Lying to the mother of a dead soldier

By GottaLaff

Jean Feggins, the mother of Pfc. Albert Nelson

Salon has a gut-wrenching account of yet another friendly fire cover-up. Please read the whole thing, since I can't do it justice. Here are a few excerpts:

Col. Sean MacFarland, who told Jean Feggins her son was killed by enemy action, is the same officer who may have covered up her son's death by friendly fire. [...]

On Dec. 4, 2006, U.S. Army Pfc. Albert Nelson was killed in Ramadi, Iraq, in an apparent friendly-fire incident. As first described in Salon, interviews with soldiers and a graphic battle video seem to indicate that a U.S. tank shell hit the roof of the building where Nelson was positioned, taking off his left leg. He suffered for half an hour before dying on the way to a military hospital. A subsequent Army investigation, however, blamed Nelson's death on enemy action.

Nelson's mother was not satisfied by the Army's official statement. Jean Feggins had heard that her son's death might have been caused by friendly fire, and she started a letter-writing campaign, demanding more information.

In early 2007, Feggins finally received an in-person briefing, complete with PowerPoint slides, from a high-ranking officer. The officer gave her the official Army version of her son's death, saying he'd been killed by enemy mortars -- a version of events contradicted by the video obtained by Salon. He also assured her that Nelson had died instantly and had not suffered. "When we found him on the roof, he was still in his position," the officer said, "holding his weapon."

Salon has now learned that the Army officer who visited Feggins was Col. Sean MacFarland -- the same officer who conducted the investigation that exonerated the Army. The news comes just as the Associated Press is reporting that the father of the other Army soldier killed in the same incident is demanding answers of his own. Roger Suarez of Carson City, Nev., is asking that Secretary of Defense Robert Gates conduct a new investigation into the circumstances of Pfc. Roger Suarez-Gonzalez's death. His death, like Nelson's, was officially attributed to enemy action. [...]

The day the initial Salon article on the friendly-fire incident appeared, Oct. 14, MacFarland spoke with me by phone. He said his December 2006 investigation of Nelson and Suarez's death included 170 photographs, dozens of interviews and hundreds of pages of ballistic analysis. He called it "the gold standard of investigations."

On the evening of the day the Salon article ran, three soldiers from Nelson and Suarez's unit were ordered to shred two boxes of documents, mostly records with Nelson or Suarez's name, the soldiers said later. Those soldiers do not know what all they destroyed.

I can't possibly imagine the pain, the sorrow, the suffering of the families involved, and my outrage can't possibly match theirs. Pat Tillman was the poster boy, but think of all the others whose stories have gotten swept under the carpet.

All we can do is push these stories so that they are no longer a sickening little military secret.

H/t: Izzy