Posted on 05/13/2004 2:05:20 PM PDT by kcvl
Wow!
Me too.
Daddy supports the Communist front A.N.S.W.E.R and the son has connection to a 9/11 terrorist. Now that really sounds like your average Freeper type Bush supporter doesn't it?
Undergrad Berg selected for Clark award
The 1999 Clark Construction Group Scholarship of $3000 has been awarded to Nick Berg '00 CEE. The scholarship is awarded annually to a top civil engineering student who has shown interest and aptitude in construction. Berg was selected on the basis of grade point average and performance in CEE 595 Construction Planning and Operations.
And soon he is leaving Cornell, which is rated the # 10 Engineering Program in the U.S. for University of Oklahoma, which doesn’t necessarily have an Engineering School the football team can be proud of. How many Jewish Northeastern Ivy League Engineering students end up at universities in the Big 12?
I’ll bet that Berg was at OU because of Moussoui.
The contractor business, and the involvement in the Republican convention is all part of a cover story. That Berg's father just happens to be a big time ANSWER Leftist will not be coincidence either.
If you saw the video you would know that he fought desperately.
More than work drew him to Iraq
Berg took risks around the world
Nick Berg was a big-hearted risk-taker - intent on making the world a better place, willing to do the heavy lifting to make that happen and daring enough to go almost anywhere to do it.
As his body arrived at Dover Air Force Base in Delaware yesterday, friends and co-workers recalled Berg, 26, as a good-natured, adventurous young man whose solo journey to war-torn Iraq was not exclusively for monetary gain.
That assessment was echoed by the White House: "Nick Berg wanted to build a free Iraq for the Iraqi people ... He was an innocent civilian seeking to help," spokesman Scott McClellan said.
President Bush also addressed the videotaped and Internet-posted beheading of Berg for the first time since his body was discovered Saturday near an overpass in Mosul in northern Iraq.
"Their intention is to shake our will. ... Yet by their actions they remind us of how desperately parts of the world need free societies. ... We will complete our mission," he said.
A fuller picture of the suburban Philadelphia businessman - a backer of Bush and a supporter of the war - emerged yesterday, with the release of e-mails that he had written during the first of his two trips to Iraq, one of which describes a damaged radio tower at Abu Ghraib prison.
Berg's father, a retired schoolteacher who opposes the war and sports an anti-Bush bumper sticker on his car, said in an interview with the Associated Press that U.S. officials are responsible for the abuse of Iraqi detainees at Abu Ghraib that led - according to the executioners - to his son's death.
"Nick died for the sins of the Bush administration," Michael Berg said.
Dozens of news media vehicles were outside the Berg's split-level home in West Chester, Pa., yesterday, where a funeral director visited the family.
A private memorial service for Berg - limited to friends and family - is scheduled tomorrow afternoon, said Carl Goldstein, of Goldsteins' Rosenberg's Raphael-Sacks funeral home. "The family is very happy Nick is back in the United States," he said.
Berg, who operated a small communications company from his family's home, first went to Baghdad in late December, returning Feb. 1. In March, he returned to Iraq, but after having trouble finding work there, he told his parents that he would be home by the end of the month.
Detained in Mosul
On March 24, he was detained by Iraqi police in Mosul in a late night sweep. He was released on April 6 after his parents filed alawsuit in federal court in Philadelphia, contending that the U.S. military was illegally holding him.
U.S. officials say he was never in the custody of coalition forces. While in Iraqi police custody, they said, he was interviewed three times by FBI agents who were suspicious of his identity and warned that the country was too dangerous for unprotected Americans. He was offered a free flight home, but he declined, officials said.
But Hugo Infante, a Chilean reporter who got to know Berg in Baghdad, told Newsday that Berg recounted that Iraqi police had quickly handed him to U.S authorities in Mosul and that he had been held the entire time in a jail where U.S. soldiers were his guards.
Berg contacted his parents April 9, but he was not heard from again.
U.S. troops discovered his decapitated body Saturday.
A video posted Tuesday on a Web site linked to al-Qaida depicted the beheading by a group that said it was avenging the abuse of Iraqi prisoners by American soldiers.
'An adventurous sort'
The youngest of three children, Berg attended Cornell University, Drexel University, the University of Pennsylvania and the University of Oklahoma. He didn't receive a degree from any of them, but he did find his niche - rigging and repairing telecommunications equipment, some of it hundreds of feet above the ground.
In 2000, he helped set up the electronics equipment at the Republican National Convention in Philadelphia.
Two years ago, he formed a small company in Pennsylvania, Prometheus Methods Tower Service, named after a character from Greek mythology who stole fire from the gods and brought it to mortals for their use.
