Marine Corps Moms

Eager to score points against President George W. Bush, US Representative John Murtha (D-PA) is calling the November 19 incident in Haditha "murder". He claims there is a "cover up." Over 40 news stories appeared Memorial Day weekend calling Haditha, "an atrocity" or "a massacre." Murtha says, Haditha "is worse than abu-Ghraib." Terrorist cheerleader and Cindy Sheehan associate Dahr Jamail is calling for the death penalty. The terror apologists of the Council on American Islamic Relations are calling for Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld to resign. Al-Qaeda terrorists from Zarqawi's group, Ansar al-Sunnah are circulating leaflets in Haditha congratulating "those who participated in exposing the dirty deeds of the Americans."

The liberal media is chiming in to make sure that Haditha is used to wear down support for our troops in Iraq - just as they did with abu-Ghraib. Peering through the media smokescreen few have noticed that all of the actual shooting eye-witnesses in the media's kangaroo court are local Iraqis - witnesses who are under constant threat from terrorists and whose motivations may be suspect. All the US witnesses currently quoted in the media saw events before or after the alleged shootings - but not the shootings themselves.

To keep this straight-forward, I'm taking this item by item. It proves there are false reports being told by some Iraqis as regards Haditha. Unfortunately, the AP and the MSM appear to be gleefully reporting them without checking their facts.

On Jan. 2, my friend Ben Mathes and I left Atlanta for Haditha, Iraq.

Our destination was Kilo Company, 3rd Battalion, 1st Marines for a rendezvous with Ben's son, Adam, then the executive officer of Kilo. Ben and I, both Presbyterian ministers, were serving as embedded reporters for a radio station out of Sacramento, Calif.

It took six days of Army and Marine checks and procedures, armored convoys and helicopter rides, to get to Haditha. Once there, we spent 10 days with Kilo Company at the headquarters they called Firm Base Sparta (an abandoned, now heavily fortified, schoolhouse), sharing their food, their quarters, and going on six combat patrols, four during daylight and two at night.

We would faithfully call in our radio reports, and then hang out with the Marines in front of the sheet metal fireplace they had constructed. The weather was cold. From the first patrol to the last, I was amazed at the relationship that existed between the Marines and the citizens of the town.

Local relations
Haditha is a tough place. Located on the Euphrates River, for the past three years it has been part of an insurgent infiltration pathway that begins at Qaim on the Syrian border and follows the Euphrates through Haditha, past Ramadi and then to Baghdad. But Kilo Company had greatly pacified the town the September before we arrived. Shops were reopening, and the relationship with Haditha seemed based on mutual respect and even at times affection as the Marines on patrol chatted up store owners. And we were invited into homes and served local bread and chai.

Children seemed taken with us, and the Marines enthusiastically played with them at every chance, sharing candy, giving piggyback rides and generally horsing around the way American soldiers have probably done in every war. We heard about the events of a few weeks earlier, of course, when an improvised explosive device destroyed a Humvee, killing Marine Lance Cpl. Miguel "T.J." Terrazas and wounding two others.

We knew there had been a Marine response following the explosion. We just didn't know what to make of it at the time, and there was nothing I picked up in the interaction between Kilo and the town that portrayed any bad feeling.

Now the world knows that civilian reports indicate some of these Marines may have gone too far in response and that investigations are under way.

Capt. Luke McConnell, a competent and respected officer who became a friend, has been relieved of command and let go from the Marine Corps. So has Lt. Col. Jeffrey Chessani, the 3rd Battalion commander, whom we met during our stay.

No one condones the shooting of innocent people, and if, I repeat if, that is what happened, the Marine Corps should take whatever methods are deemed proper to punish the guilty and protect the Marine Corps' integrity.

But it is a concern when some politicians and journalists seem to have already judged and condemned these young men before the investigation is complete.

Await the truth
U.S. Rep. John Murtha (D-Pa.), an opponent of the war, has even gone so far as to assign a motive --- "tremendous pressure" --- to the events, a kind of all-purpose acknowledgment of the perennial conditions of war, which neither exonerates those involved nor illumines much about the situation.

Of course there is pressure. Any vehicle you walk by, any change in contour in the earth can harbor an explosive device. It is constantly on your mind. But these young men behaved splendidly.

