NationStates Jolt Archive

many of you may remember this photo:
http://www.latimes.com/media/photo/2006-05/23476278.jpg
It was on the front pages of newspapers all over the US when it was taken during the assault on Faluja. Here's the caption:

As a Marine Corps lance corporal, Blake Miller was with the 1st Marine Battalion, 8th Regiment, during the assault on the insurgent stronghold of Fallouja, Iraq, in November, 2004, when this picture was taken. Filthy and exhausted, he had just lighted a cigarette when an embedded photographer captured this image, which transformed Miller into an icon of the war in Iraq. He now suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder.
(Luis Sinco / LAT)

Well, the LA Times has just published a human interest peice on this Marine about what has happened to him since he left the war. It's really well written and poignant. Here's the link if you're interested.

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-marlboro19may19,0,4643056.story?coll=la-home-headlines

An outtake:
His detached expression in the photo seemed to signify different things to different people — valor, despair, hope, futility, fear, courage, disillusionment. For Blake, the photograph represents a pivotal moment in his life: an instant when he feared he would never see another sunrise, and when his psychological foundation began to fracture.

Blake, whose only brush with celebrity was as a star quarterback in high school, became known as the Marlboro Man, a label he detests. That same notoriety has carried over into his post-Iraq life, where he is an icon of sorts for another consequence of the war — post-traumatic stress disorder, or PTSD.

Man's getting shot at every day, if he wants to smoke, he can smoke.

Man's getting shot at every day, if he wants to smoke, he can smoke.
He sure as hell can't. His comrades rely on his fitness for their lives. :mad:

she and Blake are behind the troops though they no longer support the war.
"Liberal hypocrites", as they whisper on the interweb... :p

"Liberal hypocrites", as they whisper on the interweb... :p
I was just about to cut and paste that part..

He dreamed about the 40 enemy corpses that he counted after the tank demolished the house, he said, and that he had been shot.

"He'd jump out of bed and fall to the floor," Jessica said. "I'd have to hold him to get him to wake up, and then he'd hug me for the longest time."

Sometimes, Blake mutters Arabic phrases he learned in Iraq or grimaces in his sleep, and Jessica will keep whispering his name until he wakes up. Some nights, he doesn't sleep at all.

"I tend to drink a lot just to be able to sleep," Blake said. "Nothing else puts me to sleep."

He decided last summer to see a military psychiatrist at Camp Lejeune, N.C., where he was based. In August, he was diagnosed with PTSD. But before he could be put on "non-deployable status," his unit was sent to New Orleans to assist with Hurricane Katrina recovery.

While aboard a ship off the Louisiana coast, Blake was taking a cigarette break when a petty officer made a whistling sound like an incoming rocket-propelled grenade. Blake says he remembers nothing about the incident, but was later told that he slammed the officer against a bulkhead and attacked him.

By November, Blake was forced to take a medical disability discharge. "They said they couldn't take the risk of me being a danger to myself and others," he said.

He fears that he may have another blackout. "It's terrifying that at any moment I could lose control and not know what I'm doing," he said. "What if next time it's Jessica?"

This February, while smoking a cigarette and staring out Jessica's dorm room window, Blake said, he thought he saw a dead Iraqi man on the grass. Later, he had visions of an Iraqi father and son fishing — a scene he'd witnessed in Iraq just before a grenade exploded nearby.

"I can't tell anymore what really happened and what I dreamed," he said. "Sometimes I feel like I'm dying."

Blake visits a Veterans Administration psychiatrist in nearby West Virginia and speaks with him by phone several times a week. He said his psychiatrist told him that his PTSD has to be managed; his disability will be reevaluated in March 2007.

Meanwhile, he has slowly turned against the war. "We've done some humanitarian aid," Blake said, "but what good have we actually done, and what has America gained except a lot of deaths? It burns me up."

Jessica, who sports an "I Love My Marine" sticker on her car, says she and Blake are behind the troops though they no longer support the war.

Fake. That cig was photoshopped in. Perhaps the rest of the story is true and such, but from the contrast of that thing, that part is fake...

Oh yeah, it does look like it was added later. Heh.

Fake. That cig was photoshopped in. Perhaps the rest of the story is true and such, but from the contrast of that thing, that part is fake...
No it wasn't. If you read the story the guy smoked six packs a day. Probably not hard to catch him with one in his mouth. Probably pretty hard to catch him without one.

many of you may remember this photo...
Luis Sinco is an amazing photographer.

Fake. That cig was photoshopped in. Perhaps the rest of the story is true and such, but from the contrast of that thing, that part is fake...

I thought that when I saw it. I could ask my bf what he thinks? (He's studying photography at uni, and especially likes digital photography, so he might be able to tell)

I thought that when I saw it. I could ask my bf what he thinks? (He's studying photography at uni, and especially likes digital photography, so he might be able to tell)
I work here: http://www.technicolor.com and we are one of the premier special effects shops in the world. The pic is not fake.

Oh, okay. It looks a bit wrong though... I did hear that photographing white things against darker backgrounds can make them overexposed. Maybe that's what happened... *shrugs*

Oh, okay. It looks a bit wrong though... I did hear that photographing white things against darker backgrounds can make them overexposed. Maybe that's what happened... *shrugs*
In anycase, it's not about the pic, it's about the story. It really is a good read.

That's one kickass photo.