Thanks to embedded reporters and around-the-clock coverage, even the most casual of observers are bombarded with dozens of pictures of nameless U.S. servicemen fighting in Iraq every day.

But the face of one of those men, Maj. David Gurfein, could have been seen closer to the Syracuse University Quad than Umm Qasar about 20 years ago. Gurfein, a member of the First Marine Expeditionary Force fighting in southern Iraq, graduated from SU in 1987. He appeared in an Associated Press photograph tearing down a giant poster of Iraqi President Saddam Hussein after securing a village in the opening day of the conflict. His mother, Vivien Gurfein, recognized her son first on television and later in the photographs.

His mother said that Gurfein tore down the poster knowing it was a sign of oppression for the Iraqi people and then gave villagers fruit and food to let them know the Marines meant them no harm, Vivien Gurfein said. The villagers received the soldiers warmly, even giving them kisses to express their thanks, she added.

The Associated Press reports that Gurfein’s unit is currently involved in an intense fight in An Nasiriyah, south of Baghdad. Gurfein called his parents Saturday morning at about 2 a.m. to tell them they may receive media inquiries and to let them know he was OK.

“He said it has mostly been pretty rough going, and they are going to be headed toward Baghdad and reaching the goal, but he couldn’t be any more specific,” Vivien Gurfein said.

At 17, Gurfein became involved in the Marines when he joined after high school and went to boot camp the summer before his freshman year at SU. He kept up with his training and upon graduation fully enrolled, Vivien Gurfein said.

After enrolling in SU, he remained involved with the Marines throughout college. Gurfein enrolled as an art student but switched over to major in political science and public speaking because, as his mother put it, he did not appreciate the lack of focus that his art colleagues exhibited.

Gurfein saw combat in Panama and the Gulf War before going back to school to receive a graduate business degree from Harvard University in 2000, Vivien Gurfein said. After the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, Gurfein felt his service was needed once again.

“He went into civilian life for a while, but after 9/11 he was horrified at what had happened and asked his Marine commander to go back,” she said.

After rejoining, Gurfein fought in the conflict in Afghanistan, where he earned a bronze star before he was sent to Iraq.

“His main creed in life is to help the underdog,” Vivien Gurfein said. “He doesn’t like to see people bullied.”

Although some throughout the United States have protested the war, including students in the SU Quad on Wednesday who did not agree with Gurfein that he is helping people be rid of a bully, his mother worries that some protesters are not involved for the right reason and they are protesting because it may be something hip to do.

“He is fighting so that the people here have the privilege to voice opinions pro and con,” she said. “He realizes that it is this mixture of ideas and beliefs that makes America strong.”

Although Gurfein was a student on campus roughly 20 years ago, students who could someday be involved with the United States’ war on terrorism can be seen walking through the same Quad today in the form of the Reserve Officers Training Corp at SU.

Col. Mark Perodeau, commander of the Air Force ROTC attachment at SU, said the overall reaction to ROTC during the conflict in Iraq and the time leading to the conflict has been respectful with only a few incidents of students being yelled at.

The same kind of media coverage that brought pictures of Gurfein in southern Iraq has been used by ROTC in discussing the war, Perodeau said.

“The media coverage brings some of the most difficult aspects of what we do face-to-face,” he said.

One person who knew Gurfein when he was at SU, as the ROTC students are now, was Rabbi Yaakov Rapoport, director of the Chabad House in Syracuse. Rapoport met Gurfein because Chabad House and the Marine Corps would sometimes sit next to one another at university events where groups would set up tables to provide information.

“Marines have to be people of stamina and as an officer, they have to have a strong amount of character,” he said. “I was very impressed with him.”

Rapoport thought of Gurfein again in the summer of 2001 when he went to Israel and through a friend, met Gurfein’s half-brother who is a rabbi in Jerusalem.

Rapoport saw Gurfein’s picture in the paper and recognized the Marine he hadn’t seen since graduation. Rapoport is confident that men like Gurfein are the right people to be fighting the war.

“If I had to go into a situation like that, I would want him there to back me up,” he said.

Published on March 26, 2003 at 12:00 pm