For soldier's family, heartache without end

For soldier's family, heartache without end
A soldier's blood from an iconic photo is permanent not only for his widow, and for a daughter he never saw, but touches the Oklahoma City tragedy

June 25, 2012

NOBLE, Okla. — Catherine Alaniz wasn't prepared for the sight. Three months after she buried her husband and one month after she gave birth to their daughter, the 19-year-old widow saw his blood on the cover of Parade magazine.

The Associated Press photograph became world-famous instantaneously and was published in newspapers and magazines around the world as a symbol of war's devastation.

In one of the most iconic battlefield images ever captured on film, two wounded Operation Desert Storm soldiers in an evacuation helicopter have just learned who's in the bloody body bag at their feet. It's their friend and Catherine's high school sweetheart, Andy Alaniz.

The photo eventually helped Catherine learn the truth about how her husband died and that the government had lied to her about it.

Throughout the ordeal, her parents were her support staff. She and Andy were married so briefly and he was deployed to the Middle East so quickly, they didn't have a chance to get their own place. So she lived with her parents and moved with them from Texas to Oklahoma City when her father got a promotion.
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