Several times, I saw individuals move ahead to check out an abandoned vehicle, willing to take the explosion themselves for the sake of their comrades. There was no panic, no overt fear, just trained and measured professionalism of the highest caliber that reflected well on the tradition of the Marines.

Articles and newscasts on the Haditha incident - and Murtha's comments - tend to paint a picture of trigger-happy Marines on a tirade, worn down by responsibility, angry and contemptuous of the local population. That image couldn't be more different from what we saw while in Haditha.

These were young men living in primitive conditions, but alive to the changes they hoped to bring to Iraq. More than once when we asked them about their mission there, we heard the phrase in one form or another, "I want to be a part of something good. I want to help these people toward freedom." If it sounds corny here, in Haditha it made your heart glow.

Before anyone rushes to judgment - especially politicians - condemning them or any military people for crimes against humanity, let's allow the investigators to have their time. Then, whatever their report, let's remember that only a few were involved in whatever happened Nov. 19, 2005.

If the allegations are true, they allowed the deep comradeship and affection of brothers-in-arms to morph into something blind and unthinking that should have been checked by their training.

It is a sad story all around, made sadder by the lives, both American and Iraqi, lost already and by the possibility of young lives still to face long punishment.

If Iraq comes through all this - I hope (as was said in "Saving Private Ryan") that they "earn it" nobly and proudly and stand for generations as a bastion of freedom in that part of the world - then that freedom, as always, will have been bought with a terrible price.

On Jan. 2, my friend Ben Mathes and I left Atlanta for Haditha, Iraq.

Our destination was Kilo Company, 3rd Battalion, 1st Marines for a rendezvous with Ben's son, Adam, then the executive officer of Kilo. Ben and I, both Presbyterian ministers, were serving as embedded reporters for a radio station out of Sacramento, Calif.

It took six days of Army and Marine checks and procedures, armored convoys and helicopter rides, to get to Haditha. Once there, we spent 10 days with Kilo Company at the headquarters they called Firm Base Sparta (an abandoned, now heavily fortified, schoolhouse), sharing their food, their quarters, and going on six combat patrols, four during daylight and two at night.

We would faithfully call in our radio reports, and then hang out with the Marines in front of the sheet metal fireplace they had constructed. The weather was cold. From the first patrol to the last, I was amazed at the relationship that existed between the Marines and the citizens of the town.

Local relations
Haditha is a tough place. Located on the Euphrates River, for the past three years it has been part of an insurgent infiltration pathway that begins at Qaim on the Syrian border and follows the Euphrates through Haditha, past Ramadi and then to Baghdad. But Kilo Company had greatly pacified the town the September before we arrived. Shops were reopening, and the relationship with Haditha seemed based on mutual respect and even at times affection as the Marines on patrol chatted up store owners. And we were invited into homes and served local bread and chai.

Children seemed taken with us, and the Marines enthusiastically played with them at every chance, sharing candy, giving piggyback rides and generally horsing around the way American soldiers have probably done in every war. We heard about the events of a few weeks earlier, of course, when an improvised explosive device destroyed a Humvee, killing Marine Lance Cpl. Miguel "T.J." Terrazas and wounding two others.

We knew there had been a Marine response following the explosion. We just didn't know what to make of it at the time, and there was nothing I picked up in the interaction between Kilo and the town that portrayed any bad feeling.

Now the world knows that civilian reports indicate some of these Marines may have gone too far in response and that investigations are under way.

Capt. Luke McConnell, a competent and respected officer who became a friend, has been relieved of command and let go from the Marine Corps. So has Lt. Col. Jeffrey Chessani, the 3rd Battalion commander, whom we met during our stay.

No one condones the shooting of innocent people, and if, I repeat if, that is what happened, the Marine Corps should take whatever methods are deemed proper to punish the guilty and protect the Marine Corps' integrity.

But it is a concern when some politicians and journalists seem to have already judged and condemned these young men before the investigation is complete.

Await the truth
U.S. Rep. John Murtha (D-Pa.), an opponent of the war, has even gone so far as to assign a motive --- "tremendous pressure" --- to the events, a kind of all-purpose acknowledgment of the perennial conditions of war, which neither exonerates those involved nor illumines much about the situation.

Of course there is pressure. Any vehicle you walk by, any change in contour in the earth can harbor an explosive device. It is constantly on your mind. But these young men behaved splendidly.

