Team Infidel
Forum Spin Doctor
USA Today
April 9, 2007
Pg. 4
4 Years Later: Sergeant On Second Tour In Iraq
By Beth Zimmerman, Marine Corps Times
On April 9, 2003, as a tow chain pulled down the larger-than-life statue of Saddam Hussein in downtown Baghdad, news photographers captured one of the most iconic moments of the Iraq war.
Two similar versions of the same photo — taken by photographers from Reuters and the Associated Press — were plastered on the front page of newspapers across the world, symbolizing the end of the invasion. In each, a gritty-looking Marine in the foreground eyes the crowd and the statue. Captions accompanying the photos didn't include his name.
Now, on the fourth anniversary of the statue's fall, Marine Corps Times has identified and located the mystery Marine. He's back in Iraq.
Sgt. Kirk Dalrymple, then 22, now 26, pushed into Baghdad in 2003 as an assaultman, a job with responsibility for supporting fire against enemy tanks and bunkers. Now a Criminal Investigation Division agent, he's on his second deployment to Iraq.
Dalrymple, originally from Jacksonville, said he had no idea at the time that photographers had even captured the moment.
"At that time, I knew the statue was falling behind me, so I was trying to make sure I was out of the way," Dalrymple said during a recent telephone interview from Iraq. "It was a lot to take in, while also staying aware of the situation and keeping people away from the statue as it was falling."
Dalrymple's back was turned when the statue hit the ground. It made "a bell-type sound" because it was hollow on the inside. Immediately after, he recalls, Iraqis were gleefully jumping on the statue.
On April 10, his wife, Elizabeth, 23, walked into a store on the base at Twentynine Palms, Calif., and saw the Reuters picture on the cover of USA TODAY, she said. She scooped up some keepsake copies, while relatives picked up copies of local newspapers that ran the image and sent it to the couple, she said.
Dalrymple heard about the photos and their popularity the next time he talked to his wife — though he didn't actually see them until he returned to Twentynine Palms almost two months later, he said.
April 9, 2007
Pg. 4
4 Years Later: Sergeant On Second Tour In Iraq
By Beth Zimmerman, Marine Corps Times
On April 9, 2003, as a tow chain pulled down the larger-than-life statue of Saddam Hussein in downtown Baghdad, news photographers captured one of the most iconic moments of the Iraq war.
Two similar versions of the same photo — taken by photographers from Reuters and the Associated Press — were plastered on the front page of newspapers across the world, symbolizing the end of the invasion. In each, a gritty-looking Marine in the foreground eyes the crowd and the statue. Captions accompanying the photos didn't include his name.
Now, on the fourth anniversary of the statue's fall, Marine Corps Times has identified and located the mystery Marine. He's back in Iraq.
Sgt. Kirk Dalrymple, then 22, now 26, pushed into Baghdad in 2003 as an assaultman, a job with responsibility for supporting fire against enemy tanks and bunkers. Now a Criminal Investigation Division agent, he's on his second deployment to Iraq.
Dalrymple, originally from Jacksonville, said he had no idea at the time that photographers had even captured the moment.
"At that time, I knew the statue was falling behind me, so I was trying to make sure I was out of the way," Dalrymple said during a recent telephone interview from Iraq. "It was a lot to take in, while also staying aware of the situation and keeping people away from the statue as it was falling."
Dalrymple's back was turned when the statue hit the ground. It made "a bell-type sound" because it was hollow on the inside. Immediately after, he recalls, Iraqis were gleefully jumping on the statue.
On April 10, his wife, Elizabeth, 23, walked into a store on the base at Twentynine Palms, Calif., and saw the Reuters picture on the cover of USA TODAY, she said. She scooped up some keepsake copies, while relatives picked up copies of local newspapers that ran the image and sent it to the couple, she said.
Dalrymple heard about the photos and their popularity the next time he talked to his wife — though he didn't actually see them until he returned to Twentynine Palms almost two months later, he said.