Фронтовой корр. прислал в редакцию - среди прочих репортажных снимков батальных сцен городских сражений - также и фото морпеха (marine), в горячке боя повернувшего видимо случайным образом на мгновение лицо в сторону фотокора:
Снимок этот произвел фурор и тут же был воспроизведен на обложках большого числа таблоидов, центральных и местных газет и показывается ровно в эти минуты чуть не по всем телеканалам. Ничего навроде бы и особенного на том портрете - измазанное маскирочной краской (да и просто чумазое видимо в копоти боя) лицо усталого, но не теряющего присутствия духа молодого, во всей к тому ему положенной экипировке (шлем и пр.) парня:
He looks like who he is - a fine Marine hero fighting for us on the front lines.
Но и при том одна деталь фото возможно оказалась тем самым контрапунктом сюжета, который придал портрету особый наверное не только для таблоидов ностольгический шарм. На краешке губ морпеха прилипла сигарета, еще даже и нераскуренная - не до того ему - видимо. Тут же узнали в редакции имя, откудова парень, какая у него замечательная семья и как он играл в школе перед уходом в арми. во все спортинвые игры, если только там с мячом надо было играть. Но и также - раз такое дело, гори огнем все табу - сломан оказался в СМИ антитабачный заговор молчания.
Сообщают в телерепортажах тому посвященных, к примеру по ФаксНьюз, что выкуривает этот симпатичный и сразу ставший всем родным парнишка по три пачки Мальборо в день. А на вопрос фото-корр. чего бы ему хотелось, ответил что был бы рад получить в подарок от фабрики Мальборо блок другой сигарет, да и вообще хорошо бы они стоили не так дорого.
Давно Америка таких речей в СМИ не слышала. Небось в корпорации "Мальборо" боссы верхнего эшелона власти бутылки с шампанским по такому поводу открывают, а ихние пиар/маркетинговые службы готовятся перейти на казарменное положение с безвылазно по офисам ихним проживания до полной отработки свалившегося с неба - неизвестно покамест еще правда чьими молитвами - золотого дождя фантастического по его в конечном счете коммерческому потенциалу прорыва к сердцам простых американцев.
PS. Выпустят вполне можно себе представить новую упаковку для "нового" - с дополнительно введенным в старый букет привкусом аромата пороховых газов свеже стреляной гильзы - типа сигарет Мальбора, с тем уже только морпехом вместо ковбоя. Пойдет по миру со свистом.
Update: Через несколько дней
spuller запостил в своем журнале свою версию про-Мальборо монтажа на базе вышепомянутого фото: http://www.alex-hartmann.net/lj/161104_marlboro.jpg
CNN разъясняет подробности распостранения взрывного распостранения волны интереса американцев к этому снимку:
Iraq photo gives Marine sudden fame
Monday, November 15, 2004 Posted: 10:17 AM EST (1517 GMT)
Lance Cpl. James Blake Miller: "I was just smokin' a cigarette and someone takes my picture and it all blows up."
PIKEVILLE, Kentucky (AP) -- An eastern Kentucky Marine whose battle-grimed face has quickly become a symbol of the fighting in the Iraqi city of Falluja says he doesn't understand what all the fuss is about.
But his mother is thrilled. Maxie Webber, of Robinson Creek in eastern Kentucky, said the close-up of Lance Cpl. James Blake Miller let her know that her son was OK.
Webber said she first saw it Wednesday on CBS.
"I just sat here and I thought, that's my son," Webber said. "I couldn't believe it."
The photograph, taken by a Los Angeles Times photographer and transmitted by The Associated Press, has been printed in more than 100 newspapers and shown on network television.
Miller, 20, is shown with smudged camouflage paint and a bloody scratch on his nose, a cigarette drooping from the side of his mouth. He was exhausted and grimy after more than 12 hours of nonstop fighting.
Miller, a graduate of Shelby Valley High School, is serving with Charlie Company of the 1st Battalion, 8th Marine Regiment in the Iraqi city of Falluja, scene of fierce battles over the past week.
