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| Army to probe Lynch capture |
| 2003-05-23 |
| EFL. The Army is investigating the Iraqi ambush of a maintenance company that resulted in nine dead soldiers and six prisoners of war, including the capture of Pfc. Jessica Lynch. Brig. Gen. Howard Bromberg, who commands the 32nd Army Air and Missile Defense Command at Fort Bliss, Texas, ordered the probe by a team of officers. Col. Joe Curtin said the "extremely complex" investigation should be completed soon. One question the team is addressing is the plight of 19-year-old Pfc. Lynch, whose capture by Iraqis and subsequent rescue by an allied special-operations team propelled her to folk-hero status across America. The Washington Post reported that she staged a fierce fight before capture, emptying a gun and killing Iraqi attackers before being stabbed and shot herself. But two Pentagon officials in interviews cast doubt on that report. The officials said all evidence suggests that Pfc. Lynch's truck crashed in the chaos of the ambush in the central Iraqi town of Nasiriyah. She suffered several bone fractures and was in no position to put up a fight, the officials said. But a final determination will await the commander's inquiry. "Part of it will look at what happened to each of the soldiers," Col. Curtin said. Her unit, the 507th Ordnance Maintenance Co., was moving from Kuwait that day in support of Patriot antimissile batteries being positioned farther north inside Iraq. U.S. Central Command officials have said the company got lost and drove into Nasiriyah by mistake and was unprotected by combat units. A band of paramilitary Iraqis attacked the truck convoy from all sides. One survivor said the unit immediately descended into chaos and that some of the soldiers' guns jammed. I'm not mil/ex-mil. But I don't think that's supposed to happen. Any comments? The commander's inquiry will look into all issues concerning the incident, including leadership, training, any mechanical failures and tactics. "The goal is lessons learned. Corrective action," Col. Curtin said. Sounds like the right approach. In a parallel investigation, the Army's Criminal Investigation Command is investigating the ambush to determine whether Iraqis committed war crimes. It is against international law to execute POWs. Nine 507th soldiers died in the ambush or afterward and were found in shallow graves. Video images of some on Iraqi television appeared to show bullet wounds to the forehead. The Iraqis who did this have to be hunted down. |
| Posted by:Steve White |
| #13 As a career REMF (Rear Echelon Mother F*****) I can say the we (Air Force) never trained in small squad tactics. Other than some trips out to the range and maybe some NCO courses, REMFs don't get a lot of combat training. The Security Police (USAF) take care of the perimeter and sometime we augment them. This does not apply to the Marines, where EVERYONE is an rifleman first and everything else second. I would look to the Army leaning more towards the Marine mind set after this. This group was heading for trouble: 1) Took a wrong turn and 2) Did bot have armed escort on a non-secure road. Notice after this the convoys had armed escort and air support. I wonder how a convoy got lost when everyone has a GPS these days? |
| Posted by: Cyber Sarge 2003-05-23 17:07:45 |
| #12 BBC is preparing to air a total debunk of the Lynch story: http://www.canada.com/ottawa/story.asp?id=E1891A36-E963-4FA4-80CE-C8C515DA9C04 Probably as skewed (in the other direction, knowing the Beeb) as the original story, but this story has smelled like a rat since the get-go. |
| Posted by: Mark IV 2003-05-23 16:12:48 |
| #11 ColoradoConservative, "...wouldn't this compromise that man's ability to perform while he was holding a video camera rather than a weapon?" As I recall the Special Forces had very small IR or nightvision cameras strapped to their vests or helmets - no one had to carry one and they do not get in the way. They were beaming the images back in real time - also not hard to do. In fact, all that technology is common over-the-counter stuff nowadays. |
| Posted by: Esoteric 2003-05-23 13:44:03 |
| #10 I'm retired Air Force, worked in a very highly classified career field, and got about as close to "front line activity" as maybe 150 miles - 99% of my time with the military. BUT, because of my career field, and my knowledge of the "bad guys", I sought out and got as much training as possible in small-unit operations, military ordinance, and combat and combat support actions. The one time I was in a combat situation was BEFORE I had that training, and it scared me sh$$$$$$. Add to that the fact that only 16 of us were given M2 carbines (the Army wasn't going to "waste" a perfectly good M-16 to a bunch of 'flyboys'). Luckily, we WERE given a full ruck of ammo - about 700 rounds. I think I ended the two weeks with three clips left. Military action is changing. There is no longer any such thing as a "FEBA", or a "forward area". Combat can occur anywhere - in the theater of operation, in the rear support areas, even in the stateside deployment areas and main bases. It's time the entire MILITARY, not just the Army or the Marines, recognizes this fact, and starts training its people properly. |
| Posted by: Old Patriot 2003-05-23 12:54:11 |
