AP Photo of Dying Marine Sparks Controversy and Protest from Sec. of Defense – A.P.

The Associated Press released a photo late last night that shows a dying marine fatally injured in graphic detail.  Here is the AOL News splice on that.  It contains the photo and the photo is graphic.  Be warned. 

Today Secretary of Defense Gates formally lodged a protest with the Associated Press.  In all fairness to Gates, that was the proper thing to do considering his position.  However, as the AP noted, it is their job to describe events realistically and report the news, not sanitize it.  They stated that they deeply regret the death of the marine and the distress to his family.  But they claim that it is their job to show war as war, and not as a sanitized training operation with no casualties, no problems and completely in line with what the Pentagon wants.

Whether you agree with the difficult decision that the Associated Press made or not to publish the photo, we must admit that these young people are dying in a war.  They are killing in a war.  It has been sanitized too long now and it is time that we realized that we are sending our young people to kill and to die.  If that is a necessary thing, and I am not convinced that it is, then we must shoulder our responsibilities and not turn our faces away from their deaths or from the deaths that they cause.

Ultimately whether we agree with these western Asian wars or not, you and I are responsible for these deaths.  They are killing and dying in our name.  Like it or not, agree with it or not, supporting these wars or not, these are our fighting men and women and they are killing and dying for an agenda laid down by our government in our names.

This is deadly serious business and we have thrown our young people into this meat grinder from which they will never completely extricate themselves.  Wars are like that.  The warrior never really leaves the war. 

So, with that said, no matter what your politics are relative to the issue of these ongoing western Asian wars in which we continue to do……exactly……what?  I am not sure.  But whatever we are doing there, or think we are doing there, our young people and many of their innocent people are dying along with people we consider an armed and dangerous enemy.

This photo that the AP photographer took of the dying marine is clear proof of that mortal fact.  People kill and die in a war.  It is not a training exercise.

The photo brings that home to us, and in that sense and for that reason, it is a sacred icon.

CWO3 Tom Barnes, USCG (Ret.)