting depicts a nameless U.S. Marine at the Battle of Peleliu with the eponymous stare. The marine is seen wearing military fatigues with his jacket open and a tear on the left shoulder, his helmet dented and askew. In the background is a war-torn landscape, other marines, a tank and three planes.
The phrase "thousand yard stare" was popularized after the painting was published in Life magazine, though it was not referred to with that title in the 1945 article.