Acquaintances describe Berg as equal parts entrepreneur and good Samaritan. He liked lifting weights, enjoyed comedy and had a passion for taking modern technology to Third-World countries. Friends and family say Berg did volunteer work in Kenya and Ghana, where he taught villagers how to make bricks and drill for water.
"He was an adventurous sort. You kind of have to be if you're going to be climbing these big towers 500 to 1,000 feet up in the air, hanging only by a sling," said Walt Billings, a colleague of Berg's who, along with fellow employee Ed Bukont, turned down the Pennsylvania man's invitation to join him in Iraq.
Billings said Berg worked as a subcontractor for a division of his Baltimore-based company, Total Engine Service and Supply Co.
"He did tower work for radio and television stations. He went up the towers and did all the work associated with that," Billings said. "He knew his work was going to be in demand in Iraq, and that it was going to pay quite handsomely.
'On his own'
"We chose not to go just because of the deteriorating circumstances and concern for life and limb. It's a war zone. We saw it a little bit differently than Nick saw it.
"He wasn't attached to any particular company. He was there on his own," Billings said. "But it's not like he was bumming around looking for a job. He was a specialist in tower work, and one of the first contracts being released was for rebuilding of the radio station infrastructure. He wanted to be in the country, on the ground, when that work started to take off."
Because of increasing security concerns, though, the work never took off, leaving Berg in limbo, Billings said.
"It kept getting pushed back. I'm sure he wasn't hanging around because he wanted to hang around. I'm sure he was waiting for that opportunity to break."
Billings said Berg had done work for his company for about a year and a half. He said he had three jobs waiting for Berg once he came back.
Jeff Loughridge, chief engineer for Infinity Stations, based in Washington, also hired Berg for tower work.
"It started as a business relationship, but he became a very trusted friend," he said. "It takes a unique individual when you are having someone do work 500 feet in the air. You have to find someone you trust. They don't come along all the time, Nick was one of these people. I could trust him to do it top drawer."
E-mail from Iraq
When Berg helped install a communication system in Kenya last year, Loughridge said, he would send his clients e-mail about his adventures there and the work he was doing.
He continued that practice in Iraq.
"About Iraq ... I am taking photos - where allowed," he wrote during his trip in January. "It's actually pretty sad - I just got off one of two 320 meter monster towers in Abu Ghraib (also home to the main political prison) which use[d] to support most of Baghdad area's VHF and UHF. Both have been badly looted. ...
"I'll definitely share some of these pix with you and others next time I'm in the area - I'd love to put together a little presentation for SBE [Society of Broadcast Engineers] ... in about six months after I've been on every site and fixed some of them."
An active student
Berg graduated in 1996 from West Chester Henderson High School, where he was a member of the National Honor Society, and a semifinalist in the National Merit Scholarship Program, school officials said.
He played saxophone and tuba in the marching band and received its top awards, including the "John Phillip Sousa Award," for musicianship, leadership, character and dedication.
Starting at Pierce Middle School, he participated in Science Olympiad team competitions.
Michael DiBartolomeo, who was principal of Henderson when Berg graduated, called him "very bright," a "great citizen," and an involved and persistent youth.
"What I recall, if Nick had an issue with something going on in the school, he would come and tell me about it. If we agreed to disagree, he'd say, 'Mr. Bart, I am going to ask you about this every year.' He did it in such a nice, respectful way that you enjoyed hearing from him."
"He seemed like a really decent guy," said Josh Quinn, 30, bartender at Jitters Sports Bar in downtown West Chester.
"He told me he was going over there," Quinn said. "He didn't seem worried or upset. He was ready to go. He said, 'I'm going to Iraq. I'm going to do my duty.'"
West Chester resident Joe Hiddleson, 30, a building contractor, was among those puzzled by why Berg would want to go Iraq and why he would be chosen for execution.
"If it's retaliation, none of the prisoners had their heads cut off," he said. "He wasn't over there killing people. He was just a guy."
Oh yeah, and the terrorist using his email was not a terrorist, he was just simply a cab driver, who had driven him home, but needed to bid on a rug on ebay.
• Rick Folbaum Folbaum has worked out of FOX News Channel's London and New York bureaus as correspondent and show host
Ping
Com-symps like Berg are so demented and lazy in their world view that they would rather blame AMERICA.
See posts #352, 387 & 467 - about
his weight, etc.
What gets me is how the father insists that if his son hadn't been held, he would still be alive. What does that mean? Was he supposed to meet with someone, and the detention caused him to miss his appointment?
No where mentioned is how Berg ended up in Zarqawi's hands.
The other kidnappees seem, to me, to have been taken by local Sunni or shi'ite thugs.
Zarqawi is another matter.
All we know is Berg said he left the hotel for the airport.
So how did he end up in Zarqawi's hands?
