Hyped Story Of Lynch's Capture Covers Officer's Incompetence, Vets Say

St. Louis Post-Dispatch | August 9, 2003 | By Harry Levins

[mark502inf]

Three old soldiers say the hoopla over Pfc. Jessica Lynch has drowned out a darker story - that her company commander foolishly put Lynch and her comrades in harm's way.

Just as bad, the three say, is the Army's official report on what happened on March 23 when Lynch's 507th Maintenance Company ran into a firefight in the Iraqi city of Nasiriyah.

The report calls the clash "a tragedy" and says the 507th's soldiers "fought hard. ... Every soldier performed honorably, and each did his or her duty."

That statement raises the eyebrows of retired artillery Col. Jerry Morelock of Fulton, Mo., now the director of Westminster College's Churchill Memorial.

In an e-mail interview, Morelock questioned whether the company commander had acted honorably and done his duty. That commander was Capt. Troy King. Morelock noted that King had:

Misread maps all along his convoy's routes.

Gotten his soldiers in one piece through a hostile city - and then turned around and driven back through it. (At that point, Morelock says, "the Iraqis found the soft targets presented to them by Capt. King's incompetence too tempting to pass up.")

Refused to jettison his unit's trailers, even when they slowed what should have been a hasty retreat.

Apparently abandoned some of his soldiers on the battlefield.

"Lacked competence"

Tom Kuypers of St. Charles is a retired lieutenant colonel of infantry. In an e-mail interview, he offered a stark judgment: "Capt. King will have to live with the burden that he failed to accomplish his mission. He failed his troops as a commander. He lacked competence as an officer. ... Commanders never abandon their troops in battle."

Another retired lieutenant colonel of infantry, Ed Kennedy of Leavenworth, Kan., shared that view. By e-mail, he quoted a maxim heard often in the Army: "A commander is responsible for everything his unit does - or fails to do."

All three veterans were stunned by the report's repeated mention of weapons jamming or malfunctioning. All three called the breakdowns a classic symptom of bad leadership.

Kuypers termed the jamming "a giveaway for lax discipline and the unit's lack of attention to detail." Kennedy said, "Dirty rifles are a sign of indiscipline, no matter how you cut it."

Kennedy blamed what he called "a major cultural divide between the combat arms and those of support soldiers. It's almost as if we're in different armies. And the 507th is part of this non-combat arms culture. There's a lot of tough talk but an underlying softness. They take pride in living in tents or trucks and not being fighters."

Kennedy added, "I think the pervasive number of females has made this even worse in the last 25 years."

"Iraqis probably saved her"

But Kuyper said the 507th had gotten little in the way of help from the links above it in the chain of command. Among other things, he said, nobody provided an airborne escort, even though "helicopters routinely 'cover' convoys."

Even Kennedy said: "The leaders were all suffering from sleep deprivation and exhaustion. This added to the problem. ... Even a good rest plan can't fix this problem, and I empathize with their physical condition. I've been there. But battle drills that are rehearsed counter the effects of sleep deprivation."

King's home station is Fort Bliss, Texas. A spokeswoman there, Maj. Catie Morelle-Oliveira, said King had decided against granting interviews but was preparing a written statement.

Morelock scoffed at the press's lionization of Pfc. Lynch. In the official report, Morelock said, Lynch "comes across as just some poor young kid who got smashed up in a vehicle accident. In all likelihood, the Iraqis probably saved her life. Certainly they did more to ensure her immediate survival than Capt. King did."

Morelock's final words targeted the Army itself: "To refer to this combat action as 'a tragedy' - an 'event' in which the convoy seemingly just happened to find itself - is nonsense. Dismissing the whole thing by claiming that 'all served nobly' and then throwing medals at them is an insult to the soldiers who died and ought to be an embarrassment to the survivors."

[nyconse]

Thank you for posting this. Of course, I am certain some posters will not consider this torture (acts in the heat of war don't you know-extreme sarcasm). The girl was apparently beaten so severly as you point out that after four months in a hospital, she still can not walk. She will suffer from these injuries to some extent for the rest of her life, but the retired military types quoted in this article and some freepers apparently think she doesn't deserve a medal- she should be "embarrassed". Well, I am embarrassed for those who denigrate our young men and women (without any evidence) and belittle their sacrifices-in some cases the last full measure..... from the comfort of their armchairs: completely comfortable and completely smug. LOL

[Iwo Jima]

Yes, I did see Pfc Miller start to say something about his capture, but I assumed that he wanted to tell about getting beat up. Their pictures after capture looked like they could have been roughed up pretty good.

I haven't seen the Newsweek article you quoted, but I don't give it any credence. If the 507th survivors are to be believed (and why not?), Pfc Lynch was unconcious and did not surrender and was not standing. That article sounds like more gratuitous sensationlism to me.

There are no injuries which Lynch has been said to have sustained which are not explainable by the Humvee accident which the survivors described. Other soldiers have suffered similar injuries in similar accidents in this war, and many died. I don't see how the doctor could say that a broken bone was caused by being hit by a rifle butt as opposed to the accident which we know that she endured. This was not just your ordinary car accident.

When someone is injured as severely as Lynch was in the Humvee accident, it is not at all surprising that she is still recovering and needs to use a wheelchair at times four months later. She has many months if not years of recovery ahead of her, but I am betting that she will fully recover because she is young, strong, motivated, has a good mental outlook, and a strong support system.