He didn't know about the photo and his spreading fame until two Los Angeles Times staffers traveling with his unit told him about it.
"I was just smokin' a cigarette and someone takes my picture and it all blows up," Miller told them Friday.
The picture, which appeared in the Times on Wednesday, was taken on the afternoon after Charlie Company entered Falluja under intense hostile fire.
Miller and his fellow platoon members had spent the day engaged in practically nonstop firefights, fending off snipers and attackers, and hadn't slept in more than 24 hours.
"It was kind of crazy out here at first," Miller says. "No one really knew what to expect. They told us about it all the time, but no one knows for sure until you get here."
Waiting for a call.
He grew up in rural Jonancy, named after his great-great-great grandparents Joe and Nancy Miller, the first settlers in the area.
His father, James Miller, is a mechanic and farmer, and the young Miller grew up working crops of potatoes, corn and green beans. His mother is a nurse.
His mother said she stays home as much as possible in case he calls.
"I don't want to miss his call because you never know if that call will be the last one," Webber said.
She said she bought an answering machine in case Miller, the oldest of her three sons, calls while she's out. She has one message on the machine from August 1.
"And when I get lonely, and it's been a few days, I play that tape," Webber said.
Webber said her son's decision to join the Marines has changed the way she thinks about America.
"Until my son went into the Marines, I never really realized what that flag stood for -- but now I do," she said.
http://www.cnn.com/2004/US/11/15/marine.photo.ap
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See also the LA Times article:
November 13, 2004 E-mail story Print
THE CONFLICT IN IRAQ
Marine Whose Photo Lit Up Imaginations Keeps His Cool
By Patrick J. McDonnell, Times Staff Writer
FALLOUJA, Iraq — The Marlboro man is angry: He has a war to fight and he's running out of smokes.
"If you want to write something," he tells an intruding reporter, "tell Marlboro I'm down to four packs and I'm here in Fallouja till who knows when. Maybe they can send some. And they can bring down the price a bit."
Such are the unvarnished sentiments of Marine Lance Cpl. James Blake Miller, 20, a country boy from Kentucky who has been thrust unwittingly and somewhat unwillingly into the role of poster boy for a war on the other side of the world from his home on the farm.
"I just don't understand what all the fuss is about," Miller drawls Friday as he crouches inside an abandoned building with his platoon mates, preparing to fight insurgents holed up in yet another mosque. "I was just smokin' a cigarette and someone takes my picture and it all blows up."
Miller is the young man whose gritty, war-hardened portrait appeared Wednesday in the Los Angeles Times, taken by Luis Sinco, a Times photographer traveling with Miller's unit: Charlie Company, 1st Battalion, 8th Marine Regiment.
In the full-frame photo, taken after more than 12 hours of nearly nonstop deadly combat, Miller's camouflage war paint is smudged. He sports a bloody nick on his nose. His helmet and chin strap frame a weary expression that seems to convey the timeless fatigue of battle.
And there is the cigarette, of course, drooping from the right side of his mouth in a manner that Bogart or John Wayne would have approved of. Wispy smoke drifts off to his left.
The image, printed in more than 100 newspapers, has quickly moved into the realm of the iconic.
That Miller's name was not included in the caption material only seemed to enhance the photograph's punch.
The Los Angeles Times and other publications have received scores of e-mails wanting to know about this mysterious figure. Many women, in particular, have inquired about how to contact him.
"The photo captures his weariness yet his eyes hold the spirit of the hunter and the hunted," wrote one admirer in an e-mail. "His gaze is warm but deadly. I want to send a letter."
The photo seems to have struck a chord, as an image of America striking back at a perceived enemy, or just one young man putting his life on the line halfway across the globe.
Whatever the case, top Marine brass are thrilled.
Lt. Gen. John F. Sattler, commander of the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force, dropped in Friday on Charlie Company to laud the featured unit.
"That's a great picture," echoed Col. Craig Tucker, who heads the regimental combat team that includes Miller's battalion. "We're having one blown up and sent over to the unit."
Miller, though, has been oddly left out of the hoopla.
