Reservists court martialed for armoring vehicles

[widebody911]

http://cnn.netscape.cnn.com/news/story.jsp?floc=ne-main-9-l1&flok=FF-APO-1110&idq=/ff/story/0001%2F20041213%2F1038521420.htm&sc=1110

Court-Martialed for Scrounging Equipment

By JOHN McCARTHY

COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) - At a time when some U.S. troops in Iraq are complaining they have to scrounge for equipment, six Ohio-based reservists were court-martialed for taking Army vehicles abandoned in Kuwait by other units so they could carry out their own unit's mission to Iraq.

The soldiers say they needed the vehicles, and parts stripped from one, to deliver fuel to Iraq, but their former battalion commander said Sunday the troops should at least have returned the vehicles to their original units.

Members of the 656th Transportation Company based in Springfield, west of Columbus, said they needed the equipment to deliver fuel that was needed by U.S. forces in Iraq for everything from helicopters to tanks.

The reservists took two tractor-trailers and stripped parts from a five-ton truck that had been abandoned in Kuwait by other units that had already moved into Iraq, one of the reservists, Darrell Birt of Columbus, told The Associated Press on Sunday.

Birt, a former chief warrant officer, and the others were charged with theft, destruction of Army property and conspiracy to cover up their crimes. Birt said he and two others pleaded guilty and the other three were convicted. All received six-month sentences.

``Nobody ever reported these trucks stolen. The deal was, when you are moving, if it was going to take more than 30 minutes to fix it, you left it,'' said Birt, who was released in November. ``I'm a Christian man and I can't ignore what we did, but it was justified to get us in the fight and to sustain the fight.''

Last week, the military said it would not court-martial any of 23 other Army reservists who refused a mission transporting fuel along a dangerous road in Iraq, complaining that their vehicles in poor condition and did not have armor. And on Wednesday, U.S. soldiers complained to Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld in Kuwait that they have to scrounge in landfills for scrap metal and discarded bullet-resistant glass to provide armor for their vehicles.

The reservists in the 656th Transportation Company had to move their equipment along with the fuel and likely did not have enough vehicles to do so in one trip, their former battalion commander, Lt. Col. Christopher Wicker, said in a telephone interview Sunday.

``That would have required multiple trips back. They do not have many cargo trucks. They are fuel haulers,'' he told The Associated Press.

But once the reservists were done with the assignment, they should have sought out the units the vehicles belonged to, he said.

``Instead of taking the trucks back to their rightful owners, the first thing was erasing the identity marks and dumping them off at bases,'' Wicker said. ``They destroyed it. They did the enemy's job. ... Those trucks could be used for other units.''

Wicker ordered the investigation of the thefts, which occurred before he assumed the battalion post.

``Taking the trucks in my mind was not the worst thing they did,'' Wicker said from Fort Hood, Texas, where he is now with the Army's 13th Corps Support Command.

The 656th's former company commander, Maj. Cathy Kaus, told the Chicago Tribune in Sunday's editions that although she knew the equipment had been stolen, she could not determine its owners. The Tribune said the vehicles were never reported stolen, according to court-martial transcripts.

Kaus is serving a six-month sentence. She and Birt have applied for clemency, which could restore their military benefits and change their dishonorable discharges. Birt said Sunday that his clemency had been denied and he is appealing.

[kach22i]

That sucks.

[bryanthompson]

There's a right way to do this, and a wrong way. they chose the wrong way.

``Instead of taking the trucks back to their rightful owners, the first thing was erasing the identity marks and dumping them off at bases,'' Wicker said. ``They destroyed it. They did the enemy's job. ... Those trucks could be used for other units.''

[Mike(dat's me)]

They did the wrong thing... plain and simple. They could look at the fact that this was in war, doing what needed to be done, but they shouldn't have tried to cover anything up. That's like an admission of guilt.

It also depends what thier regulations were on this type of thing.

There's an abandoned boat down the road I'd like to lay my hands on, but its not mine. Nor the parts.

[BlueSkyJaunte]

Originally posted by Mike(dat's me)
There's an abandoned boat down the road I'd like to lay my hands on, but its not mine. Nor the parts.

