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Marines find bodies of four American soldiers
The New York Times via The Houston Chronicle ^ | March 29, 2003, 12:21AM | Unattributed

Posted on 03/28/2003 11:04:35 PM PST by SlickWillard

 
March 29, 2003, 12:21AM

Marines find bodies of four American soldiers

New York Times

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.


TOPICS: Breaking News; Foreign Affairs
KEYWORDS: ambush; army; casualties; gutsandglory; marines; nasiriyah; warcrimes
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To: Celtjew Libertarian
My friend, a couple of days ago, when I saw the video of our murdered POWs, and hearing that there was at least one female in the group that wasn't showing up in their video, I wondered if those guys hadn't been shot because they wouldn't or couldn't take what the Iraqis were doing to her.

Think about it.
81 posted on 03/29/2003 12:29:58 AM PST by EternalVigilance
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To: WorkingClassFilth
What is the historical basis for this irrational departure? NONE

Actually, there is a long history of women participating in combat, whether disguised as men, in siege situations, or taking on a male role, while carrying out a female role on the battlefield. There was apparently nothing unusual about Molly Pitcher bring water to soldiers under fire, even before she took her husbands spot on the cannon, after he collapsed.

82 posted on 03/29/2003 12:31:07 AM PST by Celtjew Libertarian (No more will we pretend that our desire/For liberty is number-cold and has no fire.)
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To: EternalVigilance

Night all...you know where I stand, on dealing

with these freaks...they know one type of speech.

Eye for an eye...

JudgeAmint!

83 posted on 03/29/2003 12:32:29 AM PST by JudgeAmint (from DA Judge!!)
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To: EternalVigilance
I doubt the Iraqis needed a reason to shoot them, except they were American
84 posted on 03/29/2003 12:33:10 AM PST by Celtjew Libertarian (No more will we pretend that our desire/For liberty is number-cold and has no fire.)
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To: Celtjew Libertarian
There was apparently nothing unusual about Molly Pitcher bring water to soldiers under fire, even before she took her husbands spot on the cannon, after he collapsed.

Well, the British in the 1770's weren't the Saddam Fedayeen.

They didn't commit the kind of atrocities these people are committing; in fact, they probably directed fire AWAY from Molly Pitcher,

85 posted on 03/29/2003 12:34:26 AM PST by EternalVigilance
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To: Celtjew Libertarian
Okay. Where are these two young women, then?
86 posted on 03/29/2003 12:35:40 AM PST by EternalVigilance
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To: SlickWillard
Can anyone tell me how you post a pic?
87 posted on 03/29/2003 12:47:28 AM PST by Rams82
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To: Rams82
Sure...I'll try to explain it to you in FReepmail...give me a couple of minutes.
88 posted on 03/29/2003 12:49:42 AM PST by EternalVigilance
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To: Rams82
< img src=" put properties here " >

Leave out the spaces...
89 posted on 03/29/2003 12:51:11 AM PST by kcvl
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To: Rams82
You have mail.
90 posted on 03/29/2003 12:56:42 AM PST by EternalVigilance
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To: EternalVigilance
They didn't commit the kind of atrocities these people are committing; in fact, they probably directed fire AWAY from Molly Pitcher,

Doubtful that the British knew they she was there. I note that Margaret Corbin, another woman who took over at a cannon for her fallen husband, was wounded at the Battle of Fort Washington.

In any case, in 1720, the British would have hung pirates Mary Read and Anne Bonney, except they were pregnant. I doubt the British had any compunction about killing woman, who happened to be in combat.

Indeed, doing a little research just now, I found that a number of woman fought the British and were killed by them in the Wexford Rising of 1798.

Bracketing a willingness by the British to kill woman in 1720 and 1798, I doubt that they would have had any compunction against killing Molly Pitcher.

91 posted on 03/29/2003 12:57:49 AM PST by Celtjew Libertarian (No more will we pretend that our desire/For liberty is number-cold and has no fire.)
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Comment #92 Removed by Moderator

To: Celtjew Libertarian
We will simply have to agree to disagree on this one, my dear friend. :-)
93 posted on 03/29/2003 1:02:32 AM PST by EternalVigilance
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To: Celtjew Libertarian
Yeah, yeah, yeah. I know all about the pirate chicks and the biker-dykes and the angry wives and all of the other fightin' women of history that feminists have been publishing breathless stories about for the last decade or so.

So what?

The facts remain immutable. Women are a liablity in combat and that is the overwhelming reality. Period.

Please enlighten us all about a military force that was commited to survival or dominance that employed women, equally, with men in combat roles. Well, somebody other than the hinky-dinky-doo people of lower Slobovia.

I'll wait while you search the world wide web one site at a time...
94 posted on 03/29/2003 1:03:26 AM PST by WorkingClassFilth (Defund NPR, PBS and the LSC.)
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To: kcvl
i'm incredibly depressed over this, because I have a bad, bad feeling that we won't be seeing our missing soldiers again. In fact, I'm pretty much sure of it.

I hope no family members of those missing read my post, because I hate to contribute to their grief, but I had to say it. We won't get our men and women back. I think they know it too.
95 posted on 03/29/2003 1:05:26 AM PST by Hush
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To: SlickWillard

96 posted on 03/29/2003 1:08:34 AM PST by Rams82
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To: ganeshpuri89
Signs of U.S. POWs found at hospital

NBC: Bloodied female military uniforms discovered

March 28 -- U.S. Marines now control a hospital where they say they found bloodied U.S. uniforms. NBC's Kerry Sanders reports.

