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February 2, 2008

Dalton soldier featured in oft-used Army photo

By Misty Watson

Benjamin Thomison is known as such a prankster to his friends and family that they didn’t believe him when he told them a photo taken of him in the fall of 2005 was being used on Army merchandise and promotional items.

Thomison actually found it a little hard to believe himself.

“I have no idea how (the photo) got spread around,” said Thomison, 22, a former Murray County High School student now living in Dalton and attending Dalton State College.

The photo is a silhouette of six soldiers in full Army gear holding guns. Thomison, who left the Army last year, said it was taken on top of an ammo bunker once used by Saddam Hussein about 30 miles north of Baghdad in Iraq.

Thomison was in the second month of his second tour of duty in Iraq and had recently been moved to the area north of Baghdad when the photo was taken.

“We went to look around, checking out the environment,” said Thomison, who was with the 101st Airborne, 3rd Brigade “Rakkasans.”

“We took several pictures. That’s all we did, take pictures to send to our friends and family,” he said.

Thomison said one of the soldiers, though he doesn’t remember the man’s name, said “look at me” and took the picture that can now be seen on several Army bumper stickers, postcards, magnets and posters.

“It wasn’t anything planned,” Thomison said. “He took the picture and I went and put it on my laptop and sent it to (his grandmother Jean Crisp). We e-mailed it to family and friends. We all put it on our computers and MySpace pages.”

Crisp was excited to see the photo used.

“Everyone I showed loved the picture and said, ‘I’m going to use it as my computer screen saver’” and desktop, she said.

A lieutenant had it placed on the Army’s Web site for a while, Thomison said, “but that’s the last I heard about it.”

Thomison said he liked the picture, but didn’t think much of it until he went to visit an Army friend recently at Fort Campbell, Ky. At the post exchange on base, Thomison “bought my own picture.”

He said he “freaked out” when he saw it.

Thomison called his girlfriend, Laura Elkins, about the merchandise, but she didn’t believe him.

“He said they used that picture for all kinds of things, and I didn’t believe him,” she said. “Then he brought it home and showed us.”

Thomison left the Army in February of last year to attend college and be with his family, but he plans on re-enlisting after finishing a degree in environmental science.

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