Posted on 03/28/2003 11:04:35 PM PST by SlickWillard
March 29, 2003, 12:21AM
WITH V CORPS HEADQUARTERS NEAR THE KUWAIT BORDER -- The bodies of four American soldiers were found by Marines on Friday in a shallow grave in the battle-worn town of Nasiriyah, near the Euphrates River.
U.S. Military officials said they believe the four were executed by Iraqi paramilitary forces after being seized in an ambush on Sunday.
Military officials declined to speculate as to whether the four were among those who were shown alive by the Arab television network last weekend. The military had heard reports that the soldiers were executed after they were shown on the Arab network, but there was no confirmation.
On Friday, a Marine unit found the four bodies in a freshly dug grave near a house in the northeast corner of the town of al-Jazeera. An Army official said the four bodies were clothed in U.S. military uniforms.
Today, the military were flying in a forensic team, military investigators and a member of the V Corps Staff Judge Advocate's office to the site. Officers said that the military was tentatively treating the deaths as a war crime.
The soldiers seized in the ambush have been listed as missing in action. The 507th Maintenance Co. is attached to the 3rd Infantry Division.
Officers of V Corps said the names of the dead would be released after their families were notified.
The ambush occurred in Nasiriyah, in southeastern Iraq.
According to Army officers, soldiers of the 507th Maintenance Unit were traveling on Highway 1, a main north-south artery, in darkness in a convoy of six vehicles. The unit was en route to supply an antiaircraft battery.
The convoy made a wrong turn, mistakenly leaving Highway 1. Officials said they believed that as the Americans realized their mistake, they turned around and quickly encountered two Iraqi T-55 tanks and an advancing Iraqi military unit. The soldiers came under rocket and small-arms fire.
In the fight that followed, the first of the two cars, a Humvee, the standard Army vehicle and a tool truck, were separated from the other four. An Army captain in the Humvee -- the senior officer -- drove the vehicle carrying wounded soldiers through the gunfire. According to one account, the officer drove nearly four miles before being forced to stop because his tires had been crippled by gunshots.
The officer sought to change the tires of the Humvee, when an American Marine unit on patrol saw him and the soldiers in his vehicle, officers said. The Marines called in a helicopter, which evacuated the officer and his wounded soldiers. Some were seriously wounded, one of them shot in the jaw.
The Marines resumed their patrol in search of the Fedayeen, the paramilitary force. Within minutes, they came upon two American vehicles, damaged by bullets. Two other vehicles were burning. No Americans were in sight.
Hours later, grim photos of American soldiers were shown on the Arab network al-Jazeera. Some appeared to have been executed, with bullet wounds to the head. The uniforms of others were stained with blood.
Within 24 hours, the Army was hearing reports that some of the soldiers had been executed.
I think you're right about this, sad to say. The radical feminists really did this girl a favor when they embarked on their crusade to feminize the military. < / sarcasm>
The spin has even begun on this, if you can believe it. We have a morning radio program on Saturday morning on KABC radio called The Satellite Sister. I don't know who they are, or what they're about, but it's typical liberal bile. And I'm particularly pissed about this because I used to listen to Peter Greenburg, The Travel Detective at this time.
Anyway, they did a piece this morning about Shoshona Johnson, and described her as the first and only woman who has been taken captive by the Iraqi authorities and how awful it was that an oppressed woman of color has been further victimized by an unjust U.S. military.
No mention of Jessica. Not a word. Not a sound. PC to the end.
Dress uniforms (Class A and B) are different for men and women but utility uniforms (camo) are the same unless something has changed very recently.
There was a time when women's utility unforms were different but when I joined the Army in 1980 we were issued the same olive drab as the men although some women still wore the women's uniform. There was even a maternity version of it.
Once BDUs (the green camo) were phased in, the women's utility uniform was no longer worn.
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