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You could buy glass bottled sodas from the roadside Haji marts.... However, unless you were a fan of foreign brands and flavors, most guys bought sodas from the PX once they were set up, and those were 2 liters or cans. Well, the near bear came in bottles......
Posted by armynurseboy at May 3, 2005 12:36 AM
That's all I needed. Case closed.
Posted by Greyhawk at May 3, 2005 12:58 AM
I can definitely say I saw glass bottles in Iraq. In tikrit in 03, I was assigned to 4th ID as a Direct unit support contractor for ASAS systems. We would go into town towards Ironhorse Base and on the left hand side was an old Iraqi man that would sell you a six pack of bottled soda 3 bucks. The bottles looked old and you had to be careful, as many of them had chipped lips or cracks in them, the bottling plant was down in Samarra supposedly. But yeah they existed, that old man had his little bodega right next to the Penguin Ice sno cone shop in Tikrit.........Ah the memories.
Posted by Caelestis at May 3, 2005 01:39 AM
Early on we carried "Haji Beaters" in our vehicles. They were extra bamboo stick that we picked up in Kuwait (they were used as tent poles in fest tents). They were used to deter Iraqis from climbing up on the vehicles or trying to steal stuff. This was very prominent early on and mostly done by little kids. They would swarm around you and just grab stuff. Give 'em a light swat with the stick and they thought twice about being a thief. It may sound cruel, but the alternative was a butt stroke or a bullet. Which would you prefer we use.....
Posted by armynurseboy at May 3, 2005 03:57 AM
As a member of the 744th MP BN, we had the 320th MP Co. as a guard company under our command. They lived maybe 40 feet away from us when they were in Naseriyah. While they were in Naseriyah, they were our tower guards and QRF for the mini-jail we ran on the outskirts of Talil Air Base. The 320th had few additional missions that involved them going outside the wire that didn't involve them being our security escort when we transported prisoners to BIAP. Imagine the nightmare that would have occured if 3 buses of 30 Iraqi prisoners each saw a soldier smash a glass bottle over an innocent Iraqis head. Defintely didn't happen during their time there. As for their time at Abu, I know their mission was, once again, tower guards. One of their platoons was also tasked with being General Karpinski's security. Now she's no angel, but i highly doubt an E-4 would have the gall to break a bottle over an Iraqis head with her in the middle vehicle. I was friends with a lot of the younger guys in the unit and after we moved up to Baghdad we would run into each other every now and then. There are few secrets among lower enlisted, and nothing of this sort was ever mentioned. There is a good chance Delgado made these stories out of thin air, and at worst, they are isolated incidents.
Posted by James at May 3, 2005 04:49 AM
As a truck driver in Iraq I spent alot of time on the roads and in the cities on convoy. Never did I see any mistreatment of Iraqis along the roads or on the streets. There were too many people around to witness anything like that. If a soldier broke a bottle over the head of an Iraqi... there would've been hell to pay. I think Delgado is lying.
Posted by Bill at May 3, 2005 05:21 AM
Well I was too busy giving the little kids MRE's or taking pictures of them, but yeah I never saw one of the soldiers in the brigade I supported do anything like that. The worst I ever saw was we shoved a little kid that kept trying to climb into the humvees when we were buying smokes or sodas in the Tikrit marketplace. He was stealing anything that wasn't tied dow, running and handing it to an adult and then coming back for more. Well the TC for the vehicle I was in, finally shoved him to the ground and he ran away.
Anyway having read the story, I think Delgado is just another fluff piece for the Times to use to denigrate our soldiers.
Posted by Caelestis at May 3, 2005 05:28 AM
I think he's lying, too. I don't remember glass bottles being sold in the PX, and very rarely did the Iraqi vendors have any. It's possible, but I think he's passing on some barracks tales, not facts.
Posted by SFC SKI at May 3, 2005 08:33 AM
Add to all of this that Bob Herbert hardly has a stirling reputation as a journalist and draw your own conclusions...
Posted by Snake Eater at May 3, 2005 12:58 PM
Do Soldiers in Up-Armored Humvee's really have the time or space to store a bunch of bottles just to break them over the head's of some poor Iraqi? I think personally if you gave me the choice, I would choose to carry more ammo, first aid kits, or something a bit more mission critical than a glass bottle. Besides the fact that I wouldn't want a bunch of glass in the Hummer with me in case an IED went off. Just what ever soldier needs more shrapnel!!
Posted by SC at May 3, 2005 01:29 PM
It sounds a bit Hollywood... in real life, glass bottles are quite sturdy (genuine Coke bottles are notoriously so), and I wouldn't be surprised if a bottle failed to break because the target skull broke first. Seems like this would quickly put a damper on the "fun" of bottle-breaking.
Yes, you see bottles broken over heads all the time in movies, but those are special prop bottles made just for the purpose.