And what's this about his Iraqi uncle?
you too at # 552
Looks like a lot of embarrassingly speculative trash going on this thread. Hope everyone keeps in mind what an ass Mike Gallagher made of himself when he said he thought Daniel Pearl and his wife were pulling some kind of prank.
What does the patriot act have to do with his son's death.
If it were me, the patriot act would be the last thing I'd be thinking about.
What's the source for that article? Thanks!
In his e-mails, Berg wrote of traveling to Diwaniya, about 110 miles south of Baghdad, to locate a radio tower to work on. Night had fallen, and while trying to negotiate with taxi drivers for a ride to Baghdad, Iraqi police stopped him.
"It seems they had reports about unknown Iranian people infiltrating their town, and at night they can't see much of my face," Berg wrote on Jan. 18. "The police collect me and take me off to the Lieutenant who is more worried for my safety than about me being an Iranian spy."
After explaining his story that night and the next morning he was allowed to leave.
The e-mails were shared with The Associated Press by David Skalish, a friend and colleague of Berg's who is an engineer for Philadelphia's WPHT-AM.
"Would that (the detention) have been a warning? Sure, I think so," Skalish said Wednesday. "But he was on a journey. In his mind it was a journey of a lifetime. He had a different comfort zone for the region."
In a Jan. 4 dispatch, Berg talks about working near Abu Ghraib.
"Then I'm back to Baghdad to hire our local business manager and hopefully get on two 1000' towers outside of Baghdad at Abu Ghreb (the site of a notorious prison for Army and political prisoners)," he wrote.
Berg's father, Michael, who opposes the war in Iraq, said top U.S. officials created an environment of limited civil rights that led to the abuses at Abu Ghraib.
"Nick died for the sins of the Bush administration," Michael Berg said Wednesday in an interview with The Associated Press.
Skalish said it was "uncanny" Berg would have been near the prison in January. "I read this a while back and you think, oh a prison. It's an afterthought. But now, oh my word," he said.
Berg traveled to Diwaniya, Mosul, Shomali and Sinjar in Iraq. But his most dangerous travel would have been around Abu Ghraib, which sits squarely in the Sunni Triangle.
In a likely nod to the dangers of solo travel for an American, Berg wrote that he found it handy to be confused as a Turk.
Other dispatches from Berg talk of a "wicked sand storm," encountering few people who could understand his elementary Arabic, and of the beautiful countryside.
Berg also surmises that the U.S.-enforced no-fly zones in Iraq from the 1990s led to hundreds of radio towers not having warning lights.
"Just last week a Coalition helicopter ran into a short utility tower in the North near Mosul, knocking out one of the main 400 kV lines," he wrote.
Berg's e-mails at times turned technical, writing he put under this banner: "WARNING TO CASUAL READERS, TECHNICAL STUFF AHEAD:"
"So anyhow, this massive tower is home to a cantilevered, on-air VHF antenna and a 6-1/8" flexible transmission line. That's it. No lights, no lightning arrester, no grounding, nothing else," he wrote.
Berg's body had been scheduled to land at Dover Air Force Base in Delaware on Wednesday, and officials gave conflicting accounts of whether the family had received permission to view the arrival.
Base spokesman Lt. Col. Jon Anderson said there was no outright prohibition on families' being present, but the office of Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa., said the Pentagon denied the family's request to witness the arrival.
In the e-mails, Nicholas Berg mentions meeting a brother of an uncle by marriage. Michael Berg said that his sister, who is now deceased, married an Iraqi man who lives near Baghdad.
But CBS News National Security Correspondent David Martin reports on what is turning into a bizarre mystery with a connection to 9/11.
U.S. officials say the FBI questioned Berg in 2002 after a computer password Berg used in college turned up in the possession of Zaccarias Moussaoui, the al Qaeda operative arrested shortly before 9/11 for his suspicious activity at a flight school in Minnesota.
-----
Source: CBS NEWS.
If you saw the video you would know that he fought desperately.
thanks for sharing that. i did skip a part of the video.
Yup, I do indeed believe that is Nic in the video, the nose and mouth are identicle.As far as having a koran and other litterature on his person I am sure was nothing more than cover. Think about it if you get pulled over in Iraq you surely wouldn't have a bible on ya.The family connection is wierd. His dad made a statement to the press for help, that no one they knew in Iraq has herd from nic. So Dad knows people in Iraq that knows his son. Nic is supposedly pro Bush and pro Republican yadayadayada. I think IMHO this was a father and son team of some sorts. To what degree I am not sure.Who funded nics travels, his dad is a retired teacher living in a very well to do neighborhood. Motel room at $30 a night,. food, beer, taxi cabs, plane fare etc. Yup, more than meets the eye.
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