Surviving the Shadows by Bob Delaney

Author:Bob Delaney
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Sourcebooks
Published: 2011-04-04T04:00:00+00:00

Dr. Bengt Arnetz at Wayne State University.

CHAPTER NINE

Defining Moment

“Photography deals exquisitely with appearances, but nothing is what it appears to be.”

—Duane Michals

I remember when I first saw the photo—a riveting battlefield image of a U.S. Army private in full combat gear cradling a wounded Iraqi boy. It was the morning of March 26, 2003, and I’d just opened the door to my hotel room in Salt Lake City, where I was in town to officiate a game between the Utah Jazz and the Portland Trailblazers. I looked down at the copy of USA Today by my feet and saw the picture splashed across the front page. Then I took a closer look: the soldier—a young medic, Private First Class Joe Dwyer of the 7th Cavalry Regiment—had carried the child to safety following a brutal firefight one day earlier near the Euphrates River in the opening phase of the Iraq War.

I felt a surge of gratitude for his selfless act. While I was flying from Sarasota to Salt Lake to run up and down an NBA basketball court, he was running across a battlefield to save a life. Joe had rushed toward the four-year-old’s frightened uncle, who held his nephew and a white flag, and bolted back with the little boy to receive medical care. His courage spoke volumes about our troops as they pushed toward Baghdad and into the perils of frontline combat. No matter what political beliefs we hold, that kind of military sacrifice is worthy of our admiration and keeps our country strong.

In no time, the iconic scene captured by Army Times photographer Warren Zinn made the rounds in newspapers and other publications throughout the nation. The previously unknown enlistee was hailed as a hero—embraced as an uplifting symbol of the new war. The Army awarded him the Combat Medical Badge for his efforts during active ground fighting, although he downplayed the accolades and insisted he was just doing his job.

Back in the States, the close-knit Dwyer clan—parents Patrick and Maureen, a daughter, and four sons—had thought Joe was stationed out of harm’s way in Kuwait until they saw the photo in the paper, and they were shocked to learn that he was actually on the front lines. But they couldn’t have been prouder of the second youngest in the family—Joe had joined the Army on September 13, 2001, just two days after the attacks on the World Trade Center, eager to do his part in the mission to strike back against the terrorists. Even so, they were feeling a little overwhelmed by the sudden media attention. In an era of instantaneous, 24/7 news, for a while, everyone wanted to know more about him.

But as the fighting intensified and America lost track of the brave medic, Joe soon slipped from the national radar. That is, until another headline surfaced on June 29, 2008. Somehow, in barely five years, the tale of his inspiring battlefield rescue would shift into a tragic narrative about the ravages of PTSD.

This is the

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.