Supposedly, US Marine Nicholas Popaditch; retired gunnery sergeant and tank commander from San Diego; was wounded by a rocket-propelled grenade in Fallujah, Iraq on his second tour of duty there.  He lost his right eye and it was replaced by a prosthetic eye with the Marine Corps’ emblem as the lens and pupil.

This has the feel of an urban legend to me because you do not find this story on any of the news services, but it is all the rage in blog slog.  The credit for the photo at the top of this post is Greg Sorber of the Albuquerque Journal.  I could not find this story or this picture in the Albuquerque Journal.  I Googled “Albuquerque Journal Greg Sorber Popaditch.”  Every link a clicked took me to a different story and none of them had anything to do with a Marine or a prosthetic eye.

This photo looks clearly doctored to me, what do you think?

 
Nick Popaditch is real enough, though, I feel safe in saying.  He is “The Cigar Marine.” 

I think I have found the source of the story on defendamerica.mil.   However, no glass eye with a Marine emblem in the center.  Sorry. 

 
The eye patch is cool though, don’t you think?