A Marine from Indiana whose smiling, cigar-smoking image helped symbolize the fall of Baghdad a year ago suffered severe head injuries in fighting this week in the besieged Iraqi city of Fallujah. Gunnery Sgt. Nick Popaditch, 36, of Terre Haute, marked Friday's one-year anniversary of the fall at a U.S. military hospital in Landstuhl, Germany. Surgeons removed a piece of shrapnel that lodged near his optic nerve when a rocket-propelled grenade slammed into his tank Tuesday in Fallujah, his wife said Friday. ``He had to have his right eye removed. He's very concerned about that,'' April Popaditch said from Twentynine Palms, Calif., where her husband is based. She said they spoke for 45 minutes after his surgery ended. ``I cried to him like anyone would to their loved one. Everything just came out,'' she said. She said she told him, ``I thank God that you have your two arms and two legs. I thank God for the wonderful Marines who were right around your tank to get you off to safety.''
| And we thank him for his brave service. |
April Popaditch spent their wedding anniversary a year ago watching video footage of her husband's tank in Baghdad. An Associated Press photograph captured him smiling and holding a cigar in his hand with a statue of Saddam Hussein looming in the background shortly before it was toppled. His company finished its Iraq tour last year, but he joined another company that left for the region at the end of February, April Popaditch said. It was sent to Fallujah, where four Americans were killed and mutilated last week. Fighting this week in Fallujah has killed four Marines and more than 280 Iraqis. ``He is one of those Marines who has his hand raised anytime there's something overseas,'' April Popaditch said. ``He says he goes for the people we lost on September 11.'' Popaditch probably will be moved to a hospital in the United States within a few days, said Maj. Daniel Smith, executive officer of the 1st Tank Battalion based in Twentynine Palms. Losing an eye will end Popaditch's tank career, Smith said. ``He's been in the tanks enough, so he will be fine with that,'' April Popaditch said, but she added she hopes her husband can continue in the service.
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