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thedrifter
04-09-07, 08:17 AM
Published: 04.09.2007
Marine in iconic photo ID'd
Photographer didn't get his name as Hussein statue fell in 2003
BETH ZIMMERMAN MARINE CORPS TIMES The Associated Press

On April 9, 2003, as U.S. Marines 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.

Versions of the photo - taken by photographers from The Associated Press and Reuters - were plastered on the front pages of newspapers across the world, quickly symbolizing the end of the major invasion phase. In each, a gritty looking Marine in the foreground eyes the crowd and the statue warily, as if to make sure neither gets the best of him.

That Marine would have become as famous as the image itself - except captions didn't include his name. The image, said the AP photographer, Jerome Delay, was one in which "an individual becomes the symbol of many."

Now, on the fourth anniversary of the statue's fall, Marine Corps Times has identified and found the mystery Marine. Appropriately enough, he's back in Iraq.

Sgt. Kirk Dalrymple, then 22, pushed into Baghdad in 2003 with the Twentynine Palms, Calif.-based 3rd Battalion, 4th Marines. Now a 26-year-old Criminal Investigation Division agent based in Beaufort, S.C., he's on his second deployment to Iraq.

Dalrymple, originally from Jacksonville, Fla., said he had no idea photographers had even captured the Hussein 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 in a recent phone 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."

Usually photographers are diligent about identifying the subjects in their photos. But because of the mayhem at the time, Delay said via e-mail, "The last thing I had in mind was to get a notepad and get his name. Getting the picture was more important."

The next day - April 10, 2003 - Elizabeth Dalrymple, 23, walked into a store in Twentynine Palms and saw the Reuters picture on the cover of USA Today. It was the first photo she'd seen of her husband - wearing desert camouflage, a Kevlar helmet and a lot of grime - since he had left California a month earlier.

Shocked and excited that her husband was on the front page, she scooped up a couple of keepsake copies. He finally saw the photos when he returned to Twentynine Palms almost two months later.

In 2004, he became a Marine CID agent, and the couple has moved to South Carolina.

A Marine since 2000, Dalrymple re-enlisted on March 27 for another four years. He said he's staying in "for the long haul."

Ellie