| #9 "US soldiers who were frustrated by the unreliability of their M-16's would scavange AK-47's off dead Viet Cong whenever they had a chance, and throw away the M-16s." I'm sure you read that, but there is some urban myth here, too. You don't "throw away" your issue rifle. M16 had some awful startup problems, and lots of guys went to alternative weaponry, but it has long since become a very good combat weapon. Lastly, Nam was a war of noises (jungle combat) and the last thing you wanted was an AK. It has a distinctly different sound than American weapons and was a magnet for suppressive fire, grenades, willie pete, and all manner of hostile ordnance. It would take a pretty green soldier to want to tote a commie noisemaker. In WWII, guys who picked up "Schmeissers" learned the same hard lesson. I have had trouble with the "Audie" Lynch story all along. Nothing against her and she seems to have handled things well, but "emptying her weapon" and killing 4-5 Iraqi soldiers (as initially reported) sounds more like the usual media feminist pre-deification. Since then the story has been a long, quiet backpedal... at least until the made for TV movie rights are negotiated. |
| Posted by: Mark IV 2003-05-23 12:28:36 |
| #8 Don and John F., thank you, that is enlightening. I wonder if some modest improvement in training CS and CSS units -- a monthly reintroduction to the M-16 with emphasis on handling common problems like jams, etc. -- would help, or whether that would be seen as taking time away from support readiness. |
| Posted by: Steve White 2003-05-23 12:09:45 |
| #7 Although I don't buy into the claptrap of the BBC, Scheer of the LA times or the execrable Naomi Klein, I have wondered why the rescue was videotaped. Also, who did the videotaping - the special forces or an embedded reporter? If the former, wouldn't this compromise that man's ability to perform while he was holding a video camera rather than a weapon? |
| Posted by: ColoradoConservative 2003-05-23 11:33:51 |
| #6 As a retired Navy Chief Hospital Corpsman, I've done time with the US Marines and they fully train their CS and CSS units. I was stationed with 15th Marine Expeditionary Unit, which was there in Iraq for this latest operation btw, and we trained for 6 months to achieve "Special Operations Capable" status needed to deploy for the missions asssigned to Marine units of this type. I don't know what the Army does but we can see it might have had some relation to what happened to those soldiers. It's a real shame. Rumsfeld is busy ramming some changes through that might help the Army. We will see. ALSO: The M-16's and related arms do jam when you are in the field with sand and mud but they are also easy to clear and return to full operation, killing whatever is in your way - if you are trained properly. As a medic, I didn't carry one, but I sure could operate one if I needed to. I could operate any of the weapons systems we deployed with. We had to learn and I wanted to. |
| Posted by: John F. 2003-05-23 11:04:12 |
| #5 Scooter: I've only heard one first hand verbal testimony of US soldiers carrying AK-47's in Vietnam. Since they were not standard issue, no one was carrying enough ammunition. When the unit got pinned down in a fire fight, they rapidly ran out of ammo, could not cross level in the platoon (some were carrying M-16's and M-3, 45 cal "grease guns" also), and were overrun. When reconstituted, they started carrying M-16's only. |
| Posted by: 11A5S 2003-05-23 10:53:57 |
| #4 The M-16 is a great weapon as long as you can keep it firing. But the AK-47 is a legend of battlefield reliability and durability; they virtually never jam. I've read that early on in Viet Nam, US soldiers who were frustrated by the unreliability of their M-16's would scavange AK-47's off dead Viet Cong whenever they had a chance, and throw away the M-16s.... |
| Posted by: Scooter McGruder 2003-05-23 10:39:47 |
| #3 "I'm not mil/ex-mil. But I don't think that's supposed to happen. Any comments?" It's an institutional problem in the Army which like the elephant in the living room, no one wants to talk about. The Combat Support [CS] and Service Support [CSS] units do not receive adequate sustained military operations training, to include basic stuff. 1 - they are too engaged in the day to day sustainment of combat maneuver elements to take off line an spend serious time doing combat ops training [like parameter defense, combat convoy, etc.]. If you do take them off line then things don't get done for the maneuver units and their readiness drops which is potential career ender for the commanders. So that is a no-no. 2 - Training takes money. The commanders prefer to spend their training monies on the maneuver units [for obvious reasons] than support elements. In the last decade, I don't recall tons of money following into training above that level traditionally spent. The Infantry, Armor, and Artillery guys [who are the commanders] haven't been keen on transfering monies to upgrade the combat abilities of the CS and CSS units. 3 - That which isn't inspected, doesn't get fixed. Common combat field craft/practices are not in the minds of senior NCOs and Junior Officers in the support elements. A simple thing, like putting up with the gripping of the troops, but forcing them to clean their weapons every day and wrapping the receiver group to keep dust out was obviously not done. Do you think the OIC or NCOIC checked their weapons before the convoy started that day? When you look at the Army as a whole, the solution is $$$$$ expensive to get all the CS and CSS units up to decent levels. It's not going to happen because the dollars are not there and the combat branch commanders will not permit the dollars to go there. The dollars will go to their priorities. The cheaper band aid approach will be to push mapping integrated with GPS further down the organizational structure. It'll help prevent getting lost in the first place, but it will not stop ambushes happening on a mobile battlefield. |
| Posted by: Don 2003-05-23 09:42:09 |
| #2 An HTML version of Army Regulation 15-6 Procedure for Investigating Officers and Boards of Officers. |
| Posted by: Don 2003-05-23 09:15:59 |
| #1 The m-16 is one of the best combat weapons in the world,it's biggest flaw is it has to be meticulosly cleaned and maintained. |
| Posted by: Raptor 2003-05-23 07:12:23 |