WITNESS - Sergeant William Bee, May 18, 2008

Born in Belgrade in 1969, Goran Tomasevic started working for Reuters as a freelance photographer in 1996 during the anti-Milosevic demonstrations. He was based Baghdad during the Iraq conflict, in Jerusalem during tense times between the Israelis and Palestinians, and is now senior photographer in Egypt. In the following story, he recalls a rare sequence of split-second shots he took of a U.S. Marine in Helmand Province, Afghanistan.

By Goran Tomasevic

GARMSIR, Afghanistan (Reuters) - If I hadn't already been pointing the camera at the Marine when the bullet hit the wall, there is no way I would have been able to react quickly enough to take those pictures.

Moments earlier I had been lazing around in Afghanistan's blistering desert heat, fending off waves of giant ants, wondering when I might get to test my new 24 mm lens.

Gunshots rang out from beyond the perimeter of the compound the U.S. Marines were guarding in the district of Garmsir, a Taliban stronghold in Helmand province, the biggest opium-producing region on the planet.

I grabbed my boots and cameras and ran to look. The Marines had spotted some Taliban moving around the compound some 200 metres away.

I took a quick look over the wall but couldn't see any Taliban. Then the gunfire began again. The Marines opened up with heavy machine guns. The Taliban answered back with single shots.

Having covered half a dozen wars, I was pretty sure the incoming fire hitting a wall near me was from a Russian-made Dragunov sniper rifle.

I thought I'd better go back and put some trousers on. I also grabbed my flak jacket, helmet and some water. As soon as I got outside the firing erupted again.