Haft of the Spear

Chow Hall

- First of all, who wears an “unrecognizable tan uniform” in Iraq? Modern US uniforms all come with a pattern of some sort; desert cammo, digital cammo, etc. Allied force uniforms also come with a pattern of some sort (Belgians are particularly offensive to the eyes). Perhaps she was wearing a flight suit or mechanics overalls, but no one calls a flight suit a uniform, they call it a flight suit.

- Let’s assume that the woman’s face has been burned or scarred: would she be back in action so soon that her hair would still be singed or “melted” as “Scott” would have us believe? Not likely. More likely: her hair would be cut short and/or she’d be more or less bald.

- Do IEDs burn? I’m fairly sure they shred. EFP are hot, so maybe she survived an EFP? Sure, why not.

- “Chow hall food getting to you?” Please. Chow is contracted out and people put on weight during deployment.

- It has been my experience that women in the military don’t put up with a lot of nonsense in peace time, I can’t imagine one who has been scarred in a attack and continues to gut it out just stomps out and leaves in a huff. I’d put down any money that if this were real she’d be up and in their faces, and about five seconds later half the chow hall would be standing behind her ready to kick “Scott’s” ass.

Mass Graves

- Question for guys in Iraq: Given the presence of engineers and contractors, when was the last time anyone had to build their own combat outpost? Define that anyway? Fighting position (a/k/a foxhole)? Hard site? Doing all this excavation with e-tools are they?

- Something to ask a forensic pathologist: How long would a body have to be under ground in a desert environment and be mostly skeletal but still have “pieces of rotting flesh” on it? If “after the start of the war” is the answer, then given the flood of human rights folks investigating mass graves after the war, how is it that they missed this one?

- Compare this mass grave story to others: Why the household items? If you bulldoze an entire neighborhood, sure, but a mass grave for just kids? Doesn’t compute that there would be utensils but not toys.

- Soldiers talk, and a unit like this (if it exists) is likely to talk a lot. Word would get around about a mass grave of kids and someone in the unit area or larger FOB would get wind of it. At the very least they’d hear about the guy who wears a piece of skull on his head. At some point one of two things happens: a) an officer with his wits about him starts asking questions or b) HRW or some other group starts asking questions.

Bradly Story

- A Bradly is a loud vehicle, the engine doesn’t “[grow] quieter” to the point that an angry, wary dog would come charging up to bite it.

- How is it that the second dog seems to be the only dog in Baghdad that isn’t sent into a barking frenzy when a Bradley drives up?

- These guys drive like madmen and they’ve never thrown a track? Because that’s where you want to be I’m sure; sitting in the middle of insurgent-town with a thrown track after wreaking havoc and waiting for a recovery vehicle. Party time.

General Purpose:

Let’s assume that this is a Cav squadron or one of the units re-minted as “Dragoons.” That means in this unit of bums there is at least a Lieutenant witnessing this activity and doing nothing. There is also at least one senior NCO who is probably a vet of at least one other Iraqi Freedom rotation and possibly Desert Storm, yet he is curiously unconcerned about order and discipline.

Like I said, GI’s talk, so you know the Company or Troop Commander has gotten word of these antics and done nothing. A unit full of guys like this is going to have discipline problems so that means at least some AR-15 action, so the Battalion or Squadron Commander knows the deal and does nothing. In the zero-defect I-can’t-have-a-scandal-under-my-command Army of today, there is not a chance this reflects reality.

The Army has this habit of filtering down and out the misfits and morons. In garrison in peace time the dumping ground for this lot is some harmless admin office. In combat it is very, very deep in the rear (if an excuse cannot be made to actually send them home). When individual patrols find themselves on the business end of murder indictments (Hamdania, Haditha, etc.) we’re to believe that this bunch of berserkers has escaped scrutiny.