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"If you do this, I will own you forever."

Watson is haunted by the words he believes heard the dead soldier say as he took the photo that would win him the Pulitzer Prize.

In 1993, Canadian photojournalist Paul Watson took a photo of a dead soldier being dragged through the streets of Mogadishu that changed the way American citizens looked at the realities of war.

THE BODY OF AN AMERICAN tells the story of a photograph that had a major impact on American foreign policy. We thought we'd expand upon this by offering the stories behind other influential and iconic photographs of war. Please click through our gallery below:

While shooting a propaganda film for the Nazi party, Heinrich Himmler was confronted by a Prisoner of War at a work camp in Minsk. The identity of the POW is disputed; theories suggest it's either Royal Air Force man Horace Greasely or an unidentified Soviet soldier.

Raising the Flag on Iwo Jima caught the image of five Marines and a Navy corpsman raising the U.S. Flag atop Mount Suribachi after the Battle of Iwo Jima in WWII. Three soldiers would die just a few days later in action. This image served as the model for the Marine Corps War Memorial and is possibly the most reprinted photograph in American history.

After President Harry S. Truman announced that the war with Japan had ended, celebrations broke out in the streets. Alfred Eisenstaedt took four photos of a sailor kissing a nurse, after her white dress caught his attention. The identity of the sailor and nurse remain unknown, although a total of 15 people have claimed the honor.

General Nguyen Ngoc Loan gained international attention after being photographed executing a suspected Viet Cong member. Photographer Eddie Adams won a Pulitzer for the image but later regretted its impact, saying: "I killed the general with my camera. Still photographs are the most powerful weapons in the world. What the photograph didn't say was, 'What would you do if you were the general at that time and place and you caught the so-called bad guy after he blew away one, two, or three American soldiers?'"

Phan Thj Kim Phuc, her family and fellow villagers ran from a napalm blast dropped by South Vietnamese soldiers mistaking them for North Vietnamese soldiers. After capturing the photo, Nick Ut rushed the children to Barksy Hospital in Saigon. The photo won a Pulitzer and was chosen as the World Press Photo of the Year for 1972. Ut on the photo: "The picture for me and unquestionably for many others could not have been more real. The photo was as authentic as the Vietnam War itself."

On the third day of the Kent State protests, Mary Ann Vechio knelt near the body of Jeffrey Miller, a 20 yr. old Kent State student shot through the skull by the Ohio National Guard, dying instantly. John Filo, a student at the time, took the photo. "I dropped my camera in the realization that it was live ammunition. I don't know what gave me the combination of innocence and stupidity... I started to flee--run down the hill and stopped myself. 'Where are you going?' I said to myself, 'This is why you are here!'"

The morning after the Chinese military suppressed the Tienanmen Square protest, a lone man stood in front of tanks advancing toward the square. Tank man, as he became known after the image spread, managed to stop the tanks for almost 15 minutes before being dragged off the street and into obscurity. This image is among others of the Tienanmen Square protest that are still censored in China.

Not much is known about the photographer of this photo, who captured a Russian war veteran as he rediscovered the tank he had fought in. The tank, unbeknownst to him, had survived the war and was turned into a monument.

At 9:41 am, Richard Drew captured a man falling to his death from the North Tower of the World Trade Center. At 8:46 am five hijackers crashed American Airlines Flight 11 into the North Tower. Estimates vary on how many people jumped or fell out of the towers. Ten years later, Drew reflected on 9/11, "I never counted how many people I photographed falling from the building that day. I have never looked at it as an iconic picture. I’ve looked at it as an ‘Unknown Soldier’ that I hope represents everyone who had that same fate that day.”

Often compared to 'Raising the Flag at Iwo Jima,' Thomas E. Franklin’s photograph caught three New York firefighters raising an American Flag at Ground Zero, following the attacks. The flag has since been lost.

For years, prisoners complained of abusive treatment at the Abu Ghraib prison. In a 2004 General Taguba’s Report revealed that the Army had already been investigating the abuse and released photos. The photos, taken by U.S. soldiers, came to wide attention after being aired on CBS' 60 minutes and show multiple instances of abuse.

The U.S. national security team gathered to watch the progress of the raid on Osama Bin Laden's home and his death. Taken by White House Photographer Pete Souza, The Situation Room shows some of America's top leaders at 4:06 pm, about the time they learned that one of the raid's helicopters had crashed.

United States soldiers were conducting a search operation for Taliban members in the Wardak province of Afghanistan when AP photographer Rafiq Maqbool captured this photo of an Afghani man sharing cups of green tea with the soldiers.

In 2004, private military contractors were escorting food carriers through Fallujah, Iraq when insurgents ambushed the convoy. The insurgents dragged their charred bodies through the streets and eventually hung them from the bridge where Khalid Mohammed took the photo. This ambush sparked the First Battle of Fallujah.

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