Notorious photo dogs Marine who was wounded in Iraq

Notorious photo dogs Marine who was wounded in Iraq
By Jennifer H. Svan, Stars and Stripes
Mideast edition, Sunday, June 01, 2008

His hearing isn’t as keen as it once was, and arthritis in his lower back is chronic.

He’s not an old man, just a 38-year-old U.S. Marine who tussled with death and won.

Marine Corps Master Sgt. Michael Burghardt of Fountain Valley, Calif., says it took him a long time to recover emotionally from surviving a roadside bomb in Iraq in September 2005. An explosives ordnance disposal expert, Burghardt was 12 inches from the blast.

Instead of counting his blessings that the shrapnel studded flat against his body instead of tearing through it, Burghardt was wracked by guilt.

The attention generated by the widely circulated photo of him flipping off the triggerman didn’t help.


Rest of article at: http://www.stripes.com/article.asp?section=104&article=55233



uhc comment: The pic in question -->