PDA

View Full Version : Mystery Marine back in Iraq



thedrifter
04-09-07, 09:23 AM
Mystery Marine back in Iraq
After 4 years, leatherneck in historic photos identified
By Beth Zimmerman - Staff writer
Posted : April 16, 2007

On April 9, 2003, as a tow chain hooked to a Marine amtrac pulled down the larger-than-life statue of Saddam Hussein in downtown Baghdad, embedded 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, 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.

More likely than not, that Marine would have become just as famous as the image itself — except captions accompanying the photos didn’t include his name.

The image was one in which “an individual becomes the symbol of many,” said Jerome Delay, the AP photographer. The Marine in the photo symbolized the entire U.S. effort there, he said.

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

Sgt. Kirk Dalrymple, 26, pushed into Baghdad in 2003 as an assaultman with the Twentynine Palms, Calif.-based 3rd Battalion, 4th Marines. Now a Criminal Investigation Division agent stationed at Marine Corps Air Station Beaufort, S.C., he’s on his second deployment to Iraq.

Dalrymple — originally from Jacksonville, Fla. — said he had no idea photographers captured the moment. In was a chaotic scene, and Baghdad’s Firdos Square was filled with jubilant Iraqis.

“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, who was 22 at the time, 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. Immediately after, he remembers Iraqis jumping on it.

The same vehicle that had pulled the statue down backed up, and Dalrymple and other Marines with the battalion’s Headquarters Company moved on foot to the Palestine Hotel while others with 3/4 pushed farther into the city, Dalrymple said.

Because of the mayhem at the time, “the last thing I had in mind was to get a notepad and get his name,” Delay said.

On the day after, April 10, Elizabeth Dalrymple, 23, walked into the seven-day store at Twentynine Palms and saw the Reuters picture on the cover of USA Today, she said. It was the first photo she’d seen of her husband — wearing desert cammies, a Kevlar helmet, flak and more than one layer of grime — since he had left California in March, she said. Dalrymple said later he hadn’t showered since leaving Kuwait almost a month earlier.

Shocked and excited that her husband was on the front page, Dalrymple’s wife scooped up a couple of keepsake copies, while relatives on both sides of their family picked up copies of local newspapers that ran the image and sent it to the couple, she said.

The Dalrymples still have the newspapers — complete editions — in a crate in their home in Beaufort for safekeeping, Elizabeth 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.

Marine administrative officials have confirmed that Dalrymple is indeed the Marine in the photo. Personal information marked on his helmet matched his information.

In 2004, Dalrymple transferred from the infantry to work as a Marine CID agent, and the couple moved from California to South Carolina last January.

Dalrymple deployed in November to Al Asad Air Base, where he works for the Joint Prosecution and Exploitation Center, he said. He declined to go into detail about his work there. CID agents, in general, conduct criminal investigations and interviews while deployed.

A Marine since 2000, Dalrymple re-enlisted March 27 for another four years — and he said he’s staying in “for the long haul.”

Back at Beaufort’s air station, the photo that marked such a historic point sits in a simple 8x10 black frame on a shelf in the Dalrymples’ living room, along with other photographs of the sergeant’s buddies in Iraq and the couple’s 2002 wedding.

The Dalrymples realize their daughter, now eight months old, will likely see the photo of her father in textbooks.

“We talk about that all the time, because we know in her lifetime she’s gonna be learning about the war,” Elizabeth said.

Ellie