personally, i find this disrespectful. i dont like the pictures u cose somethimes =/
as far as the piece itself goes, it is very basic. i wouldn'r even call this a manipulation infact. what you are doing is very simple, and requires little to no skill. try to impress us more with more interesting stuff.
it seems like you tried to hide a lot of parts by darkening it on the left. becasue of that, it looks like you are trying to hide some errors on that side. on the bottom right part, it looks like a lot of cloning. not too nice. kind of ruins that part.
overall, i would have liked to see a different theme, and different approach. i dont like the fact that you took a soldier, and messed him up. i find it very disrespectful. the manipulation is basic, and needs work =/