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THIS IS SENT AS A PRESS RELEASE. WE ENCOURAGE ANY AND ALL MEDIA TO CONTACT US CONCERNING A REVIEW OF THE FACTS WE WISH TO PRESENT.
OUR MILITARY JUSTICE SYSTEM KNOWINGLY PROSECUTED 8 MEN FOR A CRIME WHICH DID NOT EXIST FOR REASONS AS YET UNKNOWN.
WE NOW HAVE THE PAPERWORK FROM THE COURT MARTIALS AND PERSONAL NOTES TO PROVE IT.
Dear Sir/Madam,
We have been repeating statements that passed mostly form mouth to ear through family members who visited these men in the brig for the last 2 years in order to expose this travesty, but now we have extensive documents that back up our assertions of the Hamdania incident, specifically:
Combat action reports that prove the Marines and Navy Corpsman of the Hamdania incident (Pendleton 8 )had engaged in actions similar to or more aggressive than the incident where they are claimed to have murdered an Iraqi man, AWAD, and how in the previous weeks and months those acts were considered routine combat actions,
documents that reveal that the classified information that was used as a briefing by Lt Phan to order his men to engage in this ambush/combat action was destroyed by the Company officers with full knowledge of the JAG Corps,
That the classified information was also known to and held by a SSgt of the same company and that his records of this classified information used in Lt Phan’s briefing was destroyed also with this SSgt not allowed to testify or mentioned in the court martials,
Clear statements that the body identified as AWAD was retrieved by a second unit to be taken to the Iraqi Police unit to be recorded in a remains identification unit,
to only be ‘found’ later in the location of the actual firefight where the body of AWAD was retrieved from hours before and taken to the Iraqi Police station;
and how these Marines who were a part of this second unit were not allowed to testify, nor was any mention of these men allowed in the courts martial,
How these actions previously noted were given as information to lawmakers in the United States Congress, both Democrat and Republican, who sent representatives to monitor the court martial proceedings with full knowlege of events and evidences that would exonerate, and having seen that pertinent information that would have exonerated these Marines and Navy Corpsman witheld yet chose to remain inactive in their constituents defense with possible exception to use this event as a fundraising scheme or issue.
I am sending this to all the media e-mails and contacts I know of. These are not just statements backed by family recollections of personal interviews anymore, but facts backed up by documents that are now in our possession, and plainly show how our Military justice system has brought charges against these Marines and 1 Navy Corpsman to send an innocent man to jail and ruin the lives and careers of 7 others for the sake of an unknown cause only speculated at.
Please respond with a name and phone number that we can reply to with details of this information.
Many of us have placed our personal reputations on the line and are willing to be publicly named in this, do not fail the American Public in refusing to consider this accurate.
Jim Bancroft
USMC 1977-1981
860-989-7219 ( cell )
This letter is written as an overview. I have been begging different media acquaintances to cover this story in detail to no avail.
What is below is from newly received information confirming in some cases and correcting in others, just what happened to the 7 Marines and One Corpsman who later became known as the Pendleton 8, the Marines of the HAMDANIA Incident.
While some previous releases of information seem to contradict this account, it is because of access to information that we did not have before.
This is a story of government corruption that is beyond the pale. To hear the Bush administration talk of their support for the troops is insulting, to hear of the Democrat Congress and Senate repeat that claim is a lie.
Both parties are guilty in allowing this travesty to occur.
Subject: This is just an overview, and introduction, content can be released is U.S. documentation
POSTINGS FROM THE SWEETWATER LIBRARY
(SIXTH IN A SERIES)
RONIN’S MEMOS
“No one knows the meaning of innocence except those who are!”
-Unknown
“Convince your colonies that you are able,
and not afraid to control them,
and depend upon it,
obedience will be the result of
your deliberations.”
Lord North in a speech to the English Parliment before Parliment’s 1774 passage of the Quartering Act and other Coercive Acts American colonists condemened as the “Intolerable Acts.”
~~~
JAG HUNTER HERE:
Preamble - Just last evening Tim and Mary Harrington and myself were told, while putting the final flourishes to this posting, our importunities will be ignored, we’re wasting our time. Supremely powerful military governors know all of what’s to be exposed here (it’s common knowledge), nothing’s going to change (the Constitution is old news), it’s just the way things are, and Larry Hutchins and Ray Girouard are going to stay locked up as innocents (with all the others)...move along, move on, there’s nothing here to see.
Then the following arrogant taunts were given voice: Whatta ya goin’ to do about it! And why are we surprised!
Lord North’s comments are quoted above because they chillingly proclaim what America’s military politicians are doing to us—American citizens here at home. But now—speaking personally—having suffered for almost twenty years the insolence, haughtiness, audacity, arrogance, and pride first from John Bitoff, then most recently David Brahms, Jim Mattis, I must tell you Lord North’s words starkly depict what America’s professional criminals holding high command are doing to peoples worldwide without fear of criminal consequence.
