Nick Popaditch stood
up in his tank, surveying the square with the giant white columns
and the statue.
Weeks before, he
and his crew had rolled from Kuwait into Iraq. They had battled
the elite Saddam Fedayeen, the dust and the heat.
Now, here they were
in Baghdad, parked in their tank near a 40-foot statue of Saddam
Hussein.
Looking around at
the Iraqi people waving and cheering, Popaditch was handed a
cigar by a fellow Marine who had carried it through the invasion.
Popaditch wasn't a regular cigar smoker. But this was a big
moment.
With his upper body
protruding from his tank's hatch and the statue of Saddam behind
him, Popaditch smoked. As he enjoyed the moment, he smiled.
It was his moment to celebrate. Unknown to him, it was also
a moment captured by an Associated Press photographer.
Back home, his wife
saw the picture of the man the media dubbed the "Cigar
Marine," who was on the front pages of newspapers
across the country. For America, the picture came to symbolize
the fall of Baghdad. For April Popaditch, it represented something
else--their 12th wedding anniversary.
Wedding anniversaries
represent a renewal of a promise. They are a reminder to honor
and cherish one another, to love another in sickness and in
health. They are celebrations of what has been and what is yet
to come.
For the Popaditches,
that day in 2003 began a series of anniversaries marked by war,
love and loss.
Making headlines
When Nick deployed
to Iraq in 2003, the couple had already experienced war. They
married a few days after he returned from the 1991 Persian Gulf
War. They had two sons, including a stepson from a previous
marriage.
From the moment
the bombs started to fall, April was glued to television news
reports for information about the 1st Tank Battalion. From the
reports, she and her sons knew there had been some Marine casualties,
and she knew they weren't in her husband's unit.
Then came that live
news footage--the tanks in Paradise Square, the tanks surrounded
by jubilant Iraqis. April watched in California during the waning
hours of her anniversary, straining for a glimpse of her husband.
He's there, she thought. Nick's there.
She watched as the
Iraqis tried to topple the statue with a sledgehammer. She watched
as a Marine scrambled up the statue, placing a chain around
its neck, and covered the face of the dictator with an American
flag. Minutes later, he replaced it with an Iraqi flag.
She watched as the
Marines helped topple the statue, and as Iraqis pelted it with
garbage and shoes and dragged the head through the streets.
Nick watched, too,
from the middle of the square, surrounded by people.
That morning, he
had wondered what his wife was doing. He wondered if he would
be able to call home to wish her a happy anniversary. He hadn't
talked to her since the beginning of the war.
Now, in the square,
Iraqis hugged him and shook his hand. He saw the news cameras
filming him, and wondered if his wife and sons were watching.
Shortly after the
statue was toppled, several Portuguese journalists shook Nick's
hand. Then they pushed a phone into his hands, telling him to
call home.
"The first
thing I wanted to tell her was 'turn on the TV' so she could
see me," he said.
But when April answered
the phone, she already knew the story. Now she wanted to hear
his voice, hear how he was doing. She wanted him to know she
loved him.
Five months later,
Nick came home. But soon he would be making headlines again.
