The Face Of Haditha

Frank Wuterich led the Marines accused of the massacre in Iraq. He talks here for the first time.

Frank Wuterich knew before he finished boot camp that he didn't want to be a Marine for life, but he may wind up one anyway. Wuterich is the central suspect in the Iraq war's most notorious massacre, at Haditha, where 24 Iraqis were killed by U.S. Marines--Marines led by Wuterich. During his first media interview, the former high school band member and honor student is exceedingly polite. Wearing jeans, black sneakers and a light blue polo shirt, he shows a visitor around his two-story semidetached house at Camp Pendleton in southern California, patiently answers questions and waits good-naturedly for a photographer to set up his equipment. There is no military paraphernalia cluttering his home, which is filled instead with family pictures, knickknacks, and souvenirs from his wife Marisol's sorority days. His 4-year-old daughter is just up from her nap, and he kisses her forehead. He allows Marisol, who is expecting their third child in January, to finish his sentences.