The last 36 hours felt spotty. Just 36 hours since he had been hit in his tank in Fallujah, Iraq, and had been airlifted to the Regional Medical Center in Landstuhl, Germany.

Although his hearing had returned shortly after being hit, he was still blind.

Now he wanted to talk to his wife. He didn't want her to worry.

He planned to joke with her on the phone: "Hey, you'll never guess where I'm at."

It never occurred to him that the Marines had already broken word to her, or that on their 13th wedding anniversary--April 8, 2004--their family and friends were watching news footage of him covered in blood, being pulled from his tank by a crew member.

His injury, she told him, was making headlines.

He was the Cigar Marine, from the picture that had come to symbolize the fall of Baghdad.

"I heard they took your right eye out," April said.

"They did?" he said, reaching up to the bandages on his face. "Yeah. I guess they did."

April strained for any hint of something he wasn't telling her, something wrong.

But he didn't sound that odd. He sounded like her Nick.

Facing reality

What did Nick look like? April wanted to know. So did their 10-year-old son, Nicholas. It was a subject the couple had talked about often in their near-daily telephone conversations as Nick prepared to return to California from Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, where he was recovering.

With his hand, Nick could only feel the injuries. He couldn't see them. Some sight was beginning to return in his left eye--but only in black and white. Color would have to wait weeks longer.

One night, Nick finally confessed his fear to April. He couldn't see what he looked like. But he had an image in his mind, a picture of a scarred and disfigured face.

April told him she loved him--the man, not the face.

"You can look like Freddy Krueger. I want you here with me," she told him.

She got her first look when Nick arrived at the Balboa Medical Center in San Diego. She didn't bring her sons. She wanted to know first.

It was bad--but not as bad as he or April or their sons had imagined. He had gaping holes around his right eye, stitches in his face. His left eye was still filled with blood.

Now Nick had other questions. When could he return to the Marines, to his tanks? He was already working on the mental preparation he knew it would take to overcome the loss of his right eye and command a tank crew.

Once the doctor operated on his eye, he got the answer. Shrapnel had lodged itself on the optic nerve of his left eye and damaged it. He would never operate a tank again. His sight would improve little, if at all. He had lost 92 percent of the vision in his remaining eye.

His career was over.

But in that ending lurked a new beginning. For their entire marriage, the Marines had dictated where the Popaditches lived. Now, they could go anywhere.

April got to choose. She picked Monterey, a small northern California coastal town. It was a beautiful place, a place they had enjoyed together on vacations. It was also a small community that they believed Nick could navigate.

It was April 8, 2005--14 years after they were married, two years after Nick became the Cigar Marine, one year after he was wounded. On that day, he and April finished packing the boxes to leave the base at Twentynine Palms.

Popaditch had done his job, and now he and the Marines were parting ways. But that didn't mean the next anniversary, in 2006, would be entirely untouched by the ripples of war. Early April wasn't done with Nick Popaditch quite yet.

Part 2: 'We regret to inform you'

Part 3: Coming Home To Uncertainty

Part 4: Wounded War Vet Starts Life Anew

Back to Main Gunny Popaditch Page

Email --
Web -- http://www.cigarmarine.com