Mind you, I have no personal experience in trying to break bottles over people's heads... this is just a suspicion.
Posted by Eric Wilner at May 3, 2005 03:00 PM
Here's my email to Herbert:
Mr. Delgado is a liar and you are a fool for buying in to his lies.
Based on your "reputation" (and the "stellar" reputation of the NYT), I wouldn't expect any less than an article
that attempts to denigrate our military personnel and (by default) their mission.
Your article (and the rest of the NYT's anti-military, anti-administration articles) shows why you both are increasingly irrelevant.
Very Sincerely,
thebronze
Posted by thebronze at May 3, 2005 04:55 PM
Now if they were carrying around the special prop bottles and shattering those on people's heads, that would be kind of funny (if it didn't hurt them).
Posted by Earnest Iconoclast at May 3, 2005 05:14 PM
Those prop bottles don't hurt - I saw one used in a high school production of Much Ado About Nothing this last weekend.
We also used one (they're kinda spendy) in a high school production of Fiddler on the Roof I was in. The guy who got hit said that he never felt it impact, but that he cued off the audiences reaction instead.
Posted by SGT Jeff at May 3, 2005 05:38 PM
Well, of course actors have to use prop bottles that are painless. It's not like they can take a real shot to the skull from a good thick Bud bottle. For that you need paratroopers. :D
Posted by GoldFalcon at May 3, 2005 06:04 PM
We could get bottled sodas from the little snack shacks around Karbala but they always wanted the bottles back afterwords.
Posted by SGT Ted at May 3, 2005 10:13 PM
Couldn't say on the availability of bottles but if you buy a Coke in a glass bottle here in Atlanta, home of Coke, it's about $2 for six ounces... that's right, six. Some oldies swear there is a profound difference in taste and texture. Definitely they are a curiousity as far as Coke is concerned. The volume must be tiny and I doubt they are being shipped overseas unless some sheik is paying $10 a bottle for the nostalgia.
On bottles generally, yes, they are significantly harder than the ordinary human skull. The Rolling Rock longneck makes an enticing A flat xylophonic sound, assuming not to much hair, and will produce a split needing stitches long before its structural integrity is threatened. Coke bottles are WAY thicker... like they say about "Coke-bottle glasses". This guy's full of it, in my book. And Herbert's happily shoveling it.
Posted by megapotamus at May 3, 2005 10:22 PM
One more thing, rarely were we ever going slow enough to whack someone in the head with a bottle, you know IED's small arms ambushes and stuff like that usually make you not want to play juvenile pranks on people. The fear of death has a way of making you not play grab ass.
Posted by Caelestis at May 3, 2005 11:25 PM
my email to Bob Herbert:
Did you bother to check out Aiden Delgado's stories? Or did you just use your column to repeat his assertions? Are you paid to be a secretary or a journalist? No where has it been reported that he actually made a sworn statement or his testimony was used against anyone at Abu Grarib or elsewhere. These are only his unsubstantiated statements.
Point the facts out to me to the contrary and not just what he could have read about and made up a story from reports he read. If I maligned you, I will apologize to you.
Will you apologize in your column if it turns out Delgado's assertions are proven to be false and you failed to do your job? No. You're a columnist. It isn't your job to find facts or to confuse people with them. Columnist aren't required to get and add statements for or against what they write or what others assert and they just regurgitate. They are free to offer their own opinions, like an umpire with bad vision and without glasses: you can call 'em like you see 'em and when you don't see 'em you make it up. If they can't make them up themselves, they print gossip.
If you were a reporter, you'd have fired you for From 'Gook' to 'Raghead'. But then again, you work for the New York Times. They'll probably make you the news editor.
-- MoWman
Posted by mowman at May 4, 2005 12:41 AM
Mudville,
Good job by Polipundit, Baldilocks, B5 and you. I am thankful every day that you guys are able to delve into the real facts, obtain first hand reporting from those who were there, and are willing to put these items out for the rest of us to see.
Better than any newspaper or newschannel anywhere. Keep up the good work. Well done.
Subsunk
Posted by Subsunk at May 4, 2005 04:38 AM
My email to Powerline on this story:
Schoor: . . . “Also, we threw full C-ration cans at kids on the side of the road. Kids would be lined up on the side of the road. They'd be yelling out, "Chop, Chop, Chop, Chop," and they wanted food. They knew we carried C-rations. Well, just for a joke, these guys would take a full can if they were riding shotgun and throw it as hard as they could at a kid's head. I saw several kids' heads split wide open, knocked off the road, knocked into tires of vehicles behind, and knocked under tank traps.” . . . (see citation below).
