Let's honor the soldiers for who they really are and what they've really experienced

This is an important article: The War Within by Matthew B. Stannard San Francisco Chronicle 01/29/06.

It's about 21-yr.-old James Blake Miller of Kentucky, whose face became famous during the Battle of Fallujah in late 2004, a determined-looking, cigarette-smoking Marine. "The Marlboro Man" is how it's referred to. Dan Rather called it "the best war photograph in recent years".

Miller is now back home in Kentucky. He has been diagnosed as suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). He was honorably discharged from the Marine Corps after the incident he described to Stannard. After his tour in Iraq, he was deployed to New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina:

Not long after they arrived, as Hurricane Rita bore down on them, the Marines were packed into the amphibious assault ship Iwo Jima to wait out the storm offshore. And one day, as Miller headed for the smoke deck with a Marlboro, a passing sailor made a whistling sound just like a rocket-propelled grenade.

"I don't remember grabbing him. I don't remember putting him against the bulkhead. I don't remember getting him down on the floor. I don't remember getting on top of him. I don't remember doing any of that s -- ," Miller said. "That was like the last straw."

On Nov. 10, 2005 - the Marine Corps' 230th birthday and one year to the day after the Marlboro Man picture appeared in the Los Angeles Times, Miller was honorably discharged after a medical review.

Miller and his wife Jessica talked at length with Stannard about his experiences. This is not the kind of article that the Pentagon likes to see. But it's not prowar or antiwar in itself. It's about an important reality of war and its very real costs.

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