The Associated Press came under intense criticism earlier this month for producing a photo of Lance Cpl. Joshua Bernard, a 21-year-old Kane'ohe Bay-based Marine, moments after he was struck by a rocket-propelled grenade on Aug. 14 during a Taliban ambush in southern Afghanistan. Bernard later died on the operating table.

Every news organization that subscribes to the AP was faced with the choice of running the bloody photo — that showed his fellow Marines trying to keep Bernard alive — or withholding it and choosing others from a package AP provided. The Associated Press defended its decision, saying "we feel it is our journalistic duty to show the reality of the war there, however unpleasant and brutal that sometimes is." The AP said the photo represented Bernard's service, sacrifice and heroism to his country.

AP photographer Julie Jacobsen, who was embedded with the Marine unit that was attacked, said she never hesitated when deciding whether to shoot the photo.

"To ignore a moment like that simply ... would have been wrong. I was recording the impending death, just as I had recorded his life moments before..." she said. "Death is a part of life and most certainly a part of war. Isn't that why we're here? To document for now and for history the events of the war."

AP did not release the photo until after Bernard's burial in Maine, even though Bernard's father asked that the image not be distributed.

Before the picture was released, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates said he begged AP's CEO and President Tom Curley not to release the photo. After it ran, Gates wrote an angry note to Curley.

"Why your organization would purposefully defy the family's wishes, knowing full well that it will lead to yet more anguish, is beyond me," Gates wrote. "Your lack of compassion and commonsense in choosing to put this image of their maimed and stricken child on the front page of multiple American newspapers is appalling."

Although many newspapers, including this one, ran the AP story about the attack on the troops of Golf Company, 2nd Battalion, 3rd Marines in Helmand province, very few chose to carry the picture in print. Several ran it only on their Web sites.

Ultimately, editors here could not see a compelling reason to show the bloody image. A photo of Bernard, with his rifle trained at possible Taliban targets, ran on the front page of our Sunday, Sept. 6, paper. Inside, we ran a touching photo of Bernard's memorial service. The story itself was rich in detail.

Taken together, readers had more than enough information to determine what happened in battle that day.