Reservist calls Mom at home for help in Iraq

[Ivote]

Teresa Hill, the mother of 21-year-old Spc. Amber McClenny said her daughter left an urgent phone message Thursday about what had happened and called back Friday.
Kathy Harris, the mother of 20-year-old Aaron Gordon of Vicksburg, Mississippi, said she received an e-mail from her son in the unit. It said the reservists were being ordered to deliver a load of contaminated fuel.


http://www.cnn.com/2004/WORLD/meast/10/15/military.investigation/index.html

[T Bone]

1. The fuel load is contaminated with water?

the article says the contaminated fuel load was refused for delivery in a safer area. I assume this means the units that were originally intended to receive were informed in some way that the fuel had water in it, and then said no, we don't want it.

Now the army wants this water-contaminated load of fuel delivered to a very dangerous area by this under-equipped guard unit. Is it just me or is this the brass/regulars retaliating on the guard unit for informing the first deliverees that the load of fuel is contaminated?

It sure looks like it. Tell the people you are delivering contaminated fuel to that you know it to be contaminated, and we will order you to deliver it to the most dangerous area in vehicles under-equipped for the job !!

My god, it looks as though the brass/regulars are actually trying to get this guard unit demolished for informing the first unit that the load was contaminated.

In each case who are the patriots and who are NOT ??

[Ivote]

2. You can hear the phone call on the video

www.cnn.com
it's on the home page
:kick:

[T Bone]

3. What transpires in the phone call?

I have dilaup and seldom try to listen or watch videos online, just too slow... I would be interested in hearing your take on the phone call.

[underpants]

4. Oh yeah? Want to see the first FACE of this story 'Murka will see?

I saw this picture on Yahoo news photos and at first thought it was a mugshot....Sgt.McCook is a DEPUTY at a jail but that is not the impression that this gives you at first nor do I think that is any accident.



Army Reserve Sgt. Larry O. McCook, of Jackson, Miss., shown in this 2004 handout photograph taken at the Hinds County Detention Center in Raymond, Miss., where he is a deputy, is one of several soldiers said to be part of a reservist supply unit in Iraq (news - web sites) that refused to go on a convoy mission. According to his wife, Patricia McCook, her husband and other reservists refused to go on a 'suicide mission' to deliver fuel, to Taji, Iraq, north of Baghdad, because they considered their vehicles unsafe. (AP Photo/Hinds County Sheriff's Office, File)

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/iraq_unit_investigation

[LiviaOlivia]

17. It was jet fuel contaminated with diesel

from "Revolt in the ranks in Iraq" salon.com

<snip>

According to family members, the convoy was being asked to go much farther than usual from its southern base -- on a more than 200-mile trip through and around the extremely hostile Baghdad area. The tankers lacked bullet-resistant armor and, lumbering along at 40 miles an hour, would have made an easy target for insurgents lobbing bombs or grenades. The supply trucks are in disrepair and prone to breakdown. Many of the soldiers hadn't had enough sleep. And – astonishingly -- no armed escort or air protection was to be provided, the family members said.

Most absurdly, though, the jet fuel that these members of the 343rd Quartermaster Company were risking life and limb to transport wasn't even usable. It was contaminated with diesel and had already sensibly been rejected by one base and would undoubtedly be rejected again in Taji -- if the convoy managed to make it to its destination at all.

<snip>

http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2004/10/16/soldiers/index.html

[King_Crimson]

5. Check THIS out...

Discontent rife in U.S. military ranks...

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2004/oct2004/mili-o16_prn.shtml

[T Bone]

6. Grunts on the ground always pay the price

and it will probably be the ones with the most injuries who come back (someday, when they are allowed out of the service) and stop the war just the way the vvaw stopped Vietname eventually.

[T Bone]

7. this needs to stay kicked with the FIRST FACE thread

kick

[teryang]

8. "Worse every day"

<Lance Corporal Jonathon Snyder, 22, said: “Every day you read the articles in the States where it’s like ‘Oh, it’s getting better and better’ but when you’re here you know it’s worse every day.”>

[ezekiel333]

9. More on Amber McClenny

Amber is from Dothan, Alabama, this is from her hometown newspaper:

<http://dothaneagle.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=DEA/MGArticle/DEA_BasicArticle&c=MGArticle&cid=1031778564479>

----snip----
"This is a real, real, big emergency. I need you to contact someone. I mean, raise pure hell," McClenney said in her message. "Yesterday we refused to go on a convoy to Taji, which is above Baghdad. We had broken down trucks, non-armored vehicles and we were carrying contaminated fuel ... I want you to call up CNN. Get somebody on this. I need you now mom. I need you so bad. Please help me. This is very serious."
---------------------------------------------

Let us all raise PURE HELL for Amber!

[underpants]

10. "I'm not even supposed to be using the phone"

I heard that last night on ABC WNT.

[ezekiel333]

18. Yes...

Amber's mom was on the local news last night, Dothan is about an hour North of us, and they played the tape. That broadcast has moved a lot of local people to action.

There is an update on their situation in the Clarion-Ladger:

2 Miss. soldiers among 5 reassigned

Their concerns may be 'valid,' Army spokesman says:

<http://www.clarionledger.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20041016/NEWS01/410160365/1002>

<http://floridapatriots.com/raise_pure_hell.htm>

[lpbk2713]

11. An unpleasant thought just occurred to me.........

If the fuel gets contaminated while it is still technically in Haliburton's storage tanks (ahem, from who-knows-what and by whom), they get to sell even more fuel to the government (ie BushCo) at highly inflated prices. This debacle is going to go down as the biggest windfall ever known.

[underpants]

12. What? like cutting drugs?

I posted the same type of idea on my first FACE thread.

[T Bone]

13. keep these threads together

Read all these threads, they are all linked:


Reservist calls Mom at home for help in Iraq
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=104x2498461

The first FACE of the order defying platoon in Iraq 'Murka will see
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=104x2498483


and keep them kicked to the top together !!!

CNN reporting mutiny by unit
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=104x2495132


All posts in all these threads are RELEVENT.

[T Bone]

14. 1more

time

[Gaffey Duck]

15. hey

:kick:

[Karenina]

16. hey, hey

:kick: :kick:

[BeHereNow]

19. Speaking as a mom...

Wild horses couldn't keep me from
going to that base and bringing my kid home.
Nothing sets a mothers' adrenaline pumping like
a cry for help from her child.
We can single handedly move boulders if it means
getting to our babies crying for help.
My heart breaks for that mom- she must feel
absolutely panic stricken and helpless.

BHN

[lpbk2713]

20. I believe it, no doubt in my mind.

The strongest force in nature is a mother's love for her child. I've always believed that.

[Dulcinea]

21. I second that!

I'm a mother of 2. Couldn't agree more!