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Saturday, Jul 11, 2009
"Soldiers inside building #2 believed that the tank located to the west was firing on their position," MacFarland wrote. "When in actuality, it was enemy fire from a mortar position northwest of the Euphrates River." After examining the evidence for several weeks, the investigation had arrived at the same explanation -- enemy mortar fire -- that Capt. Enos had apparently suggested to Robison over the radio within minutes of the incident.
On Dec. 15, 2006, before the report's completion, the Department of Defense announced Nelson and Suarez's deaths. "The Department of Defense announced today the death of two soldiers who were supporting Operation Iraqi Freedom," the Pentagon said in a statement. "They died December 4, 2006, in Ar Ramadi, Iraq, of injuries suffered from small arms fire while conducting security and observation operations." The Army posthumously awarded Nelson and Suarez the Purple Heart and the Bronze Star.
Then the effort began to get the soldiers of 2nd Platoon on message.
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On Dec. 16, Lt. Col. Chuck Ferry e-mailed family members of some of the soldiers in the battalion. In part, his e-mail warned that soldiers who talked about casualties out of turn might be prosecuted. "I want to remind everyone that it is a violation of operation security to discuss specific operations or casualties until after official notification has been made," he wrote. "Soldiers who violate this are subject to punishment under the Uniform Code of Military Justice. Initial casualty information is often times incorrect and passing this information outside official channels often makes things worse for our families."
Several weeks later, after Christmas, battalion leaders assembled the soldiers from 2nd Platoon at Camp Corregidor in Ramadi for a briefing on the deaths of Suarez and Nelson. By that time, the troops knew that there was video of the incident. They had also heard untrue rumors -- the source of which remains unclear -- that the families of the men would not receive benefits if their deaths were found to be the result of friendly fire.
At the meeting, Lt. Col. Ferry and Command Sgt. Maj. Dennis Bergmann told the troops that enemy mortars killed their comrades. Soldiers interviewed by Salon confirmed that there was an enemy mortar position, but said that the tank shot building #2. According to one soldier who was present in building #2 during the firefight on Dec. 4 and who attended the briefing at Camp Corregidor, the message of the briefing and of Ferry's e-mail was clear. "It is fucking plain as day that the tank shot at the building I was in and killed two of my friends," the soldier said. "And then we were all asked to lie about it."
"The colonel and sergeant major were not all bad," added another soldier from the company who fought near the tanks. "But they did cover some shit up."
Since 2006, some of the soldiers involved have left the military. Others are back at Fort Carson in Colorado. The footage has circulated widely among soldiers who are stationed or have been stationed at Fort Carson, and beyond.
The video is also supported by firsthand accounts from troops who were on the scene and agreed, nearly two years after the incident, to talk to Salon if their names were not used. They requested anonymity because they feared retribution from the Army. I have spoken to soldiers who were in three different vantage points inside and outside building #2.
"Immediately after the round hit, we were hit with coax," a soldier who was in building #2 explained about what he said was machine gun fire from the tank's coaxial gun that followed the tank shell. "There is no other way to explain that," he said as he watched the video with me. "Nothing else sounds like that."
Another soldier in the same company who was not in building #2 witnessed the event from a different perspective, sitting in a line of vehicles directly behind the tank as the turret pointed at building #2. "I was behind the tank that shot the house," he told me. "I saw the tank fire. The way it was oriented, it was pointed in that direction."
Outside experts also confirmed that the deaths of Suarez and Nelson fit the pattern of a friendly fire incident. Three separate Army combat veterans reviewed the video and other Army documents from the incident obtained by Salon. All said they believed the tape showed a friendly fire incident involving a tank. "I believe the blast-injury deaths of Army Pfc. Suarez and Pfc. Nelson and the wounding of Iraqi soldiers appear to be caused by friendly fire -- a U.S. tank round fired at a building occupied by U.S. and Iraqi forces," said Paul Sullivan, a former Army cavalry scout who once received friendly fire during the first Gulf War.
Sullivan, who is also executive director of Veterans for Common Sense, said the sound of the incoming rounds fit the pattern of a textbook tank attack against infantry. He and the other veterans also noted that the incoming fire stops after the cease-fire is called and Robison's men shoot the white star cluster, warning of a friendly fire incident. Those veterans also said the soldiers that appear on video do not react like troops under enemy attack: They do not call for reinforcements, retreat or mount a counterattack.
"It was a friendly fire incident," a soldier from building #2 said, explaining why the soldiers on the tape don't act like soldiers taking enemy fire. "That is why we did not continue to do what we would normally do, because a tank fired on us."
The combat veterans said a coverup would be unfortunate. In addition to the corrosive nature of lying in the military, friendly fire incidents are supposed to be meticulously studied in order to prevent future, similar events. A coverup would preclude further study, potentially placing other soldiers at risk in the future.
Soldiers from Nelson and Suarez' company have not tried to share the video with the families of the deceased. Some said, however, that they were troubled that the families might not know the true circumstances surrounding their sons' deaths.
Families are often lost when it comes to how to deal with a suspected friendly fire incident. Statistics are elusive and unreliable. The most detailed personnel spreadsheets available from the Department of Defense break down casualties in the so-called war on terror into 32 separate categories by cause, but do not mention fratricide. Mary Tillman, mother of friendly fire casualty Pat, said she receives a steady drumbeat of unsolicited inquiries, often via e-mail through the Pat Tillman Foundation, from families who suspect friendly fire may be to blame for the death of a loved one. Often, the families are angry and desperate for more information from the Army after hearing stories from fellow soldiers that conflict with the official Army narrative in a particular death. "I hear lots of stories," she told me.
Tillman said she encourages the families to push the military hard for more answers and use whatever leverage is available to pry loose data, including the media. She said it is a painful process when families receive incomplete or conflicting information in dribs and drabs. "Your son dies many times when you get many stories," she said.
Both Roger Suarez's family and Albert Nelson's family apparently had questions about the way their sons died, and made an effort to get additional information from the military. Pfc. Suarez's family is from Nicaragua, where he was buried. A Salon staff member fluent in Spanish worked to locate the family there but was unsuccessful. Salon succeeded in contacting Albert Nelson's family.
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The sky blue government sedan had been waiting.
Jean Feggins had been out all day and was walking up toward the front door of her home on Dec. 5, 2006, when two men in Army uniforms stepped out of the sedan parked at the curb, and followed her up to the front steps.
