Posted on 05/31/2006 11:02:15 AM PDT by pissant
The father of a U.S. Marine killed by a roadside bomb in western Iraq in November believes his son's comrades did nothing wrong despite a criminal investigation into events that left more than 20 Iraqi civilians dead, including women and children.
"It's very hard for me, I don't even listen to the news," Martin Terrazas said of reports of the mass killings in Haditha, in Iraq's Anbar province. "The insurgents were hiding in there with the kids."
Lance Cpl. Miguel Terrazas was killed when his military convoy hit a roadside bomb in the western Iraqi city of Haditha. Initial accounts from Marines indicated that a fight with insurgents ensued and that 15 civilians and eight insurgents were killed in the explosion and subsequent firefight.
But now, separate investigations seek to determine whether the Nov. 19 killings were criminal and whether the Marines involved and their commanding officers tried to hide the truth. The Pentagon has said little publicly.
The New York Times reported Wednesday that evidence uncovered in February and March contradicts the claims made by Marines about how the Iraqis died.
Citing an unnamed senior U.S. official, the Times reported that a review of the incident by Col. Gregory Watt in Baghdad has uncovered evidence that casts doubt on initial reports by Marines involved.
"There were enough inconsistencies that things didn't add up," the unnamed official said, according to the Times. The report cites death certificates that show all the Iraqi victims had been shot, many in the head and chest.
Luis Terrazas, the uncle of the Marine killed in Nov. attack and a former Marine himself, said Marines are trained not to lose their cool under pressure.
"Jarheads don't just go out and kill because they get frustrated," said Luis Terrazas, 39. "Their training is exquisite. It just doesn't make sense."
Martin Terrazas, who said he has met with many Marines from his son's unit, said the men didn't give him many details of the attack.
"They wouldn't go into details," Martin Terrazas said. "I just needed to know if my son suffered. They just said it wasn't a pretty sight."
The Marines also told the grieving father that they did what was necessary to survive.
"Hearing my son's comrades is very hard," Martin Terrazas said. "Those Marines just did their job. Some of these kids were saying, 'We have to live with it.'"
The parents of two Marines from the 3rd Battalion, 1st Marine Regiment, 1st Marine Division, 1st Marine Expeditionary Force based at Camp Pendleton in Calif. told The Associated Press that their sons were ordered to take pictures of the scene and help remove the bodies. The parents of Lance Cpl. Roel Ryan Briones, 21, and Lance Cpl. Andrew Wright, 20, said memories of the killings have haunted the Marines.
Briones' mother said her son did not witness the killings. Wright's parents declined to say what their son saw that day.
Miguel Terrazas was in the midst of his second tour of duty in Iraq when he was killed. His family says he knew how dangerous his duty was, having survived an ambush during his first tour.
When he came home before his second deployment, the young Marine told his family not to worry.
"He said, 'No matter what...don't worry,'" Luis Terrazas said, fighting back tears.
And just WHO wrote those death certificates up? The Marines, or the locals?
Classic....ROFL...I've now stolen it...wonder how many here recognize it..?
The reporter saw no need to ask that question because it would distract from his storyline.
Yes, absolutely. And it seems (until fully investigated) that these pathetic insurgent cowards who hide behind little children wrote the death certificates themselves and were careful to leave the well coached children alive to 'testify' to the world about this facade, this Potemkin atrocity.
And our media latch onto and cling to this story as 'truth', irrefutable, about the 'real' nature of the war, ignoring everything else that has transpired, that has actually transpired, the elections, the capture of Saddam, everything in favor of this Kerry-esque Swift Boat type story as proof that our troops are killers, so eager to demonize our soldiers as their idea of the 'real' evil in Iraq.
Never mind that if the insurgents weren't busy trying to kill our troops and our allies' troops and any Iraqi who dared disagree with them, if we hadn't gone in, they'd still be taking orders from Saddam, doing all this same dirty work aimed at their own, right under the eyes of the rest of the world, while planning how to expand their evil to include the rest of us.
God Bless these Marines...
That's all I can think ...just God Bless em.
I do! ;*)
I am proud of your service, too. Thank you so much and welcome home.
I would like to share an excerpt from a letter written by the father of one of our severly injured soldiers. The battle being discussed took place in Ramadi last November.
Later, Joshua and his unit were on foot patrol when they came under fire from out of a house. Joshua was told to toss in a grenade. The terrorists sent out two kids around eight years old with the grenade.
The kids were blown up by that grenade, which Joshua still cannot deal with.
We are at WAR! Our MEN and WOMEN (not kids) are not at day camp or in "harm's way" they are in a WAR ZONE!!!
check my FR home page. Talk about embarrassed.
Now, about those armed nuns....
our sons & daughters are in a War Zone ? ..
Hey...thanks for pointing that out.
Wasn't this incident on tv/news just after it happened?, IIRC, one of the Marines said someone was reaching for their weapon.
Thank you for your service and welcome home. Rest assured when you were in Vietnam I never referred to you being a child or "in harm's way"
I referred to you as a MAN at WAR.
Hope he's right.
The intended accusation in this line is just so full of malignant stupidity that it really p!$$es me off.
What did this reporter expect!?! A pile of dead bodies with bullet wounds to the knee and pinkie?!? Marines fired their weapons and people died. People die when wounded in the head an chest. And survivors (with or without bullet wounds) don't have autopsies done on them.
The reporter's intention is to imply execution.
Thanks for the ping, pissant. I added this thread to the Haditha list on my profile page.
I'm willing to let the investigation run it's course and wait for the results. But if the Marines did do this then the very least they deserve is Leavenworth. You do not shoot unarmed men, women, and children on the off chance that they are insurgents.
No one has ventured a guess as an answer to my probing question - "how did this incident happen to appear ON FILM?" Who was the cameraman and how did he know what was about to occur on that dusty road? The whole thing was as packaged as a commercial, or a directed film - accompanied by a condemning narrative! I don't believe a word of it.
PING.
The cameras belonged to the Marines who went in after to clean up. They were asked by their superiors if they had cameras, two of them did, and they were told to take pictures and their cameras were confiscated.
Aw....jeez, I really hate this for them...to have to listen to this all of the time.
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