Phillip Leveque has spent his life as a Combat Infantryman, Physician Pharmacologist and Toxicologist. After surviving WWII, he went on to treat veterans for years who suffered from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.
(MOLALLA, Ore.) - Sunday night August 24, 2008 on ABC 60 Minutes Program was possibly the worst story of its type I have ever seen.
The reporter who was asking inane but really stupid questions of Sgt. Frank Woodrich about a battle incident in Iraq in 2005 in which several American Soldiers or Marines were killed or wounded and many Iraqi’s were killed had me so enraged I was about to crawl through the television set and strangle the reporter for the third degree inquisition he harassed on the sergeant who unfortunately was in charge of the American troops on that combat patrol.
There were several vehicles containing troops. The fourth in the convoy was blown apart by a bomb in the road ignited by remote control. The driver was blown apart into hamburger and others were wounded. Soon after an Iraq car drove up, six men got out and started to run away. They were supposed to stop.
The sergeant and his men assumed (rightly so) that they had something to do with the explosion and shot them. A house in direct view of the explosion was assumed to be the site of the person who exploded the bomb. The soldiers broke into the house and cleared the rooms with hand grenades before entering them and spraying with automatic weapons.
Unfortunately apparently the “trigger man” escaped but left rooms full of women and children which seems to be standard operating procedure (SOP) of the Iraqi guerillas.
The sergeant has been charged with unnecessary killing. THIS IS A GREAT INJUSTICE.
Infantry combat training is that survival of the troops and their leader has priority over all other considerations. I was a combat infantryman and pointman often in the same situation as Sgt. Woodrich.
The old saying that “the soldiers first duty is to die for his country” is pure hogwash. Old Blood and Guts Gen. George Patton, my former boss, said it best with the super appropriate profanity. “The soldiers first duty is not to die for his country but to make sure the enemy SOB dies for his country”.
A soldier on the attack holds his rifle towards the enemy “at the ready” and he knows he must fire his weapon at least one millisecond before the enemy does. This is by reflex. If he doesn’t do that he IS DEAD.
Iraq is full of enemies of the American Soldier and even infants may be hiding a bomb or a grenade in their blankets. Every child or adult is a potential lethal adversary.
The sergeant did everything according to the book. This was his first combat mission which is the extreme fault of his officers way up the chain of command.
To restrict or censor any soldier for protecting himself or his men will be a travesty. I never did see ANY officer leading a combat patrol and there certainly weren’t T.V. reporters anywhere close to an attacking point.
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More information on the history of Dr. Leveque can be found in his book, General Patton's Dogface Soldier about his experiences in WWII.
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