I don't think that analogy really works.

If you were being ordered by the US Gov't to go fishing in a mined lake, you might consider commandeering that boat and cutting it up to suit your purpose.

[Mike(dat's me)]

LOL.... that would be a hell of a fishing trip... but there is a wrong way and a right way...

being in the military it is not that tough. Seek permission from your commander, OIC, whatever. Let someone higher than you make the call. As long as you are not following an illegal order (one you know to be illegal), all is good.

ie... get on the radio... report the abandoned vehicles, request permission to use parts off said vehicle. Done deal.. no one is in trouble.

[mikester]

Clearly the US military and Government as a whole need a good lesson on which battles one should pick and which battles one should not.

[Mike(dat's me)]

And there is yet one more good point.

[VenezianBlau 87]

Quote from article (emphasis added):

``Instead of taking the trucks back to their rightful owners, the first thing was erasing the identity marks and dumping them off at bases,'' Wicker said. ``They destroyed it. They did the enemy's job. ... Those trucks could be used for other units.''

I didn't realize the tactics of insurgents, et al, included taking abandoned U.S. vehicles, erasing the unit identifications, and leaving them at U.S. bases! Furthermore, weren't these vehicles indeed "used for other units"?

Apparently, the most effective way of disabling American equipment is to scrape off the IDs. That way, they lose specific unit association and can't be used by any unit.

[fintstone]

Why does the titke of the post read: "Reservists court martialed for armoring vehicles?" There was nothing in the article that mentioned that they hads done so.
They took trucks without asking permission, dismantled one rendering it unusable and then lied about it. Pretty serious by military standards. It seems that their motives were good and that should have been taken into consideration and probably was.

On the other hand, the article takes the story of the convicted troops at face value and there is probably a good bit more to the story. I was involved in a situation where a couple of folks were found to have committed almost 20 very severe crimes in the military and got off relatively easy with a plea bargin. Afterward, they told everyone that the only thing they had done was the very least of the charges and that they had been shafted. Hardly anyone knew any better since the military is not in the habit of divulging such info.

[A Quiet Boom]

Well, what they did was wrong. I don't think they should have been charged with theft though. Basically from what I read they salvaged deserted trucks for use all they had to do was report what they were doing rather than cover it up and they probably would have been fine. I'm waiting to hear about some overzealous military prosecutor actually indicting soldiers for "vandalizing military property" i.e. providing their own armor. I actually prefer to have soldiers with enough resourcefulness to improve their equipment for battle. It's been done in every other war I've read about and frankly if I was in Iraq with a Humvee, some scrap metal and a torch I'd have a work of art in no time flat!

[oldE]

Yeah, the Major should have advised her superior about the "aquisitions" Maybe she did, but was left hanging out to dry. Nevertheless, in the time honored tradition on fighting forces everywhere, troops get sent into Harm's way without proper equipment. Troops, being loyal, but not stupid, do what they can to improve their chances of completing their mission and coming out alive. REMFs arrive and start "bringing order" to the area. Troops (or in this case, their commander, who is taking the heat for them) take the fall. Fecal matter flows downhill.
Plans and Operations failed in their mission to provide this unit with the material to support the forward units. These people were guilty of putting abandoned vehicles to use then returning them to an Army base. What a henious offence. In my opinion, Lt. Col Wicker is the "Henious Offence".
As a parallel, I give you the situation of Canadian units, deployed to Afghanistan, without desert pattern camo uniforms. What did our guys do? They got paint and defaced their uniforms. A few people laughed, some superiors got red faces for not having the foresight to realize GREEN uniforms were not appropriate for troops in the desert, but people got the job done.
(REMF is an acronom formed from four words, the first three being Rear, Echelon and Mother)
Les

[Eric Mckenna]

I work/worked .... with Cathy here at Huffy Co..... she is a GREAT! lady this **** is crazy!.. what the hell is going on in the Gov that are going to hang her out out for trying to get the mission done.
crazy!
I hope this is sorted out . I'd like to see her back here at work soon!