Several times, I saw individuals move ahead to check out an abandoned vehicle, willing to take the explosion themselves for the sake of their comrades. There was no panic, no overt fear, just trained and measured professionalism of the highest caliber that reflected well on the tradition of the Marines.

Articles and newscasts on the Haditha incident - and Murtha's comments - tend to paint a picture of trigger-happy Marines on a tirade, worn down by responsibility, angry and contemptuous of the local population. That image couldn't be more different from what we saw while in Haditha.

These were young men living in primitive conditions, but alive to the changes they hoped to bring to Iraq. More than once when we asked them about their mission there, we heard the phrase in one form or another, "I want to be a part of something good. I want to help these people toward freedom." If it sounds corny here, in Haditha it made your heart glow.

Before anyone rushes to judgment - especially politicians - condemning them or any military people for crimes against humanity, let's allow the investigators to have their time. Then, whatever their report, let's remember that only a few were involved in whatever happened Nov. 19, 2005.

If the allegations are true, they allowed the deep comradeship and affection of brothers-in-arms to morph into something blind and unthinking that should have been checked by their training.

It is a sad story all around, made sadder by the lives, both American and Iraqi, lost already and by the possibility of young lives still to face long punishment.

If Iraq comes through all this - I hope (as was said in "Saving Private Ryan") that they "earn it" nobly and proudly and stand for generations as a bastion of freedom in that part of the world - then that freedom, as always, will have been bought with a terrible price.

I am currently stationed here in Iraq and have been here for the past 11 months; I am an adviser to the Iraqis and meet them on a daily basis. I have been in many locations in the country and am involved on a daily basis together with the Iraqis fighting the insurgency.

The media manipulation by the insurgents is brilliant and extremely effective. The press has become a puppet for the insurgents; the insurgents know exactly what they are doing with these "massacres" (quoted here because the investigation has not been completed, nor have any charges been filed) and the political nightmare they will cause the current administration. Bodies are produced for film, and there is zero fact-checking by the media--the media eat up this "news" like there is no tomorrow. A couple of hundred bucks paid by the insurgents to a few guys/ladies in the town where this "massacre" occurred to make up some bad news and pine for the BBC's or CBS's or whoever's cameras is a nice month's salary for many and money well spent by the insurgency.

All the Arabs (Sunni and Shia), Kurds and Chaldeans I have come to know well here will tell you that Arabs are emotional people who tend to exaggerate. A lot. Experience has shown that "50 insurgents hiding out in XX location" is five, at most 10. "Three hundred dead" at the morgue is at most 40. "A huge cache with WMD" is 45-50 weapons. It is a cultural norm and is accepted over here as a norm. It is reported in the West as fact. With no fact-checking.

When we convoy, all in the town/village know when and where there is a bomb/IED/VBIED that is targeting coalition forces. This is not so true in Baghdad, but in the outlying towns all know. What is the culpability for those people in the village/town? Would the Marines be guilty in the U.S. under the same circumstances?

I do not know whether or not the Marines are guilty. A Marine's job is to "close with and destroy the enemy by fire and maneuver," and I can guarantee its effectiveness. But the insurgents have the ear of the press. Hopefully the politics will be put aside for the investigation and the facts will be told, whatever they may be.

Few people know what happened last November in Haditha. I first learned heard about it when the Associated Press called to ask if I was present. The answer was "no." But I do know how our troops typically act on counterinsurgency missions, how surprisingly honest they can be about mistakes they make in the field, and the lengths to which they go to avoid collateral civilian injuries when on patrol and conducting raids and ambushes. I also know about being on the business end of an accusatory finger, after having been wrongly accused of murder. I never denied the fistfight or that a man had died as a result. I admitted to it, but no murder was committed. I was nineteen at the time, and in the Army. That was an acute lesson on how bad press can chart a legal trajectory.

In the matter of Haditha, what we do know is that an investigation is underway. The results of that investigation have not been issued publicly and it is uncertain whether those results will include criminal charges. Because we have one of the only militaries on earth that actually investigates its own troops so openly, at the end of the day, we can and do hold our people to very high standards. Granted, in this case, apparently it took a media pry-bar to crack the lid, but we also have one of the only militaries in the world where a writer - even one who is flagrantly anti-military - can embed with combat troops.

