A picture has been circulating on social media for years, its publishers claiming that it is of a soldier carrying a donkey in a minefield, for fear that the animal would take any wrong step and cause the death of those in the field.
The moral of this story, according to its publishers, is that it must "Bear around us to protect ourselves".
The truth – according to Agence France-Presse – is that this story is a figment of the imagination of its authors. The picture taken in 1958 in Algeria depicts a soldier carrying a donkey on his shoulders after being exhausted by hunger.
An advanced Google search turned up an archived copy of this photo on a newspaper "Daily Mirror" British Popular on September 19 of the year 1958, on the front page under the headline "The Donkey Who Joined the Foreign Legion".
The article dealt with a story "The soldier who takes on the most arduous missions"According to the newspaper, Pvt "A member of the French Foreign Legion…his heart ache for a little donkey abandoned by his mother in Algeria". The newspaper continues that the soldiers who were on patrol in Algeria, and the donkey, which was very weak and unable to complete the road in the footsteps of the soldiers, was carried by the soldier shown in the picture to his military base instead of leaving it in the field.. The article does not mention the mines planted in a field. .
