Heroics illustrated, comic-book style - Marine Corps News | News from Afghanistan & Iraq - Marine Corps Times

Heroics illustrated, comic-book style

Blazing guns, explosions, epic battles and superheroes are common elements of most action comics. But in a new comic series debuting this month in Marines Magazine, the heroes are Marines, and the stories of combat are unembellished, real-life accounts of how they earned valor awards.

“Sharing the Courage” is more than just entertainment. Its creators hope the series will serve as inspiration.

“It’s important for young Marines to see their contemporaries rallying, going toward the sound of the guns and laying it all on the line for what we believe in,” said Sgt. Kristopher Battles, a combat artist and the series’ author.

The first episode features Sgt. Maj. Brad Kasal, who received a Navy Cross for actions with Weapons Company, 3rd Battalion, 1st Marines, during the 2004 fight for Fallujah, Iraq. And although the story is drawn in a comic style, Battles was quick to say it is carefully researched and accurate.

“We are trying to run a hybrid between the comic book — with its straightforward method of communication — and realism, so we say this is a real act of heroism,” he said. “These are not super-men — or super-Marines. They are ‘everymen’ in extraordinary circumstances.”

The inspiration for the first episode was a now-iconic image taken by freelance photographer Lucian Read. In it, Kasal is being evacuated from what became known as “Hell House,” a building where Marines engaged insurgents in heated face-to-face combat.

While clearing the building, Kasal was shot seven times. He was then sprayed with 40 pieces of shrapnel from a fragmentation grenade that exploded as he treated a wounded Marine. Despite his own wounds, Kasal refused immediate evacuation, instead shouting encouragement to his comrades while ensuring other casualties were evacuated first.

Compelling details like these are often lost in dense and sometimes dry medal citations, but a comic telling allows for more inspiring accounts, said Staff Sgt. Paul Kane, the public affairs Marine in charge of coordinating the series’ production.

“The primary purpose of this new program is to take acts of heroism by Marines and Navy corpsmen out of the confines of seldom-read award citations and put their heroism into view,” Kane said.

The graphic series is the brainchild of Col. Bryan Salas, the Marine Corps’ top public affairs officer. He thought of the idea while deployed to Iraq in 2006, when he first met Battles. Salas picked up the effort in earnest after taking the reins as the Corps’ director of public affairs in June.

“My guidance was to tell these stories in a medium that Marines could consume easily — maybe something they can cut out and stick on their bulkhead, their ship locker, or put up in their office,” Salas said. “It’s a great opportunity to tell the story of these Marines in a format that might be easier and more enjoyable for others to take in.”

When Salas approached Battles about the project last August, the artist said he liked the focus on contemporary Marines who have fought in Iraq and Afghanistan. It was a break from the historical images he often produces for the Marine Corps History Division and the National Museum of the Marine Corps, and a return to the original function of combat art.

“In World War II, combat art was used to show the public at home the sacrifice of Marines in battle,” Battles said. “This is a return to that. It shows the contemporary heroism of today’s Marines.”

Kasal, after a long recovery involving more than 20 surgeries, is now an instructor at School of Infantry – West. In 2005, he told Marine Corps Times that he considers himself no hero. Like other decorated combat veterans, Kasal said he was just doing his job in Fallujah.

“Almost every Marine I’ve seen who’s decorated will say they were just doing their job,” Battles said. “But I will say to them they were obviously doing something above and beyond the call of duty. We aren’t trying to deify them. We are just trying to say thanks and show the value of what they’ve done. And share it with other civilians and Marines.”

The next episode in the “Courage” comic series will likely highlight Cpl. Jonathan Yale and Lance Cpl. Jordan Haerter, both of whom received the Navy Cross after they were killed by a suicide bomber in Ramadi, Iraq, on April 22, 2008.

Yale and Haerter were manning the gate of a joint security station filled with Marines and Iraqi security forces when a 20-foot tanker truck loaded with explosives sped toward them. They riddled the vehicle with bullets, prompting the driver to detonate his payload before he could ram the base. The incident, in which they saved at least 50 people, was caught by a security camera that shows them defending their checkpoint without hesitation.

Future editions of “Sharing the Courage” can be seen in Marines Magazine, an official Marine Corps publication printed four times a year.

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