Remembering slain friend
By P.j. Reilly
Intelligencer Journal
Published: May 17, 2004 9:04 AM EST
LANCASTER COUNTY, PA - Scott Hollinger came across a tattered knit hat that belonged to his friend, Nick Berg, while rummaging through the barn on his New Providence farm Sunday afternoon.
"I had to look at him wearing that stupid thing all winter long," Hollinger said, "It's really beat. It's got paint all over it."
Finding the hat made Hollinger, 36, stop in his tracks and think about the West Chester man, whose beheaded body was found on a highway in Iraq last week.
"I was thinking about my good friend that I miss," Hollinger said. "I was thinking about the great conversations we had while we were 800 feet in the air."
Berg was beheaded by terrorists who videotaped the slaying and claimed his death was revenge for the recent abuses of detained Iraqis at the hands of United States soldiers.
Hollinger was the foreman for Berg's business, Prometheus Methods Tower Service Inc., which was headquartered at Hollinger's 11-acre farm, where he lives with his wife, Stacy, and two young sons. The business installed, repaired and maintained communications towers used by radio and television stations.
Hollinger worked for Berg for the past 14 months. During that time, he said, he came to know Berg as a "gung-ho" ambitious 26-year-old who "had a heart of gold and always had a big smile on his face."
"I was impressed with him at 26. I can only imagine what he would have been like when he turned 42," Hollinger said.
A 1986 Hempfield High School graduate and former climbing instructor with the U.S. Marines, Hollinger met Berg in January 2003 when Hollinger answered an ad Berg had placed in a newspaper looking for climbers to work on communications towers.
The day the two met, Hollinger said, was cold and windy.
"He wanted to see if I could do what I said I could do," Hollinger said. "It was a nasty day, and I don't think he would have climbed if he wasn't auditioning me."
The two men climbed the tower that day, and each earned the other's respect, according to Hollinger.
"He told me if I could climb on a day like that, I could do anything he needed," Hollinger said. "I thought he was a real gung-ho dude. I liked that about him."
Hollinger and Berg spent time together climbing towers all over the Eastern Seaboard during the following months, Hollinger said. They often talked politics.
"He was really into current events, just like I am," Hollinger said.
It was during that time that Hollinger learned his boss was an ardent supporter of President Bush and the United States efforts in Iraq. He also noticed Berg was always reading books pertaining to Jewish and Middle Eastern history.
Hollinger said he wasn't surprised when Berg went to North Carolina last November to attend a meeting with the Iraqi minister of labor, who was looking for U.S. companies to help rebuild Iraq's infrastructure.
"Nick wanted to be a part of what was going on over there," Hollinger said. "He wanted to be a part of it because he saw an opportunity for the business to grow and because he believed in what the United States was doing over there."
Some time around Christmas, Hollinger said, Berg traveled to Iraq to see if he could drum up some business for Prometheus.
Hollinger said Berg climbed 48 of the country's 110 communications towers to assess the condition of each one.
"He put all the information he gathered into a database, and he planned to use that information to get contracts for us to work on them," Hollinger said.
Berg and Hollinger discussed the possibility of Prometheus working in Iraq many times, according to Hollinger. And while he was interested in the money that could be made, Hollinger said he was concerned about the logistics of working in a country where American soldiers and civilians are still being killed every day.
"I needed to see more proof that we were going to follow the provincial rules for civilian contractors," Hollinger said. "It's the Wild West over there, and Nick was just winging it. He had no safety net."
Berg came home from Iraq in January and returned two months later to continue to try to get work for his company.
March 23 was the last time Hollinger talked to Berg. Hollinger said he planned to go to Iraq to work for 30 days, but he wanted Berg to come home so the two could hammer out all the details involved with working in the war-torn country.
But Hollinger never heard from his friend again.
Through e-mails Berg sent to his father, Michael Berg in West Chester, Hollinger learned his employer was imprisoned for 13 days by Iraqi police.
On April 6, Berg sent an e-mail to his father, claiming he was "free at last," Hollinger said. That was the last time his family heard from him.
Over the following weeks, Hollinger said he figured Berg was "holed up somewhere" and was unable to get to a telephone. He said he tried not to think that something bad had happened to his friend.
"You think a lot of things, but I guess somewhere in the back of your mind you know it's a possibility," Hollinger said.
On May 10, Hollinger received a call from Michael Berg, who told him his son's body had been found.
That news was devastating enough for Hollinger. When he heard Berg had been beheaded by terrorists making a political statement, he felt even worse.
"I just think he totally underestimated the whole situation," Berg said. "He understood the physical dangers of the situation, but he wasn't prepared for the human dangers.
"He was the type of guy who wouldn't think anyone would want to hurt him because he was just over there trying to do a job helping people out."
Hollinger said he's not sure what will become of Prometheus Methods. For now, he's climbing trees for local landscaping companies.
"I'll have to talk that over with (Nick's) father," he said.
While Michael Berg has lashed out at President Bush, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and the U.S. government in recent days for failing to protect his son, Hollinger said Nick Berg would have a different view of what happened to him.
"He wouldn't say George Bush or Donald Rumsfeld had anything to do with his death," Hollinger said. "He'd say it was all his fault. He would tell civilian contractors, 'Learn from my mistakes. I did it the wrong way.' "
Surely, someone else was around for the interview and why would Moore interview an obscure "communications" worker unless he was on Moore's payroll or something similar.
I guess the real question is: "Did Berg (or Berg's father) knock on Moore's door or visa versa. This is mind boggling.
ping to post 337.
My suspicions are now somewhat muted, but not quite gone. Being a Ham Radio Operator myself, that is acrophobic about climbing my own tower, these two must have developed quite a rapor during their short relationship as Employer/Employee. However, one could still be misunderstood, or mislead.
"He put all the information he gathered into a database, and he planned to use that information to get contracts for us to work on them," Hollinger said.
All in what, six weeks? A regular climbing maniac, Or a big exaggerator, or a friend that got the numbers wrong...or....