From Mare Island To Tallil - Will the Army prosecute mutineers?

On October 13, 18 soldiers from a platoon of the 343rd Quartermaster Company in Tallil, Iraq refused to follow orders to take a convoy of fuel trucks down "Main Supply Route Tampa." The convoy left hours later, other soldiers filling in for the refuseniks. As it began, it was a small matter. But what the Army does in disciplining the soldiers involved isn't. When the members of the 343rd joined together to refuse to carry out their orders, as it appears, they committed a crime that must be punished quickly and severely.

According to various reports, one of the refuseniks, Spc. Amber McClenny, told her mother in a panicky call that she and her pals had refused to carry out orders because it was a "suicide mission." Amber told her mom they had been ordered to drive broken-down trucks carrying "contaminated fuel." Ricky Shealey, whose son is another of those who refused, reportedly said that commanders ignored complaints about broken-down trucks. According to a statement by Brig. Gen. James Chambers, commander of the 13th Corps Support Command (of which the 343rd is a part), "...the soldiers involved expressed some concerns regarding maintenance and safety."

Pentagon sources said that, "Initial indication is that the soldiers scheduled for the convoy mission raised some valid concerns and the command is addressing them." In short, it currently appears that the Army is going easy on this bunch. Why would they? That statement about "valid concerns" contradicts other key information from the same sources. If the concerns were valid about safety or maintenance, then how was the convoy mission accomplished within a few hours by other soldiers and apparently with the same trucks?

The Army now says that all 18 soldiers implicated have been returned to duty. None have been demoted or arrested, and a preliminary investigation is ongoing. The 343rd has been ordered to stand down — i.e., relieved of duty — while its vehicles are inspected. The investigation may go on as long as ten days or two weeks. The seriousness of this incident can hardly be overstated. By now, every soldier, sailor, airman, Marine and Coast Guardsman in Iraq has heard about it. What the Army does in response will reverberate through the force, and well into the future.

Article 94 of the Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ) says that, "Any person subject to this chapter who...with intent to usurp or override lawful military authority, refuses, in concert with any other person, to obey orders or otherwise do his duty...is guilty of mutiny," a crime punishable by imprisonment or death. There are very few past incidents such as this, but they should guide the Army in handling this one.

Mutiny is extremely rare in the U.S. military. In my research, I haven't discovered a single incident of it in the history of the Marines or the Air Force. In the Army and Navy it is something that is fortunately quite rare. One reason for the rarity is that in the past, these incidents have been dealt with by throwing the book at the mutineers. The Army has to deal with this one with great speed and severity. There is a good example to follow. The Army should act as the Navy did in 1944, in what may be the most comparable incident: It's remembered as the "Mare Island Mutiny."

During World War II, many of the tasks soldiers are now relieved of by contractors or equipment required hundreds of men to handle. Loading ammunition onto a ship was one of them, and it wasn't safe to do. In August 1944 more than 250 black sailors — still serving in segregated units — refused to load an ammunition ship at the Naval Ammunition Depot at Mare Island, California. It was dangerous work. Another black unit suffered a huge number of casualties only a month before in the explosion of another ammo ship in nearby Port Chicago. These sailors believed that their unit was being asked to take risks that others — whites — weren't.

More than 200 of these sailors returned to work when threatened with courts martial, but 50 did not. Those 50 were convicted of mutiny and sentenced to 15 years in prison. Then-NAACP lawyer Thurgood Marshall appealed in their behalf to the Navy secretary who released the men about three years later. (This case was one of the incidents that finally caused the Navy to desegregate.) The Mare Island sailors had a legitimate gripe and that didn't save them from courts martial. From everything we know now, the refuseniks of the 343rd haven't the slightest justification for refusing to obey their orders.