Command racketeers—from Commander in Chief Bush down the chain of command—are so ashamed, so fearful about their personal fates should America’s populace be made aware of and then scrutinize their scheme of military operations their willing to bury alive innocent servicemen (our sons and daughters, our comrades) to enrich, shield and save themselves.
I’m not concerned here with questions swirling about the rightness or wrongness of the tactics our troops employ to seek out, locate, engage, and destroy immoral insurgent street fighters who refuse to wear uniforms and threaten the lives of those U.S. servicemen every moment of every day.
I am instead outraged beyond description that America’s senior commanders are capable and willing to imprison innocent U.S. servicemen to quell or altogether block discussion and debate of politically sensitive military adventures if only to protect their careers and themselves from perceived political danger.
I’ll do my best to communicate plainly and clearly. I singularly accept in advance all responsibility by any failure to do so.
With that I pass to you, the reader, the taunts of Navy Rear Admiral John Bitoff and Marine Corps Brigadier General David Brahms taunts.
As you absorb these words, are you surprised?
And whatta goin’ to do about it when you’re done?
~~~~~~~
Marine Sergeant Lawrence G. Hutchins’ squad mission that night and early morning (25/26 April 2006) was to set up an ambush in the vicinity of checkpoint 203. This day was just like yesterday, and would be just like tomorrow. Higher command were detailing Hutchins’ men with other Marine infantry units to patrol, raid, and ambush in a watch bill like rotation each day, every day, months without end.
Hutchins and his men would come to be known as the Camp Pendleton Eight.
Sgt. Hutchins’ team stepped out at 1700 hours for their twelve-hour ambush operation en route to a palm grove previously used as a patrol base. This position offered good concealment and decent cover but Hutchins could not make out the road ahead even using his night vision goggles. It was too dark.
Hutchins moved his men closer to the road at about 2200 hours sacrificing cover in exchange for a more optimal field of view. The sergeant pushed Corporals Thomas and Magincalda, Lance Corporal Jackson and Private First Class Jodka in to the tall grass about 70 meters north of his position. Lance Corporals Pennington and Shumate and Navy Third Class Petty Officer—Hospitalman Corpsman Bacos were with Hutchins next to a tree.
“It appeared to be a quiet night with no vehicle or personnel traffic until 0238 hours on the 26th.”
“At 0238 Lcpl. Shumate spotted movement on the east side [of the road]. Hutchins immediately reported this to KILO TWO.” Before KILO TWO could get the question out of his mouth regarding a shovel, Hutchins’ spotted the shovel with the stranger insurgent and ordered engagement in accordance with his rules of engagement for an ambush.
“We initiated the ambush with M16 fire...volleyed with my two SAWs [squad automatic weapons]. A moment later we began to take AK47 fire...”
HM3 Bacos pronounced the stranger dead at the scene after the shooting stopped. The QRF [quick response force] arrived soon after to retrieve the insurgents body. Hutchins’ squad accompanied the QRF to link up with RAZRO SIX.
This narrative, taken directly from Larry’s combat action report, has never before been publicly reported. A Navy doctor’s autopsy examination narration (released just days ago) is completely consistent with Sgt. Hutchins’ official written submission dated 26 April 2006. No one was ever able to identify the dead insurgent stranger.
Three weeks after the Hutchins’ ambush, on 9 May 2006, Army Staff Sergeant (Ranger) Raymond L. Girouard led another infantry unit into combat against a known enemy hard target near Hutchins’ area of operations. Ray’s operation was a larger, daylight airborne assault with the objective to wipe out a snake pit terrorist training camp.
In the days leading up to the training camp raid Staff Sergeant Girouard and his men were told they were going on a “suicide mission” against a hard target fortress providing cover to a large, well armed enemy.
Girouard and Hutchins’ missions were grandly successful. In reward and recognition of their bravery, gallantry, intrepidity and valor in battle Marine Sergeant Lawrence Hutchins was sentenced to 15-years in a military dungeon. Army Ranger Staff Sergeant Raymond Girouard was awarded 10-years. Their men received greater or lesser punishments.
After action reports, computer ledgers, logs, and records with recorded personal accounts revealed in the past two weeks allied with previously published public reports regarding ongoing U.S. military operations and planning shed bright for the first time upon politically sensitive, highly controversial, newly developed urban warfare combat tactics and intelligence gathering methods.
The tactics Sergeants Girouard and Hutchins rehearsed in real world, real time environments (undergoing trial and error research and development 2006, now adopted as standard operating procedure) are the brain-child of Marine four-star General James Mattis in association with companies of other Marine and Army flag officers.
