He started out his career at Iowa State as a football player, but soon realized that was not going to be the most fulfilling career for him.

Instead, John Gaps III found his niche in documentary photography, and for the past 12 years, has been a successful combat photographer for the Associated Press.

Gaps has been in situations most people literally wouldn’t want to be caught dead in — but he wouldn’t have it any other way.

“I am a vulture,” Gaps admitted from his office in downtown Des Moines. “I’m going to be around bad things that happen. I want to be where others are affecting people’s lives dramatically.”

Since he was first assigned to the civil war in Nicaragua back in 1985, Gaps has seen some of the most horrific sights any human can imagine, from the war in former Yugoslavia, to the Persian Gulf conflict, to the 1992 riots in Los Angeles.

All of this caught up to Gaps in 1994, when he was shot down by a sniper in the occupied Gaza strip. The injury left him on crutches for six months.

During his rehabilitation he began to collect various journal entries and poetic writings from assignments away from home. Eventually, these became the inspiration for his new book “God Left Us Alone Here…”

While flipping through the book, the reader can glimpse at the horrific sights found on some of the most recent battle grounds.

Reading the corresponding poetry and giving the pictures a hard study can give the reader a first-hand feeling about exactly what is going on in the mind of this photographer.

“At first the book is a real downer, it’s like going to the doctor,” Gaps said. “Hopefully after a while the message will start to sink in.”

Instead of showing what is normally seen in 15-second news clips, “God Left Us Alone Here…” showcases the more humanistic side to war. “There’s not a lot of pictures of military parades or hardware here,” Gaps said.

“I want the book to be a cautionary to people who make war,” he said. “I wanted to throw out the big amber light at the intersection and say: ‘Wait, slow down. Read this before you go make war.’ I think it should be advanced required reading for anyone who who wants to go to war.”

Gaps admitted that he is, in a sense, a vulture, but he justified that by giving a truthful look at the victims directly affected by conflict.

He also said there should be more photographers and authors like him.

“It’s easy to [hear] that a jetliner went down in New Delhi and 400 people were killed,” Gaps said.

“But you don’t believe it until you see it. We need people to document this.”

Gaps attributed a lot of his success to his five years spent at Iowa State, during which he was a photographer and columnist for the Iowa State Daily, did work for National Geographic and even did publishing for Life Magazine.

Dr. Bill Gillette of the journalism department was especially influential in Gaps’ life.

Gaps said Gillette challenged him to have a conscious with his pictures. “It was the life I tried on, and I continue to wear it,” Gaps said.

With nine credits to go and $150 in parking fines, Gaps still considers himself a fifth-year senior at the age of 38.

In his fifth year at Iowa State he was offered a job at the Omaha World Herald and decided to take that road rather than finish his under-graduate degree.

“If I win a Pulitzer Prize and ISU doesn’t offer [my degree] for me, I’m going to demand a doctorate,” Gaps said jokingly. “So I can walk on campus and be Dr. John Gaps.”

Copies of “God left us alone here…” are available at University and Campus Book Stores for $9.95.