NBC, MSNBC AND NEWS SERVICES
AN NASIRIYAH, March 28 — U.S. Marines who secured a hospital that had been used by Iraqi forces later found several bloodied U.S. uniforms worn by female soldiers, NBC’s Kerry Sanders reported Friday from the hospital. The find suggested that Iraq had held several POWs at the hospital, which is in An Nasiriyah, a town where at least five Americans were taken prisoner in an attack that killed two other soldiers and left eight missing.

SANDERS WAS shown where the uniforms were found — inside the bathroom of a larger room that had been padlocked. It was the same room where 3,000 nuclear, biological and chemical suits were found when the Marines moved in.

The uniforms, which had had their American flag patches and names ripped off, were found inside a bag.

In another room, Marines found a large battery next to a bed — leading them to suspect it was used as a torture device, Sanders reported.

The hospital was taken by the 2nd Battalion, 8th Marines, after a fierce battle with Iraqi forces there. Sanders, who has been traveling with the battalion, was shown the room by a Marine who identified the uniforms as those worn by servicewomen. It was not clear what distinguished them from those worn by men.

One female U.S. soldier is listed as a prisoner of war and two as missing in action. They were part of an Army maintenance convoy attacked by Iraqis after making a wrong turn in An Nasiriyah on Sunday. In that incident, two U.S. soldiers were killed, five are known to have been taken prisoner and eight are listed as missing in action.

The known female POW is Spc. Shoshawna Johnson, 30, of Fort Bliss, Texas. The female soldiers listed as missing are: Pfc. Jessica Lynch, 19, of Palestine, W.Va.; and Pfc. Lori Piestewa, 22, of Tuba City, Ariz.

All told, U.S. military officials believe Iraq has captured at least seven U.S. service members. Army Chief Warrant Officer Ron Young, 27, of Lithia Springs, Ga., and Chief Warrant Officer David Williams, 30, from Orlando, Fla., were taken prisoner after their AH-64 Apache helicopter went down later Sunday near the central Iraqi city of Karbala amid heavy fighting. Both were attached to the Fourth Brigade 227th regiment of the First Cavalry, stationed at Fort Hood, Texas.

POWS EXECUTED?

On Wednesday, the Pentagon’s No. 2 general accused Iraq of executing some prisoners of war. Iraq later denied the allegation.

Marine Gen. Peter Pace, vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, apparently was referring to some of the maintenance troops taken prisoner. Iraqi state television showed video footage of five POWs who were alive and the bodies of at least five U.S. soldiers.

Defense officials who have viewed the tape have said privately that several of the bodies had execution-style gunshot wounds to their heads.

On Thursday, British Prime Minister Tony Blair said that other Iraqi TV footage appeared to show two British soldiers who had been executed. “It is an act of cruelty beyond all human comprehension,” the prime minister said at a news conference with President Bush after their summit at Camp David.

U.S. intelligence officials have received one uncorroborated report indicating that at least some of the dead soldiers had been captured alive and executed in public, a senior Pentagon official said Wednesday, speaking on condition of anonymity. The information was of undetermined reliability, the official said.

Pace, interviewed on CNN’s “Larry King Live,” said Iraqis had engaged in many atrocities since the war began.

“They have executed prisoners of war. ... They have used women and children as human shields, and they have pretended to surrender and then opened fire,” Pace said. “I’ve never seen anything like this. It’s disgusting.”

RED CROSS SEEKS ACCESS

The International Committee of the Red Cross on Wednesday said it was still trying to obtain access to all POWs held by Iraq.

All seven U.S. POWs were questioned in front of Iraqi video cameras, and the tapes were later played on Iraqi television — which U.S. officials say violated Geneva Convention prohibitions on subjecting POWs to public humiliation.

The other maintenance soldiers listed as POWs are:

Spc. Joseph Hudson, 23, of Alamogordo, N.M.;

Pfc. Patrick Miller, 23, of Park City, Kan.;

Edgar Hernandez, 21, supply truck driver, of Mission, Texas, rank unknown; and

Sgt. James Riley, 31, of Pennsauken, N.J.

The soldiers are part of the 507th Maintenance Company at Fort Bliss, Texas.

97 posted on 03/29/2003 1:12:27 AM PST by EternalVigilance
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To: WorkingClassFilth
Please enlighten us all about a military force that was commited to survival or dominance that employed women, equally, with men in combat roles. Well, somebody other than the hinky-dinky-doo people of lower Slobovia.

Soviet Army, WW2, which perhaps is not a society to emulate. Israeli Army 1948-Present, though more so, in the earlier days, which perhaps is a society to emulate. Both of those societies were desperately trying to survive, which may be why women were allowed in combat. Apparently, though, it worked, considering both survived.

I don't expect there to ever be equal numbers of women and men in combat. However, those who are capable of living up to the necessary standards of ability should allowed to.

98 posted on 03/29/2003 1:14:15 AM PST by Celtjew Libertarian (No more will we pretend that our desire/For liberty is number-cold and has no fire.)
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To: EternalVigilance
No prob. I think we'll find that we have a similar divergence in terms of women we find appealing. 8>)
99 posted on 03/29/2003 1:15:43 AM PST by Celtjew Libertarian (No more will we pretend that our desire/For liberty is number-cold and has no fire.)
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To: JohnHuang2
Hate to do this to you twice in one night, but there is alot of info here that is critical for all to see as the day progresses.

BUMP it if you will, please.

Good night, amigo.

EV
100 posted on 03/29/2003 1:20:30 AM PST by EternalVigilance
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