Neither Hutchins or Girouard were told, nor did they realize they were field-testing the “Warrior Monk’s” (General Mattis’ nom de guerre) scheme of urban street-fighting. Neither did either sergeant apprehend their most dangerous enemy was behind them, a threat soon manifested in betrayal at the hands of their own senior officers.
Negative and stereotypical reports were already flooding the airwaves thanks to those segments of the press corps and Congress who hate the military. Abu Ghraib and Pat Tillman were stories of grand political theatre. General Mattis (and his cohorts), frightened by the withering congressional and media scrutiny they’d surely suffer, developed a public relations counter-offensive to deflate and defeat a foreseeable runaway, uncontrollable, frenetic public assault should Mattis’ urban warfare plan be exposed.
Mattis’ public relations counter-assault demanded the ritual sacrifice of Girouad, Hutchins, and any other expendable warrior who could (unknowingly) take a bullet in service to what Mattis regarded a cause transcendent to constitutional protections of life and liberty. Girouard and Hutchins and their men were sent to military prison camps, innocent all, to change the subject and divert and deflect attention in anticipation of what Mattis feared was a potential leak regarding his supremely controversial and politically explosive urban war-fighting methods.
Exploiting the facility of courts-martial, devious and clever public affairs officers, judge advocates, military detectives, and command racketeers—under orders from Commander in Chief Bush and General Mattis and his minions—first cobble together, then perfectly crafted fictional cover stories of war crimes committed by errant and inept Soldiers and Marines.
Innocent infantrymen and mud-Marines were charged and chained like animals while the bogus cover stories were leaked to hyper-active media personalities and blabber-mouth congressmen. Courts-martial were announced and docketed. Press conferences gave voice to the make believe criminal accusations. A million dollar media center was designed and constructed. The flames of the funeral pyre grew to consume innocent grunts while hypnotized media moths (Mattis’ moths) drew near. Mattis’ last-ditch media/congressional counter offensive worked like a charm as Hutchins and Girouard were burned at the stake as the mouths of the easily manipulated opened wide and watched in wonderment.
(Note: For more on the efficacious use of cover-stories see Ed Offley’s recently published expose
regarding the charade perpetrated to prevent news of the communist-Russian attack and sinking of a U.S. submarine.)
Mattis’ diversion works flawlessly to this moment. Distracted from the real-world of inter-city combat, press professionals and cozy congressman gravitate to warm hearing rooms and klieg lights lulled by duplicitious military royalty. There, smooth generals and PAOs assure their gullible audiences, those stuck on stupid, that the few ugly details of street fighting—what Mattis and his merry men call “war crimes”—are (were) the unavoidable results and consequences of reckless and incompetent Soldiers/Marines that beneficient and just commanding officers are more than capable of punishing.
The cover stories are swallowed whole.
But from combat after action reports, combat journals, and log books, and intelligence reports there emerges the real scope and operation of our brave warriors. There exist graphic accounts depicting the emotionally charged stark reality regarding CINC Bush’s approved and ordered rules of engagement (ROE) for urban combat operatons against terrorists insurgents in the badlands.
But none of these reports were admissible (in fact the information was banned outright) at courts-martial to defend innocent warriors.
Teresly, CINC Bush’s ROE (authored by the Warrior Monk) authorizes Army and Marine infantrymen to “get the job done.” Marine Lieutenant Nathan Phan (call sign “RONIN”) instructs and informs us that “what is necessary” for American gound troops to complete their assigned missions routinely causes “unnecessary suffering” for Iraqi civilians.
Here is a portion of what Lt. Phan recounts: “Our company’s area of operation [AO] is the province of [deleted] about a 20x30 square kilometer piece of real estate. The city of Falluja can fit over twenty times in our AO...[province deleted] is a hotbed of arms smugglers, dealers, and black market traffickers, not to mention fanatical insurgents.”
“So in order to establish security and stability in this...region, we are forced to move around constantly. Since [province deleted] is mostly flat irrigated farmland, there is no covered and concealed position to establish patrol bases. So the only practical alternative is to take a [civilian] house for a few days.”
“I’m what they call a Paying Agent. It means I’m authorized [by CINC Bush’s ROE] to reimburse Iraqi civilians with U.S. government dollars as restititution in the event we damage their personal property or cause unnecessary grief.”
“This tends to happen a lot.”
“We conduct raids in the dead of night, kick families out of their homes and take over, sometimes for a few hours, usually for a few days. We do this on a regular basis.”
“We use the house as a patrol base, a safe haven for Marines, to conduct operations. Then pay the homeowner for ‘wear and tear’ for their homes. It’s either this or put my Marines in the open, in Harm’s Way, exposed to indirect fires and snipers.”
“Screw the civilians.”
“This is why I’m a Paying Agent. So I sign for my U.S. government cash and go on my way.”
CINC Bush knows all this as do uncounted generals and admirals (flag officers).
