GI Special 5E11: A Thousand Pictures [ May 10, 2007 ]

[Thanks to Alberto Jaccoma, Vietnam Veteran, The Military Project, who sent this in and to Mark Shapiro for the graphic.]

"A Word Is Worth A Thousand Pictures"

April 27 2007 by Cpl Cloy Richards, USMC, Bellaciao.org

6 Marines
3 standing tall and proud in the foreground
3 crouching in the foreground
6 Marines posing in Fallujah, supposedly the "Graveyard of Americans"
6 young, strong men with battle hardened countenances
6 marines in great health posing with rifles, deep in enemy territory
How brave they look, how American
They can go to any country in the world, kick ass and take pictures to show the folks back home what their tax dollars are paying for
That picture of my buddies and I, is forever in my mind, yet slightly changed
Private Perez was killed by a car bomber at a vehicle check point
There’s only 5 Marines in the picture now
Sergeant Silva lost the use of his left leg after a rocket attack and now is addicted to painkillers and booze
There’s only 4 Marines in the picture now
Lance Corporal Dubois joined the Marines to help conquer his heroin addiction
After 3 years clean and sober, he came home from Iraq a broken man
and turned back to heroin
He overdosed two months after we got back
There’s only 3 Marines in the picture now
Corporal Allen’s stress and emotional problems got the better of him
and he started beating his wife and children
2 years after Iraq he’s in prison, without a family
There’s only 2 Marines in the picture now
Private First Class Anderson got dishonorably discharged
for drug use 5 months after we came home
Rather than turn to his family for help, he wanders the streets
of southern California begging for money, food, work
There’s one Marine left in the picture now, and it’s me.
Am I still alive?
I might be physically breathing, but I’m dying inside
So really there aren’t any Marines in that picture
and without those Marines
it’s just a picture of a shattered city in a devastated country.

continua / continued