A man whose anguish was immortalized in a famous photograph as he learned a body bag contained his friend is still troubled and bitter.

A mother runs out of tears, angry that Saddam Hussein survived the war but her son did not.

A former soldier continues to feel the effects of shrapnel wounds and wonders why he was spared but his boyhood friend was not.

A little girl grows up without a father.

On Jan. 16, 1991, United Nations Forces led by the United States launched Operation Desert Shield, a 43-day war to liberate Kuwait from the forces of Saddam, the Iraqi president. More than 400 U.S. military personnel lost their lives in the war, 147 of them killed in action.

Hundreds of area residents served, most in support roles as four reserve units were called up.

Five Western New York soldiers lost their lives. Two died in combat and two others in accidents during the military buildup of Desert Shield. One death was determined by the military to be a suicide. At least three area residents were wounded.

Perhaps the single most dramatic image to come out of the war was that of a wounded soldier from Orchard Park.

A photographer riding in a medevac helicopter captured the moment when Ken Kozakiewicz, his arm in a sling, learned that the body bag in the chopper contained a member of his platoon. The heart-wrenching photo, taken during a war in which the military controlled nearly every image, appeared on front pages across the country. It came to symbolize the war for many.

Today, Kozakiewicz, 33, lives in an apartment in the Kaisertown section of Buffalo and works in the receiving department of Home Depot in West Seneca.

He is haunted by memories of the war, and looking at the picture just makes them worse.

"It captured a moment in time, and it just happened to be me," he said. "It was one of the few times in my life that I've cried.

"I became know as the guy in the picture . . . but I wish there wasn't such a picture (that the war had never happened)."

Kozakiewicz, an Army sergeant, suffered a broken hand from the shell that pierced the Bradley Fighting Vehicle.

He said he didn't find out until later that the barrage that killed two and wounded about 10 others was friendly fire, that a U.S. tank commander had mistaken their vehicles for Iraqi vehicles and opened fire.

That, of course, made it all the more difficult to deal with.

"I still have flashbacks, trouble sleeping sometimes," he said. "But it's gradually getting better."

Kozakiewicz joined the Army soon after graduating from Orchard Park High School and had thoughts of making it a career. The Desert Storm experience caused him to get out after seven years.

He looks back on the war now and says it wasn't worth it.

"We were fighting for the price of oil. . . . What did we accomplish? . . . We didn't accomplish what we set out to do (remove Saddam)."

A mother who lost son

Theresa Snyder of Kenmore visited Kuwait 18 months after her son, Marine Lance Cpl. David T. Snyder, was killed. She said her visit helped affirm her feeling that he had given his life for a just cause.

"I met a Kuwaiti woman who told how Iraqi soldiers raped her daughter and took her twin sons away and she never saw them again," she said.

"I had felt (prior to the trip) that we were there for a good reason, and that enforced it even more."

But she is an angry woman.

"After I couldn't cry anymore, I got mad," she said. "But I'm not sure what I'm mad at. Someone had the nerve to take my kid away."

But she's haunted by two facts.

"Saddam Hussein is still walking around, and my son lies buried next to his grandmother," she said. "I would like to see that man dead."

She said she tries not to let her anger eat away at her. David's death has put everything else in perspective, she said.

"The worst thing in life that could happen to me has happened. Everything else is, like, so what?"

And she's able to laugh at herself, saying she has "healthy insanity."

The oldest of her three sons, the graduate of Kenmore West High School, who was 21 at the time, was killed Jan. 29, 1991. He also was the victim of friendly fire, also when his armored vehicle was fired on by mistake.

But she harbors no grudges against the U.S. soldier who mistakenly killed her son.

"He has to live with that the rest of his life," she said of the pilot responsible.

Her husband, Mark, isn't as talkative but shares many of his wife's feelings.

"I can't be bitter," he said. "Bitter at what? It's not going to change anything."

He said his son "always wanted to be a Marine" and "was doing what he wanted to do."

Referring to the scholarship fund established in his name at Kenmore West, he said David "is still contributing."

The family found comfort from the outpouring of public support in the days following news of his death.

"I've got a trunk full" of letters of support from as far away as China, Theresa Snyder said. For a while, the post office was making three deliveries a day.

"Dave's Corner" occupies the front of their house with pictures, medals and plaques of their son. It has been called a shrine, and his mother doesn't object to the reference.

Some of David's friends still drop by, and they remember the good times.

"It's good to talk about him. He's still part of the family," she said.

"You can't cry forever."

Wounded veteran

Scott Phanco has his own weather forecasting system: The arthritis in his right ankle starts kicking up when a storm is on the way.

He's only 33, and the arthritis will only get worse as a consequence of the shrapnel wounds he suffered when a Scud missile slammed into his barracks in Saudi Arabia on Feb. 25, 1991. Even a year later, he was still plucking hunks of medal out of his ankle.

But Phanco, an Army reservist from Jamestown who volunteered for Desert Storm, was one of the lucky ones: The blast killed 26 people, including his friend, Thomas Stone, also a Jamestown High School graduate.

Phanco, who now lives in Russell, Pa., and is still in the reserves, said he was actually closer to the point of impact than Stone as he lay in his sleeping bag prior to going on guard duty.

"It was a miracle I survived. I wish we all could have. But I'm not bitter about it," he said.

Phanco, who works as a warehouse foreman, said he's not particularly religious .

"But there has to be reason," he said of his own survival. "God has something planned for me."

So far, he said that has involved being a good father to his wife's two daughters from a previous marriage.

A dead soldier's daughter

Tom Stone left behind a wife and daughter, and then the little girl lost her mother as well.

Kelly M. Stone, 21, was killed in a one-car crash less than two years after her husband's death, leaving 3-year-old Cassandra.

Kelly Stone's mother, Sandra Miller of Falconer, is raising Cassandra, now a sixth grader.

"She's doing just fine, growing up fast," Miller said.

"She a normal, happy kid. She bowls, plays the piano and French horn. We keep her real active."

She said Cassandra remembers her mother but doesn't have a real remembrance of her father.

"But we have pictures all over the house and we don't let her forget her parents," she said.

"She's very proud of her father. He's her hero."