I don't sense that you -- unlike others on these Lynch threads -- are stretching to try to reach a conclusion about torture. But I hope and pray that there was no torture, for Lynch's sake as well as others and the armed forces as a whole, and will not believe that there was torture until someone knowledgable says that there was. And, yes, I am defining torture to mean something other than a spontaneous a$$-kicking or a slap -- neither of which are acceptable but not by my definition torture.

[Iwo Jima]

Thank you for your kind words.

[sandydipper]

It hurts me deep inside - but - I TOLD YOU SO!

[nyconse]

Tell that to the reporter from Canada who died from a beating at the hands of the Iranians. You can't accept the evidence in JL's case(although it came from a special force guy according to the article) because then you might have to admit she does deserve a medal. What surprises me is your total belief in the humanity of the Iraqis who murdered their own people with glee for 30 years.

[FreedomCalls]

Read the Army's official report here. It's 15 pages of scanned in material. It's very damning of CPT King but it whitewashes all he did.

[Lancey Howard]

WOW!!! BUMP

[Lancey Howard]

....and bookmarked.

[Iwo Jima]

You're nuts, lady. I never said one word about any medals or the "humanity" of the Iraqis. And the unnamed "special forces guy" wasn't there and probably doesn't even exist. The 507th survivors do exist and were there.

Borrow a brain from someone. There are plenty of underused ones out there.

[Deb]

So, what's the military history of these retired officers?

Does every emailed trashing of the operation deserve an article?

Were no mistakes made during their tours of duty?

Did they write condemning letters?

Were the emails solicitied? Sounds like it. Are we supposed to believe they all came in spontaneously?

I thought the equipment and guns jamming were due to the huge sand storms.

[CWOJackson]

These guys have only two qualifications that the paper was interested in. They're retired military and willing to make comments the paper approves of on a subject they are in no way that informed on.

You know the kind, those who are ready to make judgements without real knowledge.

[CWOJackson]

Obviously, he appears to love to run his mouth.

[CWOJackson]

The only qualifications these people have is that they're willing to make comments the paper likes...

[Deb]

That's kinda what it looks like.

[Iwo Jima]

I just read the official report. Painful. Very, very painful. Thanks for posting it.

[jaykay]

"I don't sense that you -- unlike others on these Lynch threads -- are stretching to try to reach a conclusion about torture. But I hope and pray that there was no torture, for Lynch's sake as well as others and the armed forces as a whole, and will not believe that there was torture until someone knowledgable says that there was. And, yes, I am defining torture to mean something other than a spontaneous a$$-kicking or a slap -- neither of which are acceptable but not by my definition torture."

Maybe I am jumping to conclusions. I also hope that she was not tortured, but in my heart I beleive that she was. You will probably say that is just my opinion, but it is not just speculation: it is based on the extensive record of the Iraqis abuse of POWs and political prisoners. Even if all of her major injuries were from the accident, being slapped around regularly while so severly injured sounds pretty torturous to me. Unless you beleive that the man who witnessed her being slapped happened to be on hand for the only slap in her entire 9 day captivity, it was likely a regular practice by her captors.

[nyconse]

"Yes, Mohammed the lawyer said that he saw an Iraqi soldier slap Pfc Lynch. That is certainly mistreatment, probably not torture, certainly not torture that caused her injuries. That slap as it turns out was very fortunate for Lynch as it spurred Mohammed to brave the perils that he did to get her help."

Sure sounds like you are giving the Iraqis the benefit of the doubt. Why? It is known that Gulf 1 POW's were tortured and who knows what they did to Scott Speicher. There were bodies of American soldiers at the hospital-none had been treated by the Iraqis doctors. Why were they at the hospital if not for treatment. One possibility is that Saddam was known to torture civilians at hospitals-why not POW's? We saw pictures of dead soldiers on the internet-they certainly looked like they had been executed.

I thought you were on record as feeling that the medals given to PFC Lynch were not really deserved-if I am wrong I apologize. One of the guys quoted in this article says, "the medals are an insult to the dead soldiers and an embarrassment to the living soldiers".

You stated I was getting my "jollies" by posting information (which is echoed in the dateline post) I heard from friends and family currently serving in the military that Jessica had been tortured and raped, that her terrible injuries were not from the humvee accident but from a series of brutal beatings. I never claimed proof of any kind (anecdotal).

You have to excuse me for thinking that given the Iraqis soldiers brutal history, that American POW's were not well treated. Yet, if you maintain the POW's were not tortured just slapped around a little in the heat of battle (I still think it's torture to slap or beat POW's) then you are implying the Iraqis treated the POW's well ie humanely. I hope this make my previous post a bit more clear.

[mark502inf]

I thought the equipment and guns jamming were due to the huge sand storms.

You thought wrong. The sandstorms happened later.

So, what's the military history of these retired officers?

I know one personally--he's a great American, wounded in action, decorated for valor, and has a great deal of experience.

Were no mistakes made during their tours of duty?

Give me a break. If the criteria for providing your observations on an issue is that you cannot have made a mistake in the past, then there would be nothing on this forum.

[nyconse]

Thank you for posting this:

It make the last comment in this article doubly insulting to those who died in this skirmish:

"Dismissing the whole thing by claiming that 'all served nobly' and then throwing medals at them is an insult to the soldiers who died and ought to be an embarrassment to the survivors."

[nyconse]

A great officer would not say that soldiers who died in battle fighting bravely- according to the above report- don't deserve medals. A great officer would not denigrate the troops when they are still in harm's way-more Americans killed every day. Sorry, maybe he used to be a great officer, but now he's just a dupe of the military hating liberals.