I can’t believe it.
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=540&e=2&u=/ap/civilian_deaths
He knew the risks…if I was to go there, I would know - and accept the risks (Hell, I would not go). It is not that I am not sorry for his family…but he with out doubt new the risks.
Did you know the guy, or is it your similar backgrounds that make it more personal?
http://classic.mountainzone.com/adventure/2000/raid/update-05-09.html
He was a fine man, a great competitor and a real hero figure. He did so much. To think his life would end that way is so horrible and wrong.
He was one of the few people in this life that, when I looked at him or saw him on TV I thought, “I wish I were more like him…”
I too was shocked and horrified when I saw this story on the evening news. The broadcast I saw even showed the burnt bodies hanging from a bridge, while Iraqies cheered and danced beneith. I am still wondering what type of lesson to take from this one?
It’s horrible and wrong that anyone’s life should end that way.
The lesson:
Honor his memory. Try to be half the man he was every day. Take the higher road. Never lower ourselves to their level of butality.
Remember that he was a racer from Ohio just like the rest of us.
Many of my friends point at things like this and say, “See? This is why we shouldn’t be there!” But the reason people like him go there is to help make it a place where such things do not happen. It’s tragic to see such lives extinguished, but even more so when you think of all the anonymous people who have been similarly brutalized throughout the world.
I’ve met Scott twice, both at functions in Virginia Beach, though i can’t say i know him well or personally he has a reputation in the teams that is well deserved. People seem to either love him or hate him, but either way the guy was a genuine pipe hitter.
Blackwater is a very special organization, and the reasons people work there vary greatly, Scotts’ decision to be there was his own and i do not claim to know those actions. But Blackwater is a private firm and its employees are paid well, very well. I know people working over there making 60K a month and sometimes more, depending on expertise, etc.
What happened recently in Iraq chokes me up… i have friends over there and through out the world in hostile areas (don’t repeat that or I’ll have to kill you), which I know, any night the phone could ring at 2am to tell me they are gone. But i sleep better knowing they are out there protecting US whether you agree with why or not, and it was their CHOISE to do so.
Whether you agree with the reasons or not, are soldiers are risking there lives and dying for this great country of ours and they deserve our respect, gratitude, and probably a whole lot more.
Freedom isn’t Free
I agree with you. The only point I was trying to make is that it saddens me to see people who are trying to make the world safer fall victim to the kind of violence that they are trying to protect others from.
This is Scott:
Quite?!? are we talking about the same guy? Not much about him ever seemed quite, Full of life.
Very true however, good editorial. The silent soliders.
Enjoy the weekend
demarie, please be sure to send my thanks to your friends that are SEALS. I hold them in highest regard and to all who do, will, or have served God Bess you and thank you for your service
Nice article Tom, NBC just had a nice bit on the four gentlemen in question. It was mostly about Scott and seemed to just mention the others in passing.
Jim
Thanks for sharing part of Scott’s story with us. The sadness comes in a little stronger when it was one of the fraternity. You’ve been a good friend in honoring the lives of your friends. Take care.
I read their web site at Blackwatersecurity, and wonder what the hell those guys were up to over there. Man they look pretty scary, like their own black ops outfit. If I saw the guys on the home page in my neighborhood I would leave.
I am not a big fan of the war or being over there at all, and am saddened by all the American lives lost. I sure wonder what those “civilians” were up too. G
Not that it changes anything, but there’s speculation as to the reasons for the attack:
There is increasing evidence that the brutal attack on the American security guards in Fallujah, and the desecration of their bodies, was the work of Islamists seeking vengeance for the Israeli murder of Hamas leader Sheikh Ahmed Yassin. Leaflets found at the scene said the operation was in the name of Yassin. al-Hayat reports in its Friday edition that responsibility for the attack has been taken by a group called Phalanges of Sheikh Ahmed Yassin. The group said the deaths were a “gift to the Palestinian people.”
Source: http://www.juancole.com/2004_04_01_juancole_archive.html#108088812260193265
From the April 9 NY Times. Those guys never had a chance. Sorry for the length, it all seems relevant.
Ken
Security Firm Says Its Workers Were Lured Into Iraqi Ambush
By DAVID BARSTOW
Published: April 9, 2004
t first, their gruesome deaths seemed the work of yet another random ambush in Iraq, this one made unforgettable by images of incensed Iraqis celebrating the sight of charred corpses swinging from a bridge over the Euphrates River.
But now it appears that the four private security contractors killed, burned and mutilated in Falluja last week were in fact lured into a carefully planned ambush by men they believed to be friendly members of the Iraqi Civil Defense Corps, according to Patrick Toohey, a senior executive at the security firm, Blackwater USA.
The Iraqi men, Mr. Toohey said, promised the Blackwater-led convoy safe and swift passage through the dangerous city, but instead, a few kilometers later, they suddenly blocked off the road, preventing any escape from waiting gunmen.
“The truth is, we got led into this ambush,” Mr. Toohey, vice president for government relations at Blackwater, said in an interview, offering the company’s first detailed account of the attack.
“We were set up,” he said.
Two senior Pentagon officials said yesterday that they could not independently confirm the conclusions of the Blackwater investigation, and that a separate military inquiry was continuing.
Mr. Toohey said his company’s investigation of the incident, which included interviews with convoy drivers who survived the ambush, had not yet determined whether the Blackwater employees were led into Falluja by active members of the Iraqi Civil Defense Corps, or whether they were led into the city by imposters wearing defense corps uniforms. But the convoy, on a mission to pick up kitchen equipment, had little cause for suspicion: the Iraqi escort had been arranged and met with the convoy as planned at an intersection just east of Falluja.
