Two awesome, and contrasting, images of a human being in full on Hero Mode. From the different assortment of medals and orders and what looks like a slight difference in his age, these are probably proof that a hero’s life consists of an awful lot of putting on your dress uniform and all your decorations and posing for photographs.
In the first it’s all posterized, movie star good looks and boy next door smile, but the second shows the sheer guts and some of the tragedies we know he has seen, with maybe a hint of the one that is fast approaching. It’s interesting in another way, too . I’ve looked at an awful lot of pictures of Yuri Gagarin and there aren’t too many where the scar above his left eyebrow hasn’t been airbrushed out.
