Christopher Price
For the Journal-Constitution
On Jan. 2, my friend Ben Mathes and I left Atlanta for Haditha, Iraq.
Our destination was Kilo Company, 3rd Battalion, 1st Marines for a rendezvous with Ben’s son, Adam, then the executive officer of Kilo. Ben and I, both Presbyterian ministers, were serving as embedded reporters for a radio station out of Sacramento, Calif.
It took six days of Army and Marine checks and procedures, armored convoys and helicopter rides, to get to Haditha. Once there, we spent 10 days with Kilo Company at the headquarters they called Firm Base Sparta (an abandoned, now heavily fortified, schoolhouse), sharing their food, their quarters, and going on six combat patrols, four during daylight and two at night.
We would faithfully call in our radio reports, and then hang out with the Marines in front of the sheet metal fireplace they had constructed. The weather was cold. From the first patrol to the last, I was amazed at the relationship that existed between the Marines and the citizens of the town.
Local relations
Haditha is a tough place. Located on the Euphrates River, for the past three years it has been part of an insurgent infiltration pathway that begins at Qaim on the Syrian border and follows the Euphrates through Haditha, past Ramadi and then to Baghdad. But Kilo Company had greatly pacified the town the September before we arrived. Shops were reopening, and the relationship with Haditha seemed based on mutual respect and even at times affection as the Marines on patrol chatted up store owners. And we were invited into homes and served local bread and chai.
Children seemed taken with us, and the Marines enthusiastically played with them at every chance, sharing candy, giving piggyback rides and generally horsing around the way American soldiers have probably done in every war. We heard about the events of a few weeks earlier, of course, when an improvised explosive device destroyed a Humvee, killing Marine Lance Cpl. Miguel “T.J.” Terrazas and wounding two others.
We knew there had been a Marine response following the explosion. We just didn’t know what to make of it at the time, and there was nothing I picked up in the interaction between Kilo and the town that portrayed any bad feeling.�
Now the world knows that civilian reports indicate some of these Marines may have gone too far in response and that investigations are under way.
Capt. Luke McConnell, a competent and respected officer who became a friend, has been relieved of command and let go from the Marine Corps. So has Lt. Col. Jeffrey Chessani, the 3rd Battalion commander, whom we met during our stay.
No one condones the shooting of innocent people, and if, I repeat if, that is what happened, the Marine Corps should take whatever methods are deemed proper to punish the guilty and protect the Marine Corps’ integrity.
But it is a concern when some politicians and journalists seem to have already judged and condemned these young men before the investigation is complete.�
Await the truth
U.S. Rep. John Murtha (D-Pa.), an opponent of the war, has even gone so far as to assign a motive — “tremendous pressure” — to the events, a kind of all-purpose acknowledgment of the perennial conditions of war, which neither exonerates those involved nor illumines much about the situation.
Of course there is pressure. Any vehicle you walk by, any change in contour in the earth can harbor an explosive device. It is constantly on your mind. But these young men behaved splendidly.
Several times, I saw individuals move ahead to check out an abandoned vehicle, willing to take the explosion themselves for the sake of their comrades. There was no panic, no overt fear, just trained and measured professionalism of the highest caliber that reflected well on the tradition of the Marines.
Articles and newscasts on the Haditha incident — and Murtha’s comments — tend to paint a picture of trigger-happy Marines on a tirade, worn down by responsibility, angry and contemptuous of the local population. That image couldn’t be more different from what we saw while in Haditha.
These were young men living in primitive conditions, but alive to the changes they hoped to bring to Iraq. More than once when we asked them about their mission there, we heard the phrase in one form or another, “I want to be a part of something good. I want to help these people toward freedom.” If it sounds corny here, in Haditha it made your heart glow.
Before anyone rushes to judgment — especially politicians — condemning them or any military people for crimes against humanity, let’s allow the investigators to have their time. Then, whatever their report, let’s remember that only a few were involved in whatever happened Nov. 19, 2005.
If the allegations are true, they allowed the deep comradeship and affection of brothers-in-arms to morph into something blind and unthinking that should have been checked by their training.
It is a sad story all around, made sadder by the lives, both American and Iraqi, lost already and by the possibility of young lives still to face long punishment.
If Iraq comes through all this — I hope (as was said in “Saving Private Ryan”) that they “earn it” nobly and proudly and stand for generations as a bastion of freedom in that part of the world — then that freedom, as always, will have been bought with a terrible price.
Christopher Price is the senior minister at St. Luke’s Presbyterian Church in Dunwoody.