The New York Times (May 31, 2006) printed its third in-depth story about a Marine squad accused of butchering civilians, falsifying subsequent reports and perpetuating a cover up. The information reported by the Times was based on the military's own investigation. The Times has given the story prominence by placing it in the top left-hand column of the front-page three times in a week.
If the "chattering classes" ever wonder why those of us in the military family sometimes bitterly resent the media they need look no further than this story. Those who are not in the military family may be surprised to learn that what we resent (speaking for myself anyway), is not the airing of honest facts that make the military look bad but rather what is not reported.
As an avid reader of the Times, what bothers me is that I've never seen even one recent story dedicated to the heroism of our troops given such prominence. Nor have I read a front-page headline about any medal award ceremony and the story behind it. Sure I've read the sympathetic accounts of loss and victimhood of military men, women and their families but not stories about heroic acts as worthy of attention in and of themselves. If there is such a thing as "anti-military media bias" it is not in how stories are reported. It is in what stories are ignored.
Who decided that acts of heroism no longer merit front-page treatment? In WWII they got front-page attention. It is as if the arts section never printed a positive review of a movie or play, or if the "sympathy" always came in the form of cautionary tales about how hard the life of actors is and the risks attendant on appearing in plays. It would make you wonder if the paper hated plays and movies per se.
Unless helped by their media, how can the nonmilitary reader of our best newspapers gain true insight into what sort of persons are wearing the uniform when--these days--so few members of our most influential readership personally know anyone in the military? The prominence of stories about military malfeasance absent stories on heroism creates an altogether out-of-whack impression.
When it comes to reporting on the military, it is as if we were back in the 1950s and the only time you saw a story on an African-American is when he or she committed a crime or was portrayed with condescension as a victim. Balance is finally more informative. Readers who are regularly informed about how heroic our Marines and other troops are most of the time would be more deeply shocked by a story about what appears to be a gross failure, far more shocked than if they believe that: "They're all like that." They are not.
What I would like to see is a rethinking of what is considered "news" when it comes to reporting the military. I don't want fewer stories about military failures. I want more stories about men and women who bring nobility and virtue to the grim and unlovely task of war.
For instance where is the front-page above-the-fold headline about Staff Sergeant Anthony L. Viggianni? He is one of the recently distinguished heroes of the Marine Corps, awarded the Navy Cross--the second-highest military award--on the parade deck of Parris Island on February 24, 2006. Was a Times reporter sent to Parris Island to cover the ceremony? If not, why not? Reporters cover literary awards, humanitarian awards and entertainment awards ad nauseam. We know why Jack Nicholson won his Oscar and for what movie and what he had for breakfast.
Who's values dictate that a Navy Cross is less important than, say, a Pulitzer, Oscar or Penn award? Why is nobility in the face of adversity less of a story than what Ms. Hilton wore to an MTV dinner? SSgt. Viggianni was awarded his Navy Cross for his actions in Afghanistan in June of 2004. He had been fighting Taliban and al Qaeda remnants that were killing teachers and burning down girl's schools. Viggianni led his men in combat after being wounded. He chased down and killed and captured our enemies. He humanely tended to those wounded enemies he had been fighting moments before. He led his men to safety and honor. He led from the front. He did this for you and me whomever we voted for in the last presidential election.
There is nothing particularly enlightening or informative about "exposing" the military's own internal investigation of its failings if editors at our best papers ignore the individual acts of heroism that balance this grim picture. And there is no harm in being as proud of our heroes as we are disappointed and saddened by those who dishonor us. To help put the Haditha killings in context let's remember that even in "good wars" things go horribly wrong. These quotes from "Naples '44," by the late Norman Lewis (perhaps the greatest English travel writer of the last century) are instructive. Lewis was stationed in Naples following Italy's liberation from the Nazis and he kept a diary.
"What we saw was ineptitude and cowardice spreading down from the command, and this resulted in chaos...

"I saw an ugly sight: a British officer interrogating a civilian, and repeatedly hitting him about the head with the chair; treatment which the [civilian], his face a mask of blood, suffered with stoicism. At the end of the interrogation, which had not been considered successful, the officer called on a private and asked him in a pleasant, conversational sort of manner, 'Would you like to take this man away, and shoot him?' The private's reply was to spit on his hands, and say, 'I don't mind if I do, sir.'


"I received confirmation... that American combat units were ordered by their officers to beat to death [those] who attempted to surrender to them. These men seem very naïve and childlike, but some of them are beginning to question the ethics of this order.


