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<p>The young Marine lighted a cigarette and let it dangle. White smoke wafted around his helmet. His face was smeared with war paint. Blood trickled from his right ear and the bridge of his nose.</p> <p>Momentarily deafened by cannon blasts, he didn't know the shooting had stopped. He stared at the sunrise. His expression caught my eye. To me, it said: terrified, exhausted and glad just to be alive. I recognized that look because that's I how felt too.</p>

Times photographer Luis Sinco made James Blake Miller an emblem of the war. The image would change both of their lives and connect them in ways neither imagined.

PIKE COUNTY MARINE IS HOME, LIVING, COPING AND HEALING By Jim Warren HERALD-LEADER STAFF WRITER LONG FORK - The steep mountainsides in western Pike County are painted in the drabbest of winter browns and grays now, but already there is a feeling in the air that the land is ready to break out with spring color in a few weeks, bringing new life, new hope.Maybe that's a good omen for a young man back home after surviving the meat grinder of Iraq but still struggling to cope with the psychological shocks of all he's seen and done, shocks that ultimately...

(CBS) In November 2004, a photo of a U.S. Marine made the front page of newspapers across the country. The picture is still one of the best-known images of the war. But the man himself has moved on, and is having trouble adjusting to civilian life. Lance Cpl. Blake Miller of Jonancy, Ky., came to be known as the "Marlboro Marine" when his picture was splashed across the nation. The attention didn't get him any special privileges, and he served his entire combat tour before he and his unit were ordered home. The Early Show co-anchor Harry Smith was there...

Miller is the young man whose gritty, war-hardened portrait appeared Wednesday in the Los Angeles Times, taken by Luis Sinco, a Times photographer traveling with Miller's unit: Charlie Company, 1st Battalion, 8th Marine Regiment. In the full-frame photo, taken after more than 12 hours of nearly nonstop deadly combat, Miller's camouflage war paint is smudged. He sports a bloody nick on his nose. His helmet and chin strap frame a weary expression that seems to convey the timeless fatigue of battle. And there is the cigarette, of course, drooping from the right side of his mouth in a manner that...