“Why the front-page photo of a soldier with a cigarette hanging out of his mouth?” asked John H. Ramey of Akron. “One would hope that the editors had more sense than to show willfully negligent behavior on the part of a service person on the front page.”
Dan McClusky of Akron agreed: “I want you to pass congratulations to the person who chose that front-page picture. You just convinced 10,000 young people that it’s OK to smoke.
“I have one simple objection, and it’s not about the Marine. You could have picked another photo that didn’t show smoking as looking so good.”
If you saw Wednesday’s front-page Iraq coverage, you probably remember the remarkable photo (right) criticized by Ramey, McClusky and several others. Taken by a photographer for the Los Angeles Times, the in-your-face photo of a bone-tired Marine in Fallujah said volumes about the hellish difficulties of war. In almost WWII-like imagery, it included a dangling cigarette, the smoke swirling up around his dirt-crusted face and battle-worn helmet.
Provocative, captivating, perhaps even disturbing — the photo also prompted praise.
“It’s a picture that spoke to me,” said Carol Johnson of Fairlawn. “It said, this is a soldier, bone-weary, taking a break, but `Mom, I’m OK.’ ”
Gillian Neilsen of Akron described it as touching. “It just hit a chord with me. It’s a very sad photo, but I liked it.”
During my conversation with Neilsen, she mentioned that she lost two brothers to battlefield injuries. What about the cigarette? “I wasn’t bothered at all by it,” she replied. “War is hell — what can you say?”
When I asked a group of readers who often comment on the paper to react to the photo, nearly all applauded it.
“I thought the picture of the Marine was excellent,” said Jim Miller of Akron. “It showed the real face of war — the emptiness, fatigue and loneliness probably faced by all combat veterans.”
From John Paparella of Norton: “His expression vividly depicts the reality of the frontline dogfoot — tired, dirty, running on nicotine, adrenaline and a sixth sense of survival in the face of an elusive, deadly, indiscernible enemy.”
The Marine, later identified as Lance Cpl. Blake Miller of Kentucky, drew this reaction from Mary Ann Ferguson- Rich of Tallmadge: “He is a young man and yet all the world weariness of someone at the end of a long, difficult life looks out at us from his eyes. He is tired, a down-to-the-bone type of exhaustion that the nicotine of a dozen cigarettes is not going to alleviate.”
Newsroom editors expressed only approval for the photo.
One cited the “strong emotional pull, close and intimate.” Another noted the intensity in his eyes, calling the Marine “a modern-day Robert Mitchum.” Another said, “You can almost feel what he feels.
This is war. This is real life.”
But cigarettes need not be part of that real life, at least, for one reader who identified herself only as Elizabeth in her message. Her sons, like most teens, get a mixed message from the media, she said. Everywhere they hear that smoking harms your health. Then they see this photo.
“These soldiers are heroes to them,” she said. “What are they supposed to think?”
Yes, it is difficult for parents to protect their teen-agers from the temptation of smoking, a nasty habit learned in youth that can grow into a gruesome and often deadly disease.
What are Elizabeth’s kids supposed to think? Perhaps they should look at the photo and consider these comments from reader Sieglinde Hays of Fairlawn.
“That Marine has been on my mind since I first saw his picture at 6:30 a.m. yesterday,” she wrote in a Thursday e-mail. “His image is haunting to me. I can see his face as I write to you.
“This year when I sit down to my Thanksgiving dinner, I will remember him when I thank God for what He blessed me with in 2004.
“I will remember that Marine is over there, far away from home, eating dinner — if he is lucky — with his comrades. I will remember those who did leave in a box or returned without a limb and pray that the Marine will not be among them.
“I will remember his eyes, brown and staring in the distance and wonder what he saw. I will thank the Lord that He saved me from not seeing people dying, like this Marine did.
“I will remember the blood and dirt on his face and be thankful I can go home and bathe, while he did not have the privilege. I will remember that this Marine looked tired and had to keep going, while I can go home and rest.”
Yes, once you look at the grime on his face, the grit packed in his ears, the blood on his nose, the pain and exhaustion in his eyes — well, in this poignant portrait of war, I don’t even see the cigarette anymore.
Originally written By Mike Needs,
Public Editor
