Near the front door, the framed front page of a newspaper bears a picture of him atop his tank, smoking a cigar. In the living room, there's a framed photo of Nick and his wife and a poster blaring a message about a Marine's duty. Underneath an end table sits a cigar box given to him by well wishers, members of the NYPD.

Each tells a piece of the story, a story that began for Nick and April on their 12th wedding anniversary with the fall of Baghdad, and continued on their next anniversary when the Marine gunnery sergeant was badly wounded in Fallujah, and ended the following anniversary with his departure from the Marines.

This year, as they celebrate the 15th anniversary of their April 8, 1991, wedding, Nick and April Popaditch are still picking up the pieces.

"When you're wounded, you replay the events 100 times over in your head. 'What could I have done differently?'" Nick said recently. "'What could I have done that would make it turn out OK?'"

He always comes to the same conclusion: nothing.

"Every once in a while, somebody gets a lucky shot off," he said. "That day, I was in the way. You have to learn to live with that."

Finding a new home

When the Popaditches left Twentynine Palms, Calif., for Monterey, they wanted to start a new life. They wanted a place that Nick, now legally blind, could easily navigate; a place where Nick, April and their son could spend time together as a family. A place where the Cigar Marine could smoke the occasional cigar in peace.

But they discovered that a vacation paradise does not necessarily translate to a place to live.

"We didn't really like it there," says their son, Nicholas, now 12. "They don't like the military there."

He talks about the protesters who hung an American flag upside down on the beach. About the hard looks his father got from people.

"We got up there," Nick Popaditch said, "and it didn't feel like home."

The Popaditches moved to Monterey in April 2005. They packed up four months later and moved south to San Diego, near military bases and the Balboa Medical Center.

Nick is learning to accept his limitations. He can't drive anymore. He uses a monocle to help him with daily activities he once took for granted--like crossing the street.

But his son says he's more easygoing, more involved in his life. "I like that," he says.

Enrolled in a San Diego college, Nick is working toward becoming a teacher. As a Marine gunnery sergeant, he taught his men to take care of themselves. Now he wants to help high school students find their way.

Studying is difficult, writing papers tough. Nick uses a computer with software that magnifies the words and has an electronic voice that repeats the letters as he types them.

April only recently began to understand how her husband now sees the world. With only 8 percent of his vision in his left eye, he says it's like looking at a puzzle--one piece at a time.

He doesn't talk about it, but she knows Nick misses the Marines. Recently, she took him to bid farewell to members of his old unit as they deployed to Iraq.

"He was smiling and laughing with everybody," she said. "But when we got in the car, you could tell."

On this anniversary, April Popaditch says, she doesn't want to spend time with the Cigar Marine. She just wants to hang out with her husband, the man with whom she spent many April 8ths long before their anniversary became a flashpoint for unasked-for intensity.

Just a little bit of time with nothing to intrude on them. No moving days. No deployment. No hospitals. No watching the news and wondering.

And for the first time in too long, no war.

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