"They said, `We’ll escort you, show you a short way through Falluja,’ " Mr. Toohey said.
Imposters or not, he said, the incident underscored deepening concern about the reliability of the Iraqi civil defense forces at a time when allied troops are fighting in many parts of Iraq to suppress militant Sunni and Shiite groups.
Mr. Toohey’s account, if confirmed, could deflect blame for the incident from Blackwater, which is based in Moyock, N.C. And the company’s initial findings are in line with recent complaints from senior American officials about Iraqi forces.
In testimony last month to the Senate Armed Services Committee, Gen. John P. Abizaid, the top American commander in the Middle East, spoke openly of his worries about the Iraqi security and police forces, now numbering more than 200,000.
“There’s no doubt that terrorists and insurgents will attempt to infiltrate the security forces,” he said. “We know it’s happening, and we know it has happened. We attempt to do our best with regard to vetting people.”
Also, the Pentagon has received new intelligence reports warning that Sunni and Shiite militia groups have been ransacking Iraqi police stations in some cities, and then handing out both weapons and police uniforms to angry mobs, government officials said.
Yesterday, the interim interior minister of Iraq, the official responsible for the Iraqi Civil Defense Corps, resigned, citing criticism from L. Paul Bremer III, the American administrator. Although Blackwater provides for Mr. Bremer’s personal security detail, it is not clear whether Mr. Bremer’s criticism specifically related to the Falluja attack on the Blackwater team.
“There’s a question about whether they were set up and whether it was an inside job by Iraqi civil defense people,” one American intelligence official said. “That’s a problem across Iraq, knowing which of the so-called Iraqi police forces are on our side and on their side. There’s no question there is information flowing out to the bad guys.”
At the same time, the four Falluja deaths and other clashes involving private security guards have prompted fresh questions about the scores of security companies working in Iraq on contracts worth hundreds of millions of dollars. With thousands of private security employees now guarding supply lines, buildings and reconstruction projects — and with thousands more on the way — they are increasingly being drawn into firefights and other combat situations that traditionally have been left to the military.
Last weekend, eight Blackwater contractors assigned to protect a building in Najaf fought alongside four marines and three Salvadoran soldiers to defeat a determined attack by hundreds of Iraqi militia members. The men fired thousands of rounds, yet were very nearly overrun, Mr. Toohey said. “They were down to single digits of ammo, less than 10 rounds a man.”
Desperate and unable to communicate directly with military commanders, the eight Blackwater contractors instead called in help from Blackwater employees, he said. With approval from Mr. Bremer’s staff, three Blackwater helicopters — the same ones used to ferry Mr. Bremer around Iraq — were dispatched to the Najaf battle to drop ammunition and retrieve a wounded marine.
“It was O.K. with him if they went out and saved some American lives,” Mr. Toohey said of Mr. Bremer.
In a letter to the Pentagon yesterday, Democratic leaders requested information about the methods and activities of private security companies in Iraq, expressing concern that they could “contribute to Iraqi resentment.” Thirteen Democratic senators — including the Democratic leader, Tom Daschle; Carl Levin, the senior Democrat on the Armed Services Committee; and the vice chairman of the Intelligence Committee, John D. Rockefeller IV — called for Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld to provide “an accurate tally” of the privately armed non-Iraqi security personnel in Iraq. They also requested that the Pentagon adopt written guidelines, with supporting legal justification, for the rules of engagement security contractors should follow, as well as instructions on coordinating with the military and the future sovereign Iraqi government.
“It would be a dangerous precedent if the United States allowed the presence of private armies operating outside the control of governmental authority and beholden only to those who pay them,” the senators said in the letter.
Blackwater employs some 450 “independent contractors” in Iraq to protect Mr. Bremer, guard five regional buildings used by the occupation forces and provide security for supply convoys. Mr. Toohey said the growing use of security contractors deserves a thorough debate both in the United States and around the world. “This is a phenomenon,” he said. “This is a whole new issue in military affairs. Think about it. You’re actually contracting civilians to do military-like duties.”
But for some relatives of the Blackwater men killed in Falluja, the immediate questions are focused on the precise circumstances surrounding the attack and its horrific aftermath. “Why weren’t they escorted?” asked Tom Zovko, brother of Jerry Zovko, one of the Blackwater men killed in Falluja. “I don’t believe my brother would have done that. He was definitely not careless.”
Mr. Toohey said Blackwater officials have begun to piece together the events of March 31 in part through interviews with three convoy truck drivers who survived the attack. The drivers and other witnesses, he said, described “a classic, well-planned vehicle ambush” in which the five-vehicle convoy was suddenly blocked from the front and the rear by vehicles.
“The I.C.D.C. blocked the road, and the ambush happened,” he said, referring to the Iraqi Civil Defense Corps, a force trained by the United States to guard roads and utilities and to fight insurgents. The assailants first “opened up at point-blank range” on the rear car in the convoy, he said, then fired on the lead vehicle.
“This ambush didn’t even take 60 seconds,” Mr. Toohey said.
The senior military spokesman in Baghdad, Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt, said yesterday in a telephone interview that he was not aware of the Blackwater inquiry’s findings and had been focused on current military operations. Officials at the Iraqi Civil Defense Corps did not respond to telephone messages.
Blackwater executives have briefed several members of Congress in recent days on the Falluja deaths, Congressional aides said. Mr. Toohey and Erik Prince, the company’s owner, met Wednesday with at least four Senators, including John W. Warner, a Virginia Republican, who heads the Armed Services Committee.
At the same time, Mr. Toohey said, Blackwater has made changes in “tactics, techniques and procedures” as a result of what they have already learned about the Falluja attack. The company has also set up a fund to collect donations for the families of the four men.