Democracy Has Prevailed.

December 18, 2007

From The Army Times

Via Editor and Publisher, I found this troubling article from the Army Times.

If this article is any indication, things are definitely not going well for the troops in Iraq. It's a frightening portrait of some of the other costs of dubya's illegal war.

It's about Charlie Company, 1st Battalion, 26th Infantry. Things had been getting rough for a while:
When five soldiers with 2nd Platoon were trapped June 21 after a deep-buried roadside bomb flipped their Bradley upside-down, several men rushed to save the gunner, Spc. Daniel Agami, pinned beneath the 30-ton vehicle. But they could only watch — and listen to him scream — as he burned alive. The Bradley was far too heavy to lift, and the flames were too high to even get close. The four others died inside the vehicle. Second Platoon already had lost four of its 45 men since deploying to Adhamiya 11 months before. June 21 shattered them.
Then in early July:

But within days, he would lose five men, including a respected senior non-commissioned officer. Master Sgt. Jeffrey McKinney, Alpha Company’s first sergeant, was known as a family man and as a good leader because he was intelligent and could explain things well. But Staff Sgt. Jeremy Rausch of Charlie Company’s 1st Platoon, a good friend of McKinney’s, said McKinney told him he felt he was letting his men down in Adhamiya.

“First Sergeant McKinney was kind of a perfectionist and this was bothering him very much,” Rausch said. On July 11, McKinney was ordered to lead his men on a foot patrol to clear the roads of IEDs. Everyone at Apache heard the call come in from Adhamiya, where Alpha Company had picked up the same streets Charlie had left. Charlie’s 1st Platoon had also remained behind, and Rausch said he would never forget the fear he heard in McKinney’s driver’s voice:

“This is Apache seven delta,” McKinney’s driver said in a panicked voice over the radio. “Apache seven just shot himself. He just shot himself. Apache seven shot himself.”

Rausch said there was no misunderstanding what had happened.

According to Charlie Company soldiers, McKinney said, “I can’t take it anymore,” and fired a round. Then he pointed his M4 under his chin and killed himself in front of three of his men.

Another casualty in dubya's war.

Go read the rest.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Using the suffering and hardship of soldiers to push your agenda of abandoning the people of Iraq...talk about pathetic.

Anonymous said...

Wanting us to ignore the real suffering of US Troops in order to protect your own discredited agenda is truly the pathetic act here.

Anonymous said...

Just out of curiousity, what do you think my "Discredited" agenda is? I could care less about President Bush, the republican party, or any of that. I just want to see a free Iraq, and if we leave there amid all this progress, it will make our actions in Rwanda look forgivable.

Anonymous said...

Anon, you have the wrong idea here -- not about Iraq, that's obvious to anyone with the brain of gnat.

The problem is that John K. and Omnitheist aren't here to argue with, they're only here to be made fun of. You can waste your time laying out your argument chapter and verse, but John K. will just laugh, and the Oberfuhrer will just say, "Is not!" and repeat the same false argument over and over.

Suit yourself, but my plan is just to point out the outright lies they publish here and otherwise either make fun of them or ignore them.