Our commanders don’t want you, the public, to know.
Ergo: Invented cover stories and counterfit courts-martial of innocent warriors.
I’m not going to recount here how a court-martial is used to routinely punish the innocent. Nor am I going to recount the fictions that were created around Hutchins, Girouard, and their men.
I will tell you this: Naval Criminal Investigative Service Special Agent James H. Connolly dug up a stranger in Iraq. Then Connolly (with his team of NCIS goons) wrote a ghost story about how Sgt. Hutchins and his men murdered a man no one was ever able to identify.
The autopsy report (now revealed) was blocked from use in Sgt. Hutchin’s defense. So was every other physical piece of exculpatory evidence.
You’ve already read in Larry’s own words what happened on the night/morning of 25-26 April 2006. Larry’s was under orders that day to kill enemy insurgents in ambush.
Staff Sergeant Ray Girouard was under the same orders issued by Black Hawk Down’s Army Colonel Michael Steel in May. Army Criminal Investigative Division (CID) detectives didn’t bother with autopsies in Ray’s circumstance. The bodies, never identified, were collected up by Army personnel and allowed to disappear.
Raids and ambushes in the target-rich Iraqi urban environs are so frequent, so necessary, and time sensitive that infantry units are rotated hourly, daily, in a month-to-month schedule that reads like a watchbill.
RONIN logs: “I get to Camp [deleted] and find my guys busy preparing to push out to the field.”
Sounding just like Col. Steel in his pre-battle exhortations (captured on DVD, suppressed from public view and denied as exculpatory evidence in defense of Ray Girouard during his March 2007 court-martial) RONIN tells us: “Believe it or not, I love the field. It’s where Marines get to really be Marines. It’s the reason why so many of my guys joined the Corps. To go out in the ‘bush’ look for the enemy, kill him and come back to tell stories about it. It’s where Marines build camaraderie and esprit de corps.
It’s where I really get to know my guys. Most importantly, it’s where I get to do my job (my emphasis), conduct counterinsurgency operations in order to destroy the enemy and establish stability. As a bonus, in the field, time goes by a hell of a lot faster than being in the rear.”
This is the world of the urban combat infantryman and mud-Marine that no warrior is allowed to speak about publicly in a politically charged, politically correct atmosphere where lurks military-hating segments of the media and congress ready to cannibalise our own troops.
The betrayal.
America’s military politicians are so afraid to explain and display to regular citizens the violence that is the soul of modern day urban combat. So they selectively pick isolated events, magnify them out of context and proportion, wrongly (but intentionally) name them war crimes, and then rob innocent warriors (and their immediate families) of their liberty and lives.
The scheme of maneuver in urban street fighting—now adopted as standard operating procedure—is precisely as narrated above by the brave men who are there! We are targeting all military aged males (MAMs—a euphanism to describe all males capable of inflicting injury on U.S. troops). Infantry units just like Hutchins’ and Girouard’s are deployed hourly in “HUNTER-KILLER TEAMS” to seek out, engage, and destroy enemy personnel and equipment. Intelligence is collected in every way possible.
But you’re not to know any of this.
Instead, random, elaborate, and unbelievable cover stories are fabricated and crafted, built around innocent warriors like Hutchins and Girouard to divert attention away from the brutal reality of urban, insurgent, terrorist street fighting.
Courts-martial operations discussed and exposed on these JAG HUNTER pages for almost six years are known to you as prefect instruments in the advancement of the criminal adventures of corrupt military detectives making work for corrupt JAGs to effectively shield and protect the command racketeers.
Courts-martial are not courts. Juries don’t wear uniforms. Courts-martial don’t allow a defendant to confront an accuser. Innocent acts are regularly criminalized. Forced confessions are a staple, common place and encouraged. Exculpatory evidence is withheld or destroyed as a matter of course. Information impeaching the government’s case is made to disapppear. Summary judgments by professional criminals in command is standard operating procedure.
None (and so much more) of information presented here—always available and now released—was allowed for use in the defense of any infantryman in any of the hundreds of courts-martial so far suffered by U.S. ground combat troops.
Warriors are ordered to military catacombs to waste away until they’re forgotten.
Girouard and Hutchins never stood a chance.
The generals know both men did exactly what they were ordered to do!
Mean while, America’s flag officers are conducting raids and ambushes in the dead of night against U.S. citizens stateside destroying families and homes on a regular basis.
Unfortunately for families of Hutchins and Girouard (and all the rest) there’s no “Paying Agent” authorized to reinburse U.S. citizens with U.S. government dollars as restitution for the unnecessary and wanton damage.
Girouard and Hutchins and their men (with so many others) are wasting away in military dungeons—innocent men all!
Screw the sergeants!
Screw the civilians!
Pin medals on the generals!
Here endth the lesson.
BEWARE THE FURY OF THE PATIENT MAN!