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16.10.04, 04:34
Reservists refuse convoy mission in Iraq
Soldiers considered fuel resupply too dangerous, kin sayNBC News and news
services
Updated: 3:06 p.m. ET Oct. 15, 2004WASHINGTON - The Army is investigating
reports that several members of a reservist supply unit in Iraq refused to go
on a convoy mission, the military said Friday. Relatives of the soldiers said
the troops considered the mission too dangerous.
The reservists are from the 343rd Quartermaster Company, which is based in
Rock Hill, S.C. The unit delivers food and water in combat zones.
According to The Clarion-Ledger newspaper in Jackson, Miss., a platoon of 17
soldiers refused to go on a fuel supply mission Wednesday because their
vehicles were in poor shape and they did not have a capable armed escort. The
paper cited interviews with family members of some of the soldiers, who said
the soldiers had been confined after their refusals.
Pentagon officials denied that, telling NBC News that "no soldiers have been
arrested, detained or restricted" while the investigation into the incident
is continuing.
Frequent ambushes, bombings
Convoys in Iraq are frequently subject to ambushes and roadside bombings.
A whole unit refusing to go on a mission in a war zone would be a significant
breach of military discipline. A statement from the military’s press center
in Baghdad called the incident “isolated," and said the mission was later
carried out by other soldiers from the 343rd, which has at least 120 soldiers.
“The investigating team is currently in Tallil taking statements and
interviewing those involved. This is an isolated incident and it is far too
early in the investigation to speculate as to what happened, why it happened
or any action that might be taken,” the coalition press information center
said in the statement, sent to the Associated Press in Washington.
In the statement, U.S. military officials said the commanding general of the
13th Corps Support Command had appointed his deputy commander to investigate
the incident.
The statement did not confirm several aspects of the relatives’ stories,
including the number of soldiers involved and the reason they refused the
mission.
Vehicles unsafe, relative says
The soldiers refused an order on Wednesday to go to Taji, Iraq — north of
Baghdad — because their vehicles were considered extremely unsafe, Patricia
McCook of Jackson, Miss., told the Clarion-Ledger newspaper. Her husband,
Sgt. Larry O. McCook, was among those detained, she said, saying her husband
had telephoned her from Iraq.
The platoon being held has troops from Alabama, Kentucky, North Carolina,
Mississippi and South Carolina, said Teresa Hill of Dothan, Ala., who told
the newspaper her daughter Amber McClenny is among those being detained.
Patricia McCook said her husband told her he did not feel comfortable taking
his soldiers on another trip.
“He told me that three of the vehicles they were to use were ’deadlines’ ...
not safe to go in a hotbed like that,” she said, according to the newspaper.
NBC News producer Scott Foster and the Associated Press contributed to this
report.