Hand-to-hand horror

[leftchick]

http://www.heraldsun.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5478,11660955%5E663,00.html

<snip>

He said: "The worst thing was collecting the dead, seeing the damage that I did to those people. Lots of our guys were just 18 or 19 and I had to tell them to treat the bodies like bits of meat, not human beings.

"I got back to camp after six hours on the ground, covered in blood from head to toe. The first thing I did was pull out a photo of my family."

The corporal, who estimated he killed between 15 and 20 insurgents in Iraq, revealed he was still haunted by the faces of the dead.

According to British Army estimates, about 30 rebels died at the checkpoint named Danny Boy, which is 15km south of the lawless town of Al Amarah. The British troops came out of the gunfight almost unscathed.

:puke:

[mr_hat]

1. Hope he can hold to the notion

that all his kills were insurgents.

We've put our kids in hell.

[xultar]

3. We've put our kids in hell. Then they are coming home...what about mental

health services to help them and their families deal with this horror.

[Mari333]

15. no mental health services...

they will come home and be told to buck up. They will be suffering from major PTSD, and no one will be there for them. Some will commit suicide, some will take their anger out on their families, abuse their wives or children, some will spend the rest of their lives having nightmares like my brother in law, who, 20 years after Vietnam, shot himself in the mouth in front of his 2 small children ...
We have a whole new generation of major mental illness and this administration will make sure they get no help when they return..the poor never do.....

[leftchick]

17. God Mari....

you are so right and it is happening right now. :(

[0007]

16. The VA is sneezing the troops off after Rumsfeld jacks 'em off

[leesa]

22. No, that is wrong. He needs to hold to the notion that our government

betrayed him. Those people were unlikely "insurgents", whatever that is, but simply Iraqi citizens. THEY should not be demonized to ratonalize what he did.

[bahrbearian]

2. Is that the new term for Locals, "Rebels"

[UL_Approved]

4. The true nature of warfare

You kill people. In any way that you can think of and do, you kill people. That is warfare. That is what happens when you can;t make peace.

[leftchick]

5. or...

don't want peace.

[ooglymoogly]

8. that is why you go to war as a last resort to protect your country

wise people know that...idiots don't

[Name removed]

20. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[JoFerret]

6. ...and of course they were there

once before. The loss of the Kut-al-Amara garrison was one of the great army humiliations of the Great War.

[daleo]

7. The British army has always rather liked the fixed bayonet charge

At least it has come up a fair bit in my reading. It seems amazing that they didn't get shot first.

[leftchick]

9. "I'm just glad I did my job"

Well I am not! :(

<The corporal, who denied he was a hero, said: "I have been an infantry soldier for 13 years. I've done it time and again in training -- it was second nature. I'm just glad I did my job." >

[bin.dare]

10. Danny Boy = Londonderry Air = Derry = NI

is it a coincidence the British Army named their checkpoint Danny Boy ?

I was trying to get my head around the numbers.
"A BRITISH soldier who led a perilous bayonet charge on rebels in Iraq has revealed details of bloody hand-to-hand fighting in enemy trenches. ... The trench battle ended with three Iraqis dead and eight captured. Cpl Byles, who entered the trench with four other British soldiers, shot and killed two more insurgents who were firing from a second position."
The BA "estimates" about 30 rebels died at the checkpoint, Byles estimates he killed about 15 to 20 in iraq.

Fuck it, the piece is written by Byles, himself.

[signmike]

11. They'd have been shot if the "rebels" had bullets

imho-

"The regiment has returned to Britain after seven months in Iraq, where they were attacked 863 times, lost two soldiers and suffered 42 injuries. "

I've been lied to by experts. Like the man said - he wrote his own hero story. I can't get my head around these numbers, myself.

[goforit]

12. High crimes......The blood that Bush&Cheney has never seen.

God bless all those innocent souls.

[leftchick]

14. indeed....

:(

[orpupilofnature57]

13. how are the?percent of the assholes that enabled this jerk doin,righteous?

[bitchkitty]

18. Rings false -

I don't begrudge anyone their hero, but this kind of shit makes me suspicious. What's their definition of insurgents? I hate fucking war and anyone who thinks there is any kind of nobility in charging forward to slaughter human beings, and especially the media who report it in their breathy little way. God, sometimes I hate the world.

[Misunderestimator]

19. Shit, he tells them to treat them like "bits of meat" and then pulls out

a picture of his family??? What? Was he hungry or something after all that work?

[shadowknows69]

21. Probably

needed to see the face of sanity amidst all that insanity or he probably would have just blew his own head off