Marine to sign copies of book

By Diana Cox

Thursday, Nov. 6, 2008 | midnight

Popaditch

On April 9, 2003, a photograph of a Marine smoking a victory cigar in his tank with a silhouette of a statue of Saddam Hussein in the background moved across the Associated Press wires and became famous. Gunnery Sgt. Nick Popaditch, the Marine in the photo, became "The Cigar Marine."

A year later, Popaditch was severely wounded in the first battle of Fallujah, which ended his 16-year career as a Marine and pushed him toward recording the events in a book, "Once a Marine."

Popaditch, who also served in the first Persian Gulf War, will share his story and sign copies of his book at 7 p.m. Nov. 12 at Barnes and Noble at 567 N. Stephanie St. He will also be at the Marine Corps League Leatherneck Club, 4360 W. Spring Mountain Road, from noon to 4 p.m. the same day.

On April 6, 2004, Popaditch's tank led a unit into the Jolan District of Fallujah, an insurgent stronghold. About 1 p.m. he was hit in the head with a rocket propelled grenade.

RPGs are bigger than a hand-held grenade, travel about 350 miles per hour and are designed to explode in one direction, he said.

The insurgents who fired on Popaditch's tank were in a pair: One had fired an RPG that hit the tank, and Popaditch saw that one. The next one, from the second shooter, he only heard.

"They make a hissing sound, like a snake," he said. He knew immediately what had hit him.

The injury left him blind and deaf, but he stayed conscious and continued giving orders, he said. The other two men in his tank were also injured in the battle, but they all pushed ahead until they could get to a medical station.

"We were leading the attack," Popaditch said. "There was a tank behind us. You can't just back up and go back the way you came."

Popaditch was awarded a Silver Star and the Purple Heart for the effort.

A large chunk of shrapnel penetrated his right temple and lodged behind his left eye.

His helmet saved his life, he said.

Popaditch still has that helmet.

"You can see where the rocket hit it, but it didn't break," he said. "It didn't break the helmet."

After finding a medical unit and being treated, Popaditch was flown to a hospital in Germany.

It was 10 days before he could see vague images again. The first thing he saw was a nurse fixing the linens on his bed. He heard her come in and instinctively looked in the direction of the sound.

"I was so shocked, I said 'I can see you,'" he said.

Three weeks later he was flown home to the U.S. and underwent surgery at Balboa Naval Hospital to remove shrapnel from behind his left eye and the optic nerve. It took almost four months for his eye to drain the blood it was filled with.

Popaditch ended up legally blind, with only 8 percent vision in his left eye and total loss of his right one, which he lost. He is deaf in his right ear, has no sense of smell and has balance problems. He was medically retired from the Marine Corps.

He holds no animosity for the person who caused his injuries, who he thinks probably had been a member of Hussein's Republican Guard.

"He was a professional military member, just like me," he said. "This isn't about blood lust and hatred. It was his job. I was trying to kill him, too."

Popaditch wrote his book as a way of saying thank you to all of the people who helped him and his wife and two children, but he said the writing also became an unexpected form of therapy.

"You have to be honest and you have to dig deep into things — even the things you aren't proud of," he said.

Popaditch is now studying at San Diego State University to become a teacher, but he said it hasn't been easy.

"As time goes on and you settle back into your routine, that is when you realize how much your routine has changed," he said. "I was positive that I would get my sight back. One day I realized that 8 percent was all I was going to ever see."

Diana Cox can be reached at 990-8183 or diana.cox@hbcpub.com.