The U.S. Marine Corps was quick to cast doubt on Lance Cpl. Hunter Clark. Now, they're changing their tune — nearly one year after Clark said he was one of the soldiers filmed saving a baby at Hamid Karzai International Airport.
The footage shows Clark helping take the baby from Afghanis terrified by the imminent Taliban takeover and making sure it cleared the concertina wire separating the frightened crowd from the last U.S. soldiers left in the war-torn country.
One month later, Clark appeared onstage with former President Donald Trump where he told an adoring crowd “I am the guy that pulled the baby over the wall, and it's definitely, probably, one of the greatest things I've ever done in my entire life.”
Despite video evidence, officials in the Marine Corps cast serious doubt on Clark's claim, saying emphatically, at the time, that he was not the soldier who hoisted the baby to safety and that they could not confirm if he even appeared in the video.
Officials were so convincing that the defense industry news outlet Task & Purpose issued a correction to its original report on Clark, saying the young Marine did not carry the baby to safety as he stated. In fact, Clark was telling the truth the whole time. Clark and another Marine made sure the helpless infant got over the barrier.
An Instagram account for Clark's unit, 1st Battalion, 8th Marines, posted a picture to mark the one-year anniversary of the now-iconic video. The post lists all of the soldiers involved, including Lance Cpl. Clark. Responding to press inquiries, a Marine official confirmed that Clark was indeed there, risking his life at the Kabul airport perimeter.
Upon closer inspection, Task & Purpose corroborated that the video shows Clark holding Gunnery Sergeant Zachary Kapinus who precariously leans over the makeshift U.S. defenses to grab the baby. Kapinus then hands the newborn off to Clark as it dangles atop the coiled barbed wire. Clark then carries the baby to relative safety.
Task & Purpose further reports:
For the Marine Corps, this is quite a walk back from Sept. 30, when 24th Marine Expeditionary Unit spokesman Capt. Kelton Cochran told Task & Purpose that Clark “cannot be confirmed to be one of the Marines pulling a baby over the wall in that particular instance.”
Cochran also said that Clark was not one of the Marines in the video whom Corps officials had been able to identify so far.
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This is not the first time that the Marine Corps has had to backtrack earlier statements about an iconic image. On Feb. 23, 1945, Associated Press photographer Joe Rosenthal captured the moment when Marines raised the American flag on Iwo Jima's Mount Suribachi.
The picture quickly became one of the most famous images from World War II, but in 2016 the Marine Corps determined that one of the six flag raisers was Marine Pfc. Harold Schultz and not Navy corpsman John Bradley, whose son co-wrote the book “Flags of our Fathers” about the event.
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The Marines must be Biden Brain Washed too.
I doubt it,The Marines were most likely ordered to be there by their superiors. I don’t think too many Marines would associate themselves with Biden by choice.
Thank you for protecting the baby that is no able to protect and take care of themselves. Also, thank the parents who put their baby’s life in the hands of the United States Marine Corp.
Interesting the lengths the Biden DoD will go to to discredit a military member who attended a Trump rally. They would prefer to honor military personnel who organize drag-queen shows among the U.S. troops.