Eric

[Steve 82SC]

After finishing four years of college, I went directly into the Marine Corps. One of the most difficult things for me to get used to was living under the Uniform Code of Military Justice. The UCMJ is, at best, an enigma, ESPECIALLY for a reservist whose life is governed by civilian law. I'm not voicing any sort of a judgement regarding these soldiers. There is certainly validity in wanting to protect oneself and during my time as a Marine, we were encouraged to adapt in order to overcome. However, each situation is ultimately going to be based on the size of the gonads of the officer highest up in the chain of command. Some of these officers in a position to make command decisions have nothing but the welfare of their charges in mind, and these men have grapfruit-sized gonads. There are other officers in a position of authority who are not cognizant of what their subordinates are going through emotionally and are on the other side of the specturm fruit-wise, having gonads the size of raisons.

Steve

[john70t]

this thread gave my monitor a headache.

[andycook]

Having been there and in simialr situations...I say KUDOS to them for what they did. Like Steve said, so much rides on the "Gonad Endowment Measurement" of the superior officer. Sounds to me like the superior officer needs to go back and learn a little more about taking care of their troops.
Pretty safe to say, the owning unit didn't want the trucks back and they would have just rotted anyways. Or even worse, been used against the very people who left them there.
Anyone not in their shoes or situation doesn't have much grounds to judge them.

[djmcmath]

On the one hand, the picture looks like it was poorly painted. The soldiers didn't get CM'd for armoring their vehicles, they went to a CM for scavenging parts off of potentially usable military vehicles. I'm immediately biased against the soldiers from the start, just because the press tries so hard to portray them as good people.

OTOH, I can't claim that I would have done anything differently. I'll tell you straight up I've made "field modifications" when a job needed to be done. I've supervised my sailors making necessary SHIPALTs (or "Charlie-ALTs," or "Midnight Maintenance") when we had to, and I fully approved of doing what had to be done, when necessary. Should these guys have scavenged parts? Sure, but they obviously needed a little more "high cover" to get it done. The great adage "Never be the senior man with a secret" still applies. If the senior _did_ know about it, and didn't stick up for his guys, well, CM is far too kind of a punishment for a "leader" like that. (disgusted)

The third point I'd make is the impossible expectations of the armchair QB's. "You should have prosecuted Abu Ghraib harder!" "You shouldn't have prosecuted these reservists so hard!" Aargh, give me a break -- you can have it one way, or the other, but never both, so get over it. Trust the guys in the know to do their jobs, at least to some extent. Try to ignore the idiot newspaper kids who have a blatent agenda (see my first paragraph) and give some credit to the people who are out there doing a Real Job.


Just my $.02

Dan

[oldE]

Good points, Dan. I have an elderly aquaintance (celebrated his 94th on Sunday) who was a Royal Navy Reserve Captain during WW II. As he said the other night, (and I paraphrase) "When you are sitting in judgement in Courts Marshall, you may only consider the actions of the officer in question with regards to the information which was available to him at the time he made his decision." We are all guilty of 'Monday morning quarterbacking'.
I disagree with Lt. Col Wicker's statement it was the responsibility of the transport unit to seek out the owners of the returned tractor trailer units. I suspect when they commandeered the trucks, they put their own unit markers on them, then removed them when they parked them at the motor pool, (or wherever they left them). Let the motor maintenance people contact the unit to which they had been assigned (and had left them behind). Oh well.
Les

[TomTurtle]

Sorry, but as a retired Navy guy and Vietnam vet, I feel these guys were screwed. When in extremis, "its always easier to beg forgiveness than to ask permission". I would do what it took to take care of my people; let them hang me, not the guys who were working for me.

[E30Mracer]

Honestly, looking at some of the equipment that reservists use, at least here in PA, I would gladly see the decision makers who would approve those trucks to be sent to Iraq in prison rather then those reservists. From what I learned, much of that equipment is from 50's 60's and 70's? It seems that we can afford to equip our army with better trucks, can't we? And bullet proofing the trucks and Humvees by piling up scraps of metal on it? That should help to slow them down and wear off the vital mechanical parts. Once again, can't our army be better equiped?