Marine in Helicopter with his Homemade Flag
Subject: US Marine
Photo: Ray Petersen
TSQ Location: Book 1.2, Short Story section, page 107
This photo is by far my favorite, and luckiest, photo I had ever taken as a Combat Photographer. This was taken in the Pacific Ocean when my unit was heading back to Okinawa. We were stationed on an LHD (which is basically a small aircraft carrier). Our Air Combat Element wanted to put together this small air show for the unit. And I originally wasn’t assigned to cover this event, but I wanted to anyways cause I wanted to see what kind of shots I could get.
I was standing on the top deck on the ship, which was known as Vulture’s Row because it was the main observation deck that the officers would use when watching aircraft take off and land. And I was standing there and I was watching a few of the UH-1N Huey Helicopters taking off and I saw the Machine Gunner, at the back of the row holding this American Flag that he must have made from a broomstick. And I instantly switched to my 200mm lense and zoomed all the way in and took the shot. The funny part about it was that I was the only photographer there that got this shot. So it made a lot of my fellow photographers jealous.
- Ray Petersen
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