Sometimes, The System Works

[rpm]

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An investigating officer has recommended that a Marine Corps general drop all charges against a Marine accused of murdering civilians in Haditha, Iraq, finding again that the 2005 shootings were "tragedies" but that the Marine did not violate the laws of combat.

War is hell, literally. Sometimes soldiers are forced into situations they can not avoid. Thankfully it looks like Lance Cpl. Tatum won't be procecuted for an unfortunate engagement. I'm sure he is punishing himself much more than he should and will for a long, long time.

[AKH]

"I told him, there's women and kids in that room," Lance Cpl. Humberto M. Mendoza said of Lance Cpl. Stephen B. Tatum. Tatum's response was, "Well, shoot them," Mendoza said.

...

In a courtroom on this seaside military base, Tatum, 26, leaned forward as Mendoza, testifying under immunity, pointed at a large diagram of an Iraqi house where his squad killed men, women and children on Nov. 19, 2005.

Mendoza said that he did not feel threatened in the house, even though he killed two men as the squad moved through the area clearing homes. In the second house they entered, Mendoza said, he stayed in the kitchen while the rest of the team moved inside. After several minutes of quiet, Mendoza said he ventured down a hall to a room with a closed door.

Inside, he found a bed with two women and four or five children on it. "They were scared," Mendoza said. He backed out of the room and told Tatum what he found. But Tatum told him to shoot the women and children, Mendoza testified.

"Was he joking?" asked prosecutor Lt. Col. Paul Atterbury. "He was very serious," Mendoza said.

Tatum then entered the room, Mendoza said. Mendoza heard rifle fire and later saw all of the occupants dead, he said.

Another squad member, Sgt. Sanick Dela Cruz, testified under immunity Tuesday that Tatum left a telling signature on a gift to the parents of the Marine killed by the roadside bomb. All the squad members signed a pack the young man had owned, he said. Near Tatum's signature were 24 hatch marks -- the number of civilians killed at Haditha -- and an inscription reading, "This one's for you."

I don't understand.  Were they lying?