DoD Error: Publishes, Pulls Poignant Photo

[babylonsister]

Makes me wonder if this soldier died...:-(

http://www.iraqslogger.com/index.php/post/3210/DoD_Error_Publishes_Pulls_Poignant_Photo

DoD Error: Publishes, Pulls Poignant Photo
Half the Picture, the Whole Story: Why Image was Yanked from Pentagon Web Site
Posted 2 hr. 1 min. ago


Here is the right half of the original photo, which was pulled from the DoD Web site June 15 -- two days after it was posted.
DoD photo by Cherie A. Thurlby

A tipster was moved by the original version of this Dept. of Defense photo, posted on the Pentagon Web site June 13, but was surprised and disappointed to see the photo vanish from the Web site two days later.

The image showed a somber-looking Defense Secretary Gates in Germany at the bedside of a US soldier wounded in Iraq who was on a respirator and who apparently was unconscious or asleep.

The picture was part of this photo gallery
http://www.defenselink.mil/photoessays/photoessay.aspx?page=1&id=357&4357=20070614&Count=12
showing Gates presenting the Purple Heart to wounded soldiers that day at a US military hospital.

Two days after the photo was taken and the photo gallery was posted on the Pentagon Web site, the photo disappeared from the photo gallery and the DoD Web site without explanation.

Before it vanished, the image was described this way on the DoD site:

Secretary of Defense Robert M. Gates pauses after presenting the Purple Heart to (the soldier's name and rank) at Landstuhl Regional Medical Center in Germany, June 13, 2007. Defense Dept. photo by Cherie A. Thurlby.

more...