Murdered Soldiers Shouldn't Have Been Left Alone.
US army says policy violated in soldiers' deaths
By Ross Colvin
Reuters
Saturday, July 1, 2006; 8:27 AM
Quote:
BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Three U.S. soldiers killed by insurgents south of Baghdad last month had been left alone at a checkpoint in violation of military procedure, a U.S. military spokeswoman said on Saturday.
An investigation is already under way into how the soldiers came to be on their own in an armored Humvee vehicle in an al Qaeda hotspot known as the "Triangle of Death" as night fell.
Militants abducted and killed two of them in an attack in which the third soldier also died.
"A lone vehicle does not fit standard operating procedures and does not match published guidance," Lieutenant Colonel Michelle Martin-Hing told Reuters.
"The investigation will look at the circumstances surrounding this event and how it was that this vehicle was there by itself."
Major General James Thurman, commander of U.S.-led forces in the Baghdad area, ordered the probe into the deaths of Privates First Class Kristian Menchaca, 23, Thomas Tucker, 25 and David Babineau, 25...
The newspaper said in its latest edition that "a three- Humvee minimum has evolved as the standard for combat patrols and convoys."
Martin-Hing told the newspaper that two Humvees, part of the same patrol, had been manning a traffic control point slightly to the northeast of the bridge crossing. They were in radio communication with the lone Humvee but not in visual range....
(Note: Edited by Admin to stay within "fair-use" copyright guidelines)
