At a prayer breakfast in Baghdad last week,
Col. William Wood tearfully
promised soldiers in the California National Guard battalion that the
killing and wounding of soldiers in his battered unit would come to an
end.
No more soldier photographs, he pledged, would be added under his watch
to the already crowded wall at Forward Operating Base Falcon where the
battalion honors its dead.
Less than 48 hours later, the 44-year-old Wood died in a roadside bomb
explosion when he came to the aid of a fallen comrade. He was the
highest-ranking American officer to die since the war began.
Wood's death and three others from the same unit last week added to the
mounting woes of the Modesto-based 1st Battalion, 184th Infantry
Regiment, which has been mired in controversy and misfortune since it
began training in the New Mexico desert more than a year ago. The unit
was sent to Iraq in January.
The battalion's casualty rate, 11
killed and more than 100 wounded among its 700 troops, is one of the
highest of National Guard units in Iraq.
Two days after the
prayer breakfast, Capt. Michael MacKinnon, a regular Army officer
brought in to command one company of Wood's battalion, was on patrol in
a treacherous area of southern Baghdad when a bomb exploded near his
vehicle.
As MacKinnon, 30, lay mortally wounded, Wood rushed
to his aid only to be killed when another bomb exploded.
MacKinnon recently contributed a
column to the company's newsletter that is sent to family and friends.
Despite the unit's rocky recent history, Mackinnon said he had become
attached to it. "I know there were a couple of months where the company
had some troubles as a result of some isolated incidents," he wrote. "I
can assure you that this is something of the past. I can also tell you
with absolute certainty that this company is back on its feet."
In July, 12 soldiers from the battalion's Fullerton-based Alpha Company
were charged with misconduct for their alleged role in the abuse of
Iraqi prisoners. Last month, U.S. military officials in Iraq announced
that three sergeants have been imprisoned and four other soldiers
sentenced to hard labor for their role in the incident in which a stun
gun was used on handcuffed prisoners.
As a result of the
prisoner abuse charges, battalion commander Lt. Col. Patrick Frey was
replaced by Wood, a regular Army officer and native of the Florida
panhandle.
According to one soldier attending the Oct. 25
prayer breakfast, Wood told the assembled battalion that he had come to
the unit concerned about "the professionalism, talent and discipline of
the officers and men."
But after a month or so working with the
soldiers, Wood said he came away impressed, noting that the unit had
conducted 500 patrols, 19 raids and captured 79 suspected insurgents.
This was a better record than some of the much larger regular Army
units in Iraq, Wood told the soldiers, declaring himself to be a proud
"Nightstalker," the battalion's nickname.
Most of the
battalion's casualties, nine killed in action in the last six weeks,
came under Wood's command. All were from what military officials say
are increasingly sophisticated roadside bombs known in the military as
"improvised explosive devices."
The deaths recalled the unit's
stormy training period in the New Mexico desert in the summer of 2004.
Several soldiers participating in the training exercises complained to
reporters about poor equipment and training, particularly in dealing
with explosive devices.
The chief of the National Guard, Lt.
Gen. H. Steven Blum, defended the training. Other soldiers blamed the
complaints on a handful of misfits.
MacKinnon, a
West Point graduate from Helena, Mont., died of his injuries at the
Combat Support Hospital.
I was a huge fan of Libby's coy writing style in his now infamous
'Aspen' letter to Judy Miller. However, he lost me (I'm still reeling)
upon reading his earlier (1996) work entitled "The Apprentice".
Let's think of why the 10-year-old madam put the girls in the cage in the first place: to ensure that they would not fall in love with their "patrons" by making them frigid.
Beyond the use of "frigid" as if it describes a condition that women can have, consider that Scooter apparently believes that prostitutes - of whatever age - will continually fall in love with the most recent loser that paid for the privilege of abusing them for an hour. Is that consistent at all with reality? Of course not. But to the deranged fucks that make up the current Conservative movement, it is a big problem. They think that a woman immediately falls in love with whoever manages to get his dick in her - boyfriend, husband, rapist, whatever. Actually, they think that any woman who gets the "pleasure" of their attention would fall in love with them, if only they could make it happen. Scooter thinks that the whores he's hired, the strippers at the clubs, the interns and secretaries - that they have all fallen madly in love with him, that it has nothing to do with money or power. It's just that Scooter dick and that Scooter lovin'.
That's the worst part of this. Because the interest in bear sex is probably not shared by his (former) colleagues in the GOP government, while his views on women most certainly are.