Marine in 'Fall of Baghdad' Photo Injured (Guardian)

[bobthedrummer]

A Marine from Indiana whose smiling cigar-smoking image helped symbolize the fall of Baghdad a year ago suffered severe head injuries in fighting this week in the besieged city of Fallujah.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uslatest/story/0,1282,-3960857,00.html

[GainesT1958]

1. Why wasn't he sent home for good...

After his TDY in the drive--and battle for--Baghdad!?:mad:

I (hope that) I've got a good guess as to what his folks think of Dub and Rummy right now!:grr:

B-)

[qanda]

3. From what I read in the article

He actually joined another company to go back to Iraq. And his wife hopes that he can continue in the service. What can you say?

[daleo]

12. It sounds like he loves war

It can happen to people.

[BostonTeaParty04]

2. He signed up for Iraq for the Sept 11 victims

Quote from his wife:

"``He is one of those Marines who has his hand raised anytime there's something overseas,'' April Popaditch said. ``He says he goes for the people we lost on September 11.'' "

I am sorry he is injured, and after being a gulf war 1 vet and now on his 2nd tour in Iraq, BUT I wonder if he will ever learn that Iraq/saddam had zilch to do with septmeber 11th.

Bush should be impeached for THAT lie -- even if he had done everything else perfectly, he should be impeached for propagandizing the 9/11 tragedy into getting into an unrelated war. Insane. Reprehensible.

So, if there had been no sept 11th tragedy, would this guy have raised his hand to go (his wife said he volunteered to go..)

[Democat]

4. 30 years from now the Republicans will be making fun of his injuries

Like they do with Kerry.

Serve your country and get attacked by Republicans for it.

[qanda]

5. I found this photo

On Edit: To add larger photo

[markses]

6. I think the old ee cummings poem is a propos

(plato told)

plato told

him:he couldn't
believe it(jesus

told him;he
wouldn't believe
it)lao

tsze
certainly told
him,and general
(yes

mam)
sherman;
and even
(believe it
or

not)you
told him: i told
him;we told him
(he didn't believe it,no

sir)it took
a nipponized bit of
the old sixth

avenue
el;in the top of his head:to tell

him

[VLC98]

7. Do you think he was in the tank we saw burning on tv?

It sounds like he might have been the guy with blood on his face, slumped over the edge of the hatch, if that's what it's called. Quite upsetting to watch, my daughter was in tears.

[Briarius]

11. According to the local article that was him

He's from around here and the local paper said that was him. Here's the local rag's article. Apparently he's lost vision in one eye. This whole thing is sad...

[bluestateguy]

8. Symbolic , Tragic and Ironic

On the one year anniversary of the fall of Saddam one of the soldiers who played a prominent role in what was supposedly the end of the war is injured in a war that has become more bloody and catastrophic.

I don't think Spielberg or Bruckenheimer could write a more apropo script.

[markses]

9. He did not play a "prominent role" in the "end of the war"

He played a prominent role in the media simulacra, or the popular imagination about what AN END of A WAR should look like. The distance between the modelled "end of the war" and the movements actually involved are near infinite. The very fact that one Marine whose only real value for this article is that he stood in for a generalized feeling about what a war's end should be gets his own article is a sad statement about the way we now gather and desemminate knowledge.

This Marine did not play a prominent role in the end of the war.

Most obviously, because there was no end of the war.

But more importantly, because the only role he played was in representing an IMAGE of the end of the war, and nothing but an image. Do images have effects? Yes, of course. Everyday. But the effect of this image was to promote the ignorance of the non-end (or continuation) of the war. The phot provided Americans with an image that would fit nidely into a series of pre-programmed images and belief systems. Needless to say, the connections between these and the actual movements were very thin, and very shallow.

[IndianaGreen]

10. He fought to liberate Kuwait

the irony is that he went to Iraq for the second time thinking that he was going to free Iraq from Saddam and destroy the WMDs. He was lied to and betrayed by his government.

Staying in Iraq will accomplish nothing more than having more young men and women like Sgt Popaditch being wounded or killed for a lie.

[roguevalley]

13. Iraq. The war that keeps on giving. I saw them put a patch over his eye

and the others, they were burned. They are sending patched up soldiers back to the war. We have lost all reason.

[bobthedrummer]

14. He was terribly hurt, my sympathy goes out to him and his family.

A Pulaski, WI. Marine was killed this week. He was 18 years old.

And a 19 year old woman from WI. who just wanted to come home was killed earlier this year. Her name was Rachel Bosveld.

For a different perspective on what is happening in Iraq as I post this please visit this soldiers site regardless of all politics.
http://www.brandonblog.com/