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Posted on 04/13/2003 6:59:33 AM PDT by GailA
Troops find body of missing soldier
By MICHAEL SPRENGELMEYER April 12, 2003
Stone-faced soldiers bowed their heads as a chaplain recited prayer over the body an American soldier found dead Saturday in a shallow grave on the southern outskirts of Iraq.
The soldier had been missing and feared dead since last week when his infantry unit was ambushed by Iraqi militia in the Baghdad suburb of Al Dora. His identity was being withheld pending notification of his family.
Finding his remains had been a priority mission for the members of the 101st Airborne Division who swept into the southern part of metropolitan Baghdad on Friday to root our pockets pf resistance and to begin restoring law and order to communities ravaged by looting.
Third Brigade Commander Col. Michael Linnington was in a residential area interviewing residents about reports of militia fighters in the area when word came over the radio that the missing soldier had been found.
Linnington and a small convoy rushed to a rural area where local residents led U.S. soldiers to the makeshift grave. The body was sprawled in a shallow ditch in the middle of a field.
Linington and fellow soldiers took off their helmets, went on their knees and bowed heads as a chaplain read from Psalm 23 : "Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death , I fear no evil: for thou art with me ....Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me ...."
Afterward they shaded the body with an American flag before a procession of soldiers carried it away to be positively identified and returned to the soldier's family.
Linnington discounted reports that the soldier might have been tortured, saying it was likely that he died immediately after the ambush began earlier this week.
Despite widespread reports of jubilant Iraqis celebrating the arrival of U.S. troops, the war creeps onward and is far from over.
Sector by sector, grid by grid, neighborhood by neighborhood and person by person, U.S. infantry units still have a daunting job ahead of them just to secure Baghdad. The 3rd brigade "Rakkasans" of the 101st Airborne are finding plenty of work left to do in the southern sector they are trying to bring under control.
They have seized an Iraqi military base, but all through the night Friday the sleeping solidiers were awakened by Iraqi snipers shooting small arms fire from a nearby highway.
On Saturday morning the troops discovered a small villa that had apparently been a safehouse for a Baathist militia.
An American-made Huey helicopter was concealed by camouflage netting in a field . Troops found stacks of Jordanian-made ammunition not far from a dry swimming pool watched over by a Lion of Babylon statue. A neighboring farmer approached and led U.S. soldiers on a sort of Easter egg hunt around the farm field , where he pointed out buried stashes of AK-47 rounds and other ammunition. Inside the main house, one bedroom was stocked with enough high-end liquor to get a whole platoon of soldiers tipsy. They left it in place.
For the past several days U.S. troops have been busy using Hellfire missiles and heat grenades to disable abandoned Iraqi tanks, anti-aircraft guns and other abandoned equipment. Loud explosions occur every half-hour with plumes of smoke rising in every direction.
Meanwhile the soldiers are trying to cope with a civilian population now living in anarchy. Looting has spread from mostly government institutions to gas stations, factories and small businesses.
In one area U.S. troops stopped their convoy and were surrounded by residents who were upset that unexploded U.S. bombs were scattered between their homes and even in trees. The people told reporters that some of their relatives had been killed during coalition bombing.
With pockets of resistance still fighting it's difficult for soldiers to play policeman over the civilians and keep their good will posture in residential neighborhoods. Saturday afternoon, several dozen U.S. troops entered a Mosque in Al Dora because they heard that injured militia fighters were taking refuge there. They entered the compound and ordered a group of men to lie on their bellies for more than an hour while they searched through the mosque and adjacent buildings, where they found about a dozen pairs of military boots, some uniforms and a busy medical aid station.
A doctor who identified himself only as Ahmad said in English he had come from Baghdad to open a clinic at the mosque because other hospitals in the area have been shut down by the war. He said he treated some injured Iraqi soldiers and that others were brought to the mosque already dead. He said that over the past two weeks he has treated about 75 injured civilians per day - including people hurt by what he called "U.S. aggression" and others injured while looting through damaged buildings.
He was angry that the U.S. troops entered the holy sanctuary , saying the men who were forced to lie on their bellies had been praying inside the mosque or helping him attend the injured civilians before the U.S. soldiers arrived.
"This is a mosque. This is holy area. It should not be invaded like that," the doctor said.
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Prayer
Chaplain prays as soldiers kneel after discovering the remains of a soldier that was listed MIA.
The remains were placed on a chopper and respectfully draped with an American Flag.
I read some news earlier in the war where the Iraqi soldiers were told to bury any coalition members that they killed. No explanation was given for this order. Maybe it was to make it harder for us to find our own. But the day after I heard this news, the Marines found their four buddies who had been missing during one particulary lengthy fight near Najaf or Basrah. These four were missing for several hours after the battle.
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