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ST. PETERSBURG - The future Marine's father trained him to clip the finger holes of his combat gloves so he'd have more control over his gun's trigger.
So when Lance Cpl. Michael L. Jernigan appeared in last week's Time magazine, wearing the telltale gloves while clutching an M-16 in a firefight in Fallujah, his family knew it was he.
In the photo, the soldier is out of focus and unidentified, but Jernigan's mother, stepfather, wife and brother are so certain that it is he, they have bought 16-18 copies of the May 10 issue, at some places clearing the racks.
Lance Cpl. Jernigan, 25, a St. Petersburg High graduate, is one of three to four fighters pictured responding to an ambush in the city where four U.S. contractors were killed and their bodies burned or mutilated, said family members from St. Petersburg.
"I just automatically, once I saw it, knew it was him," said J.P. Jernigan, 23, his brother. "You just have to know the Jernigan nose."
Jernigan is one of about 80 men from the third platoon of Easy Company's 2nd Battalion, 2nd Marines, which Time tracked for the story about the skirmishes that continued in Fallujah even after the United States agreed to a cease-fire.
Photographers trailed the Marines from their arrival in the city April 24 to their departure about 10 days later, said Tracey L. Willis, 50, Jernigan's mother. They took the photo while the men, heavy weapons drawn, were crouched and ready for combat.
For Willis, the image is bittersweet. She is framing it for relatives and since then has spoken to her son by phone. But she is aware that danger was just outside the frame. The article says that two days earlier, seven Marines were killed on the same road they were traveling.
"I just think to myself the last thing I want to do right now is look out my window and see a Marine Corps sedan or an Air Force sedan coming from MacDill" to inform the family that Jernigan has been wounded or killed, Willis said.
At the same time, Willis said, she is proud. "At the time that this whole thing happened about terrorizing Iraqi prisoners, I thought he's a hometown boy doing something positive, if any aspect of war can be considered positive," she said.
"Here's a St. Pete boy doing what he's supposed to be doing over there. Obviously, we're not supposed to be torturing prisoners."
Jernigan's journey to Fallujah began when he left his job bartending at the Don Cesar and enlisted in the Marines on his 24th birthday, Oct. 18, 2002.
He is a second-generation descendant of veterans and always wanted to join the Marines. He was sworn in at a Tampa ceremony by his father, Michael V. Jernigan, 53, a retired Army major, who is working in Europe as a civilian intelligence air specialist with the Department of Defense.
After boot camp, infantry school, a tour in Okinawa and an assignment to Camp Lejeune, N.C., Jernigan went to Iraq on March 2. Nearly three weeks ago, he called his wife Rebekah, 25, to say that he was being sent to Fallujah.
When the story about his company appeared in Time, his father called Willis from Germany and read her the story from Time's Web site. But he couldn't see the photos and didn't realize his son was featured.
Willis and her husband, Bob Campbell, 50, went to Barnes & Noble to buy two copies of the magazine but didn't look inside until Rebekah told them Michael was inside. They carry copies in their car to show people around town.