I can supply a searchable (in MS Word - 1.31 MB) complete text of the Winter Soldier Investigation transcript. You may need it, since it is about to be recycled piecemeal and wholesale, and you need to be able to recognize it when you see it again in an Iraqi disguise. This is the worst-case nightmare of we Vietnam Vets who have been working to debunk the lies of the 70's, and to prevent the same thing that happened to us from happening again to our sons in uniform. The least they could do is find new material. I guess that's what they thought they did, since it is now Coke bottles. Most of those I've talked to who were there (in Vietnam), including myself, think you'd have to be Warren Spahn to hit anything from the bed of a bouncing GI truck, with enough force or accuracy to do anything. C-ration cans were generally the size of tuna fish cans and not as heavy.
There is much more of this kind in the transcript. The hallmark of the WSI testimony is likewise its hearsay nature, and the willingness of the MSN then, and now, to repeat it without any critical examination. The simply audacious and implausible outrageousness of these kinds of allegations shock and nauseate every GI I've ever spoken to about them - not the content of the lies, but the mind-set of those telling them. The pervasive and consistent weltanschauung of the text is so psychopathic that it is really startling - and it is this outrageousness which was designed to insulate it from repudiation - it is almost too filthy to consider, and not imaginable by any sane person, "so therefore it must be true." I have always thought that no normal persons could have cooked this stuff up - it had to have come from real pros in the world of perverted thinking, i.e. professional Marxist propagandists with some access to "comrades" who actually did do things of this nature.
Source of quote above:
VVAW Winter Soldier Investigation
January – February 1971
Miscellaneous Panel
Moderators:
Jan Crumb, (a/k/a Jan Barry) 28, SP/4, 18th Aviation Co. (December 1961 to October 1963)
John Kerry, 27, Lt. (j.g.), Coastal Sq., Coastal Division, 11 & 13, USNR (November 1968 to April 1969)
Sam Schorr, SP/4 (E-4), 86th Combat Engineers (September 1966 to September 1967)
p. 177 (of my Combined Text in MS Word)
Posted by John Boyle at May 4, 2005 05:51 AM
Third world vendors usually don't let you keep the bottle, as they save money by reusing them.
So I'm not sure where all these extra glass bottles are coming from.
My guess is that he needed to make up some good stories to justify his CO appeal.
Posted by ed at May 4, 2005 11:11 AM
They have a lot of heat and sand. Sounds like glass! But, I highly doubt our soldiers, en masse are breaking bottles over Iraqi heads. That does not pass the common sense test and the NYT should have had a bit more common sense before joining in on that story.
Posted by Kevin at May 4, 2005 11:30 AM
"A large number of GIs are actually foreign citizens"
You amaze me. Where are they from ?
Posted by fFreddy at May 4, 2005 03:04 PM
fFreddy, close your eyes and stick a pin on a map of the world, if your pin hits dry land we've probably got someone from there serving in uniform. In my day the path to US citizenship was considerably faster for those willing to wear Uncle's suit, I suspect it still is. Nor is that the only reason for foreign nationals to enlist. I served with a couple of men who escaped Castro's Cuba, career soldiers in the pre-Castro days they enlisted because the military was their profession.
Posted by Peter at May 4, 2005 03:32 PM
"roadside Haji marts" You assholes realize that "haji" is a term of respect don't you? What kind of example are you setting when you turn it into a racist slur? Can you justify your lack of respect for people we are trying to help?
-
Posted by JRI at May 4, 2005 05:50 PM
fFreddy, you can find stories about GIs getting their citizenship in local papers all the time. All too often it's posthumous. The military is one place where race is really not much a factor - the global US presence has resulted in a real 'melting pot' like nothing you'll see anywhere on the outside.
JRI - sorry you're offended, but you're the only one showing disrespect. Hajji is merely a term of convenience; it carries no negative or positive connotations in the mind of a GI. It's applied to friend and foe - add some adjectives in front of it and you have something with meaning. I know, some people want to assign meaning, it helps them hate military people as a group ala Bob Herbert, Aiden Delgado, those who buy in to their brand of hate speech. Take for instance your use of "assholes" which I take to be applied to everyone on the thread, not just the person who said "Hajji marts".
By the way, what are you doing to help Iraq? You said 'we'?
Also you failed to offer an acceptable alternative to "Hajji". Please enlighten us with one. This is a serious request - I'm not joking.
Posted by Old Soldier at May 4, 2005 07:11 PM
Umm.. go watch that show that aired on PBS 2 months ago- (the one with bad words that caused a stink)...
There are plenty of examples of soldiers harrassing iraqis while driving. They yelled out the window, they played 'Let the Bodies hit the floor' (not from video.. news story at the beginning)... *
*There are positive uplifting scenes of the soldiers helping Iraqis, as well.
There is also a clip from Frontline on the net where the soldiers are riding and yelling- then they smash a self-described taxi-driver's car for taking wood from a bombed out building.
Sure, there are bad things that soldiers do... accept it.
