The company has personnel from South Carolina, Alabama, Kentucky, North Carolina and Mississippi. They arrived in Iraq in April as part of the 13th Corps Support Command--a 15,000-strong logistics and supply unit.
Almost 90 percent of the company's troops are National Guard members or reservists. Twenty-six have been killed thus far.
The fuel-laden trucks they were ordered to drive could not go faster than 40 miles per hour. Several of the vehicles had mechanical problems. The platoon had also been informed that the convoy would not be escorted by infantry in humvees or helicopter gunships.
The incident received international news coverage after some of the GIs managed to contact their relatives in the United States.
It was the first reported incident of a large group of U.S. troops in Iraq refusing orders.
Beverly Dobbs of Vandiver, Ala., told Salon magazine that she got a panicked call from her son, Spec. Joseph Dobbs, on Oct. 13. "Mama, we're in a lot of trouble," he said.
"We refused to go because our vehicles were in awful shape. The place they wanted to send us was dangerous. We had to go without guns. All of us refused to go. We're not risking our lives like that."
"I'm proud of my son," said Renee Shealey of her son Scott, one of 19 soldiers who refused orders to go on what the soldiers called a "suicide mission" in Iraq.
The Army has said a "full investigation" of the incident is under way and that disciplinary action would be meted out if warranted.
Tod Ensign, legal director for Citizen Soldier, a New-York-based GI/veterans' rights advocacy group, is demanding access to Pfc. Colin Durham of Rock Hill, S.C. Nadine Stafford of Rock Hill has asked Ensign to talk to Durham, her grandson, and ascertain his current legal status and that of other members of his unit.
History of resistance
Combat refusals are nothing new to the U.S. Army. As early as 1813, a unit of 4,000 Kentucky soldiers declined to engage Native forces that had just attacked Fort Dearborn (later Chicago).
During the Mexican-American War, thousands of soldiers, rebelling against anti-immigrant and anti-Catholic bigotry, deserted the U.S. Army and joined the Mexican Army in its struggle to fight the U.S. invasion. Led by Capt. John Riley of County Galway, they formed the "San Patricio" Battalion and fought bravely in most of the campaigns of the two-year war.
This latest refusal by an entire platoon is reminiscent of the Vietnam War. By 1970 in Vietnam, killing hated officers and sergeants with fragmentation grenades--"fragging"--was commonplace. Mutinies also occurred.
Over 65,000 soldiers had deserted by 1970. Search and destroy missions often became "search and avoid."
In an article headed "The Collapse of the Armed Forces," written for the Armed Forces Journal in June 1971, Col. Robert D. Heinl Jr. reported that the "army that now remains in Vietnam is in a state approaching collapse." He cited widespread incidents of mutiny, fraggings, and GI organizing against the war as evidence.
Heinl quoted a U.S. soldier in Cu Chi: "They have set up separate companies for men who refuse to go into the field. It's no big thing to refuse to go. If a man is ordered to go to such and such a place he no longer goes through the hassle of refusing; he just packs his shirt and goes to visit some buddies at another base camp.
"Operations have become incredibly ragtag. Many guys don't even put on their uniforms any more ... . The American garrison on the larger bases are virtually disarmed. The lifers have taken our weapons from us and put them under lock and key. ... There have also been quite a few fragging incidents in the battalion."
GI resistance was instrumental in ending the war in Vietnam. Anti-war activists played a key role in supporting GI resisters. Organizations like the American Servicemen's Union provided support for GIs who opposed the war.
The ASU published a newspaper for GIs called The Bond. The name reflected the bond between the anti-war movement and the brothers and sisters in the military. Establishing that bond once again is a priority for those interested in bringing the occupation of Iraq to an end.
Anti-war groups support GI resisters
The Support Network for an Armed Forces Union--SNAFU--is an organization that supports resistance inside the military. SNAFU has issued a statement supporting this platoon's refusal of orders, and is working to provide support for soldiers who refuse.
According to SNAFU: "These soldiers have been placed in danger by the policies of the U.S. government that have created a climate of hatred throughout the Arab and Muslim world. The illegal war against Iraq, the brutalization of the Palestinian people, the bombing of civilians in Fallujah and throughout Iraq, and the torture chambers at Abu Ghraib and elsewhere have engendered a justifiable outrage throughout the region.
"The Pentagon and the brass have repeatedly demonstrated their disregard for human life by brutalizing and murdering Iraqi people, and by their callous disregard for the safety and well-being of their own troops. Pentagon officials and the officer corps view front-line troops, drawn largely from poor and oppressed communities, as expendable, in the same way they view the Iraqi people as less than human. ... We support the decision by these soldiers to refuse orders and we call upon others to also take action to stop the war." (www.join-snafu.org)
Reprinted from the Oct. 28, 2004, issue of Workers World newspaper
This article is copyright under a Creative Commons License.
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