Sattler did not single him out during his visit. In fact, Miller only heard about it from the two Los Angeles Times staffers traveling with his unit.
He seemed incredulous.
"A picture?" he asks. "What's the fuss?"
What does he think about the Marines, anyway?
"I already signed the papers, so I got no choice but to do what we're doing."
The photo was taken the afternoon after Charlie Company's harrowing entry into Fallouja under intense hostile fire, in the cold and rain. Miller was on the roof of a home where he and his fellow 1st Platoon members had spent the day engaged in practically nonstop firefights, fending off snipers and attackers who rushed the building. No one had slept in more than 24 hours. All were physically and emotionally drained.
"It was kind of crazy out here at first," Miller says. "No one really knew what to expect. They told us about it all the time, but no one knows for sure until you get here."
In person, he is unassuming: of medium height, his face slightly pimpled, his teeth a little crooked.
Miller takes his share of ribbing as a small-towner in a unit that includes Marines from big cities.
And it has only increased as word of the platoon radio man's instant fame has spread among his mates.
"Miller, when you get home you'll be a hero," Cpl. Mark Waller, 21, from Oklahoma, says.
Miller is now obliged to provide smokes to just about anyone who asks. It's just about wiped out his stash.
"When we came to Fallouja I had two cartons and three packs," Miller said glumly, adding that his supply had dwindled to a mere four packs — not much for a Marine with a three-pack-a day habit. "I don't know what I'm going to do."
Even in the Marines, where smoking is widespread, the extent of Miller's habit has raised eyebrows.
"I tried to get him to stop — the cigarettes will kill him before the war," says Navy Corpsman Anthony Lopez, a company medic.
Miller, who was sent to Iraq in June, is the eldest of three brothers from the hamlet of Jonancy, Ky., in the heart of Appalachian coal country.
Never heard of Jonancy?
"It's named after my greatgreat-great grandparents: Joe and Nancy Miller," the Marine explained. "They were the first people in those parts."
His father, James Miller, is a mechanic and farmer, and the young Miller grew up working crops: potatoes, corn, green beans.
His mother, Maxie Webber, 39, is a nurse. She last talked to her son Sunday via a satellite phone. He could only speak for a few minutes, long enough to say hello and reassure his family.
After the U.S. attack on Fallouja began Monday, family members waited for some message that he was alive. Days later, they sat in shock as newscaster Dan Rather talked about The Times' photograph. Who is this man, Rather asked, with the tired eyes and a look of determination?
"I screamed at the TV, 'That's my son!' " Webber said.
Others in Jonancy, including his own father, didn't recognize the camouflaged and bloodied man as the boy they knew.
"He had that stuff on his face. And the expression, that look," said Rodney Rowe, Miller's high school basketball coach. "Those are not the eyes I'm used to seeing in his face."
Back in high school, Miller was an athlete, joining every team that played a sport involving a ball. The school, Shelby Valley High, is located in Pikeville, the nearest town of any consequence and the home of an annual three-day spring festival called "Hillbilly Days."
Miller was somewhat unsure what to do with himself after high school. His father never wanted him to work in the mines.
"He would have been disappointed if I did that," Miller says. "He told me it was awful work."
So Miller enlisted in the Marines in July 2003 after a conversation with a recruiter he met at a football game.
"What I really wanted to do was auto body repair," he says. "But before I knew it, I was in boot camp."
Now, he says, he is just trying to get through each day. His predecessor as platoon radio man was sent home after being injured in a car bomb attack.
Miller has three years remaining in active duty, but he appears disinclined to reenlist.
And he shrugs off suggestions he may cash in on his fame. "When I get out, I just want to chill out a little bit," he says. "Go back to my house, farm a little bit, do some mechanical stuff around the house and call it a day."
Oh, and one more thing: "I'll just sit on my roof and smoke a cigarette."
McDonnell is traveling with Charlie Company, 1st Battalion, 8th Marine Regiment, in Fallouja. Times staff writer P.J. Huffstutter in Chicago contributed to this report.
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/iraq/la-fg-marine13nov13%2C0%2C5449010.story?coll=la-home-headlines