'Army Times' Article Describes U.S. Troop 'Mutiny' in Iraq

By Greg Mitchell of Editor & Publisher; Published: December 16, 2007 8:20 PM ET

NEW YORK While violence is down in Iraq, Americans continue to die and fall badly wounded, and suffer severe stress and trauma caused by 15-month tours of duty. A remarkable article on Friday in the Army Times is titled: "Not us. We’re not going: Soldiers in 2nd Platoon, Charlie 1-26 stage a ‘mutiny’ that pulls the unit apart."

Here are two excerpts. The first describes only one of several incidents that drove many soldiers to "stand down." The second looks at how some responded. The entire lengthy piece by staff writer Kelly Kennedy can be found at:

http://www.armytimes.com/news/2007/12/bloodbrothers3/
*

Lt. Col. John Reynolds replaced Lt. Col. Eric Schacht as battalion commander July 8. Schacht left after his son died of a heart condition in Germany, the same day Charlie Company lost five men in the Bradley. Even with the high operations tempo and the loss of so many men, Reynolds called the changeover “easy.”

“It was the best transition you could get,” he said.

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.

(rest & entire article @ link below)
Link: http://www.mediainfo.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1003686058

And what do we end up with after another year? or 2 years? or 5 years? or 10 years? A country that is financially destitute and a military that is a pitiful shell of what it once was