They also do good things. But why blame NYTimes for printing a quote from a soldier?
BTW New College is a hippie school- no grades. used to date a dred-locked girl from there... nice place.
Posted by apostate at May 4, 2005 11:12 PM
Sorry to hurt your conservative brains in that last post...
sometimes things AREN'T that black & white, no matter how hard you try...
There may or may not be bottles in Iraq... hmm.
Soldiers may have done this.
Not a lot of soldiers may have done this.
Sometimes soldiers do mean things.
Sometimes soldiers do nice things.
NYTimes usually verifies quotes and statistics.
Kerry never said 'who among us doesn't like nascar' - NYTimes printed that one, along w/every other paper.
So, suck up your slobbering tongues back into your mouth-breathing heads and stop trying to 'catch' NYTimes in a 'liberal media hooplah' by using a quote which may or may not be true from a soldier about a few of the 80,000 soldiers in Iraq.
Posted by apostate at May 4, 2005 11:34 PM
Wow, apostate, your postings are just chock full of examples of soldiers throwing bottles at Iraqis.
Oh wait.
Posted by Patrick Chester at May 5, 2005 12:14 AM
I have met a lot of non-citizens in the service. Personally I met many Mexicans, Filipinos, Koreans, and several East Europeans. They can enlist as a non-citizen, but have to get citizenship to re-enlist on their second tour.
Posted by Anon Sgt at May 5, 2005 06:49 AM
Peter, Old Soldier, Anon Sgt, thanks.
I'm still surprised by the idea of foreigners in the forces. How does this work : does a Mexican/Filipino etc. just walk into a US embassy and say "I want to join up", or are these people who have already immigrated to the US, but have not yet got citizenship ?
Posted by fFreddy at May 5, 2005 07:10 AM
Apostate
It's not about a generic liberal media. It's very specifically about Aidan Delgado and Bob Herbert. In the thread there are commenters verifying that there were small soda bottles available in Iraq and that it's unlikely anyone cruising in a humvee would/could smash them over anyone's head - for a variety of valid reasons. How do they know? They know because they were there. These are the people who Delagado slanders - and Herbert amplifies his voice.
Everyone knows soldiers are capable of heinous acts - no one denies it. In fact, I'd state that Aidan Delgado (who was a soldier) is a gutless, cowardly liar, that's a heinous act in anyone's book. Note how I don't apply it to generic "soldiers" - or Herbert's support of him to "the media". And if Delgado isn't lying outright, if such events hapened, then I'm outraged and he's an even more pathetic coward for not naming names.
As far as fact checking - I've seen the claim made that certainly Herbert wouldn't have writtten what he did without doing some fact checking. While that might be true I'll postulate that if he had any verification of Delgado's slander he would have said so - how could he resist?
Posted by Greyhawk at May 5, 2005 04:56 PM
I'm American born overseas and knew a lot of diplomat-corps and other American-overseas' - like the 'RAMCON kids from Ras Tanura - they were my classmates in boarding school. As missionaries we were on a *different* economic level ;-) but everyone was from a high-achieving family and most everybody got really good grads, and some went on into military service. Hell, I'm lookin' in the old yearbook and remember that one kid had been in the Iranian Army already - he said was sent away *from* IRAN to our school in India because his parents were afraid of conflicts in the region and his folks didn't want him getting killed...it was 1975-76.
Chrenkoff blogs about the Coke-Pepsi wars in the MiddleEast, and how Pepsi was favored among Arabs because Coke was seen as an Israeli thing. “until 1992 Pepsi boycotted Israel and was aggressively pursuing the Arab market. Coke, on the other hand, is quite Israel-friendly, and thus a target of crazy boycotters.” So, (1.) if they really had some kind of Cola, they should be throwing Pepsi bottles not Coke.
(2.)But from what I remember, the old-style local bottle which might be found there (instead of aluminum) is a very robust piece of glass meant for many years of recycling and to withstand rough, donkey-cart style transport, and using it as a weapon would more-likely cave-in a skull than have it shatter on impact.
They don’t even make good Molotov cocktails, since they bounce and don’t break easily - we did-had some fun in boarding school, despite the strong "adult supervision"... So IMO yeh, the POS storyteller is FOS.
Posted by -keith in mtn. view at May 5, 2005 05:16 PM
"New College" (this "highly selective" school) in Florida is a big joke to everyone else in Florida.
As apostate says, there are no grades, and it has a repuatation of being a burnt-out out nest of hippies.
Posted by TriMT7 at May 5, 2005 06:56 PM
Here's my paltry deposit to Herbert's karma:
Sirrah--
Shame on you for conniving with a common poltroon like Delgado to denigrate your betters. You speak of that which is beyond your comprehension, and only little wit may excuse you.
With as little regard as possible,
Posted by Ken Hall at May 5, 2005 09:56 PM
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