The Chargers are taking criticism for editing a photo of Army soldiers holding a San Diego Chargers’ flag in 2014. The team tweeted the photo during the league’s “Salute to Service” week, but not until after cropping the bottom of the flag that read “San Diego.” It also cut out one solider -- Minh Tran -- who was laying down in front of the flag.
Army Sgt. First Class Johnny Case arranged the photo while the soldiers were in Afghanistan.
Case grew up in the San Diego area as a die-hard San Diego Chargers fan. He has tattoos of the letters SD and a lightning bolt.
“For them to do that to my picture, and not even ask, to crop out one of our guys . . . it was like, ‘Wow, of course they’re going to do that,’” Case said, via Tod Leonard of the San Diego Union-Tribune. “They have this spite for San Diego, but it’s not about San Diego. It’s a soldier. It’s Veterans Day. You cropped out a veteran.
“I was [mad], but I guess social media had my back and took it over for me.”
A Chargers spokesman told the Union-Tribune that the team should not have cropped the photo and noted that the Chargers “have a long history of supporting service members and their families.”