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A celebrated book and a major museum exhibition revealed the harrowing tale behind the image of a wounded Marine. Their version was wrong. ============================================================== The fighting in Hue City, Vietnam, was as intense and confusing as anything the Marines there had ever seen. It was mid-February 1968, and American and South Vietnamese forces were desperately trying to counter a surprise onslaught that became known as the Tet offensive. First Battalion, Fifth Marines had breached the city’s historic Citadel. Radio communications were out. From front-line positions, Marines ran back a block or two to give updates to commanding officers and to...

MARINE CORPS RECRUIT DEPOT SAN DIEGO (March 10, 2006) -- Giving up the fame of the football field at 29 years old, one Company B recruit looked for a glory that was more permanent than any trophy. At age 13, Pfc. Jeremy Staat was 75 inches tall and weighed 230 pounds. It seemed as if he was built for football, according to Staat. “I really didn’t have to work hard at it,” said Staat. Starting as an offensive lineman, Staat grew as a football player and saw his first glimpse of the Marine Corps not long after starting at Arizona...

BAGHDAD, Apr 18, 2003 (Knight Ridder Newspapers - Knight Ridder/Tribune News Service via COMTEX) -- At times, I felt like Bonnie with 1,000 Clydes. Traipsing some 500 miles all over Iraq with the First Battalion, Fourth Marines, and stepping, deliberately or accidentally, into one gunfight after another, I might well have been. The Marine unit I was with was on or very near the front lines for three weeks during the U.S.-led charge to Baghdad. It set off from a tent city in northern Kuwait in mid-March and settled at a cigarette factory in east Baghdad on Wednesday. The road...