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What needs to be said about Scott Thomas?
How far into The New Republic's fabricated war story did I have to get to recognize it was a fabricated story? Answer: Not very far. Here's the first line:
I saw her nearly every time I went to dinner in the chow hall at my base in Iraq.Here's a true war story. One late night near Baghdad, my unit's First Sergeant and I went to the local USAF passenger terminal to pick up a newly arrived troop. Because food is important to survival and morale, the first place we took our newbie was the DFAC - the Dining Facility. (Pronounced DEEFAK with emphasis on the first syllable.) AS I said, it was late, so as we pulled into the parking area Top asked a passing soldier "Hey, what time does the chow hall close?". His response was a blank stare, and a "huh?". He moved closer to the vehicle.
"What time does the Chow Hall close?" The First Sergeant repeated. The soldier began to appear confused, and was unable to respond. Something clicked in my head. "He doesn't know what a chow hall is" I said. The term is outdated, appearing now only in old war movies on TV, but Top and I are old school. "What time does the DFAC close?" Asked the First Sergeant.
"Twenty hundred hours" he replied smartly. He wasn't being a smart ass, he was completely unfamiliar with the term "chow hall". (By the way, it was closed, so we ate at Pizza Hut that night. I paid. War is hell.)
Anyhow, this hardly proves "Scott Thomas" is a liar, but it does trigger the Bullshit antennae. Not until the second sentence does his story completely and totally fall apart:
She wore an unrecognizable tan uniform, so I couldn't really tell whether she was a soldier or a civilian contractor.And that pretty much finishes that. Hint: military people wear military uniforms - the service uniform or the Physical Training uniform, AKA PT gear. and ALWAYS HAVE THEIR WEAPONS. Contractors wear civilian clothes and are rarely armed. (This has something to do with something called the Geneva Conventions, and also common sense.) Anyhow, this makes readily apparent who is military and who is not. In fact, it is the very reason MILITARY PEOPLE IN IRAQ ARE ONLY ALLOWED TO WEAR THEIR UNIFORMS AND NOTHING BUT THEIR UNIFORMS. Again, this doesn't prove Scott Thomas is a liar, only that if he is who New Republic claims he is, his ignorance exceeds that of any soldier of any rank I've ever met.
If he's to be believed, this maybe military maybe not individual who was eating at the "Chow Hall" was horribly disfigured - for reasons not stated - and ultimately fled the "chow hall" in tears after being humiliated by comments from Thomas: "“Yeah man,” I continued. “I love chicks that have been intimate—with IEDs. It really turns me on—melted skin, missing limbs, plastic noses ." The poor girl, to have courageously recovered enough from wounds so grievous, only to be reduced to tears and flight from a roomful of laughing soldiers who confront the reality of IEDs every day, and who have seen friends die from that cause.
Scott has many other stories of his buddies to share with eager readers of National Republic. In his version of Iraq, a Saddam-era children's mass grave is discovered. Rather than report their find, Scott and his buttholebuddies desecrate the corpses:
At first, we found only household objects like silverware and cups. Then we dug deeper and found children’s clothes: sandals, sweatpants, sweaters. Like a strange archeological dig of the recent past, the deeper we went, the more personal the objects we discovered. And, eventually, we reached the bones. All children’s bones: tiny cracked tibias and shoulder blades. We found pieces of hands and fingers. We found skull fragments. No one cared to speculate what, exactly, had happened here, but it was clearly a Saddam-era dumping ground of some sort.And no one at New Republic would stop to wonder exactly why this clown was prancing around Iraq without a helmet.One private, infamous as a joker and troublemaker, found the top part of a human skull, which was almost perfectly preserved. It even had chunks of hair, which were stiff and matted down with dirt. He squealed as he placed it on his head like a crown. It was a perfect fit. As he marched around with the skull on his head, people dropped shovels and sandbags, folding in half with laughter. No one thought to tell him to stop. No one was disgusted. Me included.
Another of Scott's pals is the world's most accomplished driver of 30-ton fighting vehicles. He's honed his skills to the point that he can do this:
I know another private who really only enjoyed driving Bradley Fighting Vehicles... One particular day, he killed three dogs. He slowed the Bradley down to lure the first kill in, and, as the diesel engine grew quieter, the dog walked close enough for him to jerk the machine hard to the right and snag its leg under the tracks. The leg caught, and he dragged the dog for a little while, until it disengaged and lay twitching in the road. A roar of laughter broke out over the radio. Another notch for the book.Blackfive has a response from a soldier stationed at FOB Falcon - where The New Republic claims "Scott Thomas" and his pals are "serving".
In the 11 months I've been here I've never once seen a female contractor with a burned face. In a compact place like this with only one mess hall I or one of my guys would certainly have noticed someone like that. There are a few female contractors, I think maybe a dozen, but none fit the horrific description given in that article. Further, I've personally seen guys threatened with severe physical harm for making jokes of any kind about IED victims given the number of casualties all the units on this FOB have sustained. It is not a subject we take lightly. Gallows humor jokes do get told, but extremely seldom and never about anyone they actually know or are in the presence of.Given the friends in the S-2 shop of my battalion and how often I talk to them about what's going on in our AO and AI I can also tell you no reports whatsoever have been sent up - or down from MNCI - about a mass grave of any kind. We find bodies all the time, sure, but graves? None.
So who the hell is "Scott Thomas"? Some possible answers:
Pretend for a minute his stories are true. He's not just reporting the actions of others, the Left's latest "war hero" is an active participant in the actions he describes. One wouldn't expect such a scumbag to take appropriate action within his chain of command to correct the numerous examples of "bad behavior" he reports, but I do concur with California Army National Guard Lieutenant Colonel Kurt A. Schlichter:
If this guy saw improper conduct, he needs to report it up his chain of command. No senior guy is going to look the other way and let his career go down the toilet protecting wounded-abusing, dog-killing kid corpse desecrators.If you believe leadership in his unit is perfectly willing to allow soldiers to run amok in this fashion then you are ignorant of the US military today. Case in point: a unit here in Iraq was using the radio call sign "Aggressive". They had to change it to something else. Reason: "Aggressive" presents the "wrong image". This isn't an Orwellian effort - it is much more exemplary of the mindset of military leadership today than the sort Thomas describes (or infers from his description of those they lead).
If he's actually in the military and he's lying, then words aren't sufficient to describe the sort of low life scumbag he is.
If he (or she) is not in the military and is simply demonizing U.S. Soldiers for fun and profit, then he (or she) is simply doing what so many reporters find irresistible these days - providing gullible Leftists with what they are eager to believe.
Regardless, I'm glad to read this from The Weekly Standard (a publication with a bit more journalistic integrity than The New Republic):
We have also contacted the Pentagon in the hopes of getting more information to either corroborate or disprove "Thomas"'s account.Let's hope they get a response. I for one would like to know whether "Scott Thomas" and his buddies are the sick little pieces of shit described in The New Republic or simply figments of some other sick little piece of shit's imagination.
UPDATE:Speaking of graveyards...
UPDATE:II Those down range express their thoughts here
UPDATE III: The New Republic responds:
NOTE TO READERS:
Several conservative blogs have raised questions about the Diarist "Shock Troops," written by a soldier in Iraq using the pseudonym Scott Thomas. Whenever anybody levels serious accusations against a piece published in our magazine, we take those charges seriously. Indeed, we're in the process of investigating them. I've spoken extensively with the author of the piece and have communicated with other soldiers who witnessed the events described in the diarist. Thus far, these conversations have done nothing to undermine--and much to corroborate--the author's descriptions. I will let you know more after we complete our investigation.
--Franklin Foer