"We liberated them from the Fascist Monster. And what is the prize? The rebirth of democracy. The glorious prospect of being able one day to choose their rulers from a list of powerful men, most of whose corruptions are generally known and accepted with weary resignation. The days of Mussolini must seem like a lost paradise compared to us."


If Lewis' account was the only surviving document from World War II we might assume allied nation-building ended in catastrophe. We would wonder why a morally outraged peace movement didn't stop our troops from carrying out their failed and brutal campaigns.


Sixty years later and caught up in another war we are confronted by the massacre in Haditha. And we are also caught up in the anguish of another generation of young men and women asked to kill but to keep killing within "civilized" bounds, to take insults, be fired upon by men hiding behind women and children-as a matter of self-proclaimed tactics-yet not respond in kind.


To most American readers these days this is an academic question of morality, or I-told-you-so politics. To those of us in the military family Haditha is personal. All our troops confront the tortured "morality" of war. My son wrote this from his first combat tour in Afghanistan, a letter I included in my book "Faith Of Our Sons-A Father's Wartime Diary."

"Date: 9/25/03 8:27:01 PM

Dear Mom and Dad: I have learned that the right thing and the necessary thing are not synonymous, rarely are they even in the same ballpark. It's very depressing to see the results of some necessary actions, it's never pure, and there is no purity here...


"People ignore what they cannot see. They just don't want to know. The truth is too ugly and vicious to comprehend...


"In a natural state a human will kill, and kill not always for necessity, but for convenience as well. The only way that I know I am still me is that I hate that fact; I hate it more than anything I have ever known."

I think Lewis would have understood my son's distress. Perhaps he would have also understood my tears when confronting a son's loss of innocence. Yet I am proud my son volunteered. And he is glad he served his country. And I wish all Americans had a gut connection to the troops so they would know that people like my son don't kill civilians, and anguish over the vicissitudes of war. And I also wish more people read books like "Naples 44" to give them some sense of perspective when terrible things do happen in Iraq and Afghanistan.


Judging by Lewis' diary--and many other accounts--the so-called greatest generation of WWII was often badly led and worse behaved, and was certainly less merciful than our present-day soldiers and their leaders. We haven't carpet bomb Baghdad or nuked Fallujah to spare the lives of our troops. Yet most Americans are glad we forced Italy, Germany and Japan to become democracies however brutal our means.


The flag-waving boosters of our current war and their critics all seem to forget that war really is hell. Proponents sweep the inconvenient dreadfulness under the carpet (no photographs of coffins please!) while opponents are shocked, just shocked, at the nastiness. All sides seem to forget that there are no good wars, only morally ambiguous conflicts that agonizingly lead to better or worse outcomes.


Bereft of historical perspective our expectations of what wartime "success" might look like, or what "failure" might be in Iraq, Afghanistan and the so-called war on terror, seem mostly based on politics and emotion. And we do not have enough political leaders and opinion-makers receiving soul-searing letters from their children. Their sons and daughters are notably absent from our military. That's too bad.


A personal connection to our wars might discourage the sort glib hubris that leads the media to trumpet events like the Haditha killings without putting them in the context of the everyday heroism that is the norm, or the context of history. And a personal connection to our military by our political leaders would give them a stake in our troop's welfare and what we are asking them to do.


It's time to read more history. And it's time for those who support the war in Iraq to encourage their children to volunteer. And it's time for the critics of our military to also earn a little moral authority by volunteering themselves or encouraging their children to do so. Anything less is nothing more than arm's-length moralizing.

On the contrary: It is because of the nature of their work-usually performed under extreme stress and fatigue-that Marines truly have to be some of the most moral men on the planet if they are going to be effective warriors. That doesn't mean they are flawless.

"[A Marine] lives on the razor's edge of fury and retribution, along with disgust for what he sees, i.e., how the enemy treats their own people," Col. Ripley [USMC Ret.] says. "He is gripped with emotion when he sees children, many the same ages as his own brothers and sisters, and especially when he sees the mothers trying to protect them from the line of fire. He will put himself in great danger, exposing himself to that same fire just in an attempt to remove non-combatants from this danger."

He adds, "a Marine is disgusted when he sees how the enemy treat their own people by putting them in situations where they will assuredly become casualties, for the obvious reason that they can blame it on the Americans."

So it would be unfair and foolish to pass judgment on these Marines, without first finding what exactly happened at Haditha.