Corps reopens investigation into controversial photo

Marine Times ^ | April 19, 2004 | Laura Bailey

[optimistically_conservative]

The Marine Corps is reopening its investigation into a controversial photo circulating on the Internet after the reservist pictured in the image said the photo was altered from its original state. The image shows a smiling Marine Lance Cpl. Ted J. Boudreaux Jr., posing with two Iraqi boys. All three have their thumbs up and, in the version that spurred the initial Marine Corps investigation, one of the boys holds a cardboard sign that appears to read “Lcpl Boudreaux killed my Dad, th[en] he knocked up my sister!”

Reserve officials began an investigation into the circumstances of the photo last month after seeing it on the Internet. Now, Naval Criminal Investigative Service officials will be brought in to help determine the authenticity of the photo, Marine Forces Reserve officials said in a press release Monday.

The investigation was in its final review the week of April 11 when Maj. Gen. John J. McCarthy, commanding general of the 4th Marine Division, reopened it to take a closer look into whether the photo is authentic, said Capt. Patrick Kerr, a Reserve spokesman in New Orleans.

At question is whether the digital image was manipulated so that the statement on the cardboard sign was altered from the original photo.

The same version of the photo that spurred the Marine Forces Reserve investigation was forwarded via e-mail April 2 to the Washington-based Council on American-Islamic Relations. The council, which describes itself as America’s largest Islamic civil liberties group, issued a press release calling for a Pentagon investigation into the photo.

The man pictured in the photo is Boudreaux, a reservist with Headquarters and Service Company, 3rd Battalion, 23rd Marines, Reserve officials have confirmed. The New Orleans-based infantry unit deployed to the Kut area of Iraq in May and returned home in mid-September.

Other versions of the photo began appearing on Internet sites during the past week.

In one version posted at www.imagedump.com, a Web site that allows users to upload photos, the sign says “Lcpl. Boudreaux saved my dad th[en] he rescued my sister.” Another reads “My country got invaded and all I got was this lousy sign.”

Kerr said Boudreaux maintained throughout the investigation that the photo was altered by someone else.

[optimistically_conservative]

Snopes

Previous Thread: Marines to Tell Reservist of Photo Probe

[battlegearboat]

"Don't get eliminated!"

[sailor4321]

You don't suppose Boudroux killed the sister and knocked up the brother, do you? Surely the Clinton years couldn't have changed the Corps that much!

[optimistically_conservative]

If he knocked up the brother, the Clinton years would have had to change not only the Corps but fundamental biology.

[oldironsides]

You can find many of these altered photographs on anti Bush sites. bartcop,smirking chimp etc. They take ap photo's and doctor them all the time.

[philman_36]

There is so much potential Boudreaux/Thibodeaux joke material here that it isn't funny.
That damn Thibodeaux. It's all his fault for taking that picture!

[optimistically_conservative]

That threw me and, of course, I had to find out what you were talking about. For all those not aware of who Boudreaux and Thibodeaux are: http://purplecats.tripod.com/cajunbaskets/id13.html