It is hard to understand the Army's soft, cautious approach. It's talking about reviewing the soldiers' complaints, inspecting vehicles, and issuing denials that the fuel the trucks were carrying was contaminated. But to have a mutiny, even a mini-mutiny like this one, indicates serious problems in the unit concerned. BGen. Janis Karpinski — the absentee commander at the Abu Ghraib prison — was relieved of duty for her inattention to what was going on there. Here — as in Abu Ghraib — attention should focus not only on the platoon leader and company commander but also on the Army generals running the show.

There seems to be a pattern here. Too much distance between Army commanders and the soldiers out doing the tasks the generals order. Col. Douglas MacGregor (USA, ret.) told me that, "When British fought in Malaya [in the early 1950s, at the height of the communist insurgency there] Sir Gerald Templer compelled his brigadiers to walk/ride on patrols with troops once every two weeks to share the danger and see the true state of affairs on the ground. Army general officers need to do the same." Apparently, they aren't in places such as Tallil. If they aren't — and commanders are the same kind of absentee leaders as Karpinski was — their heads should roll.

But what of the troops? Soldiers who serve — in peace, far less in war — can't be permitted to pick and choose among their orders to decide which they care to obey on any given day. The only question is whether the order was lawful. If the order doesn't require the soldier to commit a crime under the law of war or the Uniform Code of Military Justice, and if the order is within the authority of the officer who gives it, there's no choice in the matter. It is apparent that these soldiers have committed one of the most serious crimes any soldier can commit. On Monday, one report said that the Army was thinking of prosecuting only the leaders of the Tallil mutiny. That would be wrong. Terribly wrong.

The only way to deal with this is to charge all who refused the order with mutiny (or some lesser included offense to which they may plead guilty) and throw them in jail or at least out of the Army with a less-than-honorable discharge. Let's not hear about the maintenance schedules of the trucks. Let's not hear about why they should have been given better armor, faster trucks, or tanks or air cover. They are soldiers, and this is a war.

NRO contributor Jed Babbin is the author of Inside the Asylum: Why the UN and Old Europe are Worse than You Think.

If the replacement crew made it with the same equipment and did not come under attack I would have to agree that some punishment is in order.

I think the twerp calling home to mama should be singled out. That was clearly mutiny, and inciting civilian interference in military affairs.

How much do you want to bet that when the dust settles here that there will have been a complete setup for political purposes?

I am sure you heard the female "soldier" calling home to Mama so that Mama could "raise hell" with folks about what was going on in the unit.

Ask yourself, "how did this little girl get a cell phone in a combat zone? How did she get a cell phone that would actually work in a country that uses European cell technology & not American?"

Then, ask yourself why a group calling itself "Citizen Soldier", run by a former Kerry VVAW pal, was giving this stuff to the press

Yep! If other soldiers from the same unit could accomplish the mission, with or without injury, those who initially refused the mission should all be in the brig! What if soldiers in landing craft refused to land on Omaha Beach on June 6th, 1944, or onto Iwo Jima? And what of the troops waiting for their supplies? What if the next group of sissies refusing an order allows Zarqawi to escape, or causes death or injury to unsupplied soldiers in combat?

The story itself is a disgrace, the follow-up by the Army is adding insult to injury.

They ALL should be punished big time. Our military is not trained to debate decisions. What if the heroic men that assaulted the beaches on D-day refused to bail off the boat. The fighting men of this great country have charged headlong into many "suicide missions" in the defense of our country. Remember the Alamo, Dammit. These weak tourists pretending to be warriors should should be sentenced to years of reading about the heroic acts of better men than them, in solitary confinement. I am ashamed that two of them are from the great state of Mississippi.

Reduction in rank to E-1, forfeiture of all pay and allowances, sentenced to twenty years at hard labor and given a dishonorable discharge upon completion of sentence.

I'd settle for that although I would prefer something harsh.

I still say we'll see their families in angst on Oprah before 2 Nov and we'll see them again with her when the Army sends them home with a warning slap on the wrist.

I havent heard anything recently.....over here, of course being that I am surrounded by the Army, it is being treated as a non-issue.

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.