UPDATED 12:37 pm A mission for milbloggers: The New Republic runs a piece in this week's issue titled "Shock Troops " (sub. req.) and authored by Scott Thomas--described by the magazine as a "pseudonym for a soldier currently serving in Baghdad." "Thomas" is the author of two previous dispatches from Iraq for the New Republic , both of which recount deeply disturbing anecdotes (in one, an Iraqi boy who calls himself James Bond has his tongue cut out for talking to Americans; in the other, dogs feast on a corpse in the street). His latest piece is even more disturbing. It recounts several instances of gross misconduct by the men in his unit, some of which are, to echo the title of his piece, deeply shocking--If they are true--a big if, according to several people with experience in Iraq. One described it to me as sounding like a "pastiche of the 'This is no bullshit . . . stories soldiers like to tell." The first episode puts "Thomas"'s unit at a "chow hall" at an unnamed base. A woman eating there is wearing "an unrecognizable tan uniform, so I couldn't really tell whether she was a soldier or a civilian contractor." The woman's face is described as having been "more or less melted, along with all the hair on that side of her head," by an IED. She sits down for lunch next to the men. Here's how "Thomas" describes what happens next:
We were already halfway through our meals when she arrived. After a minute or two of eating in silence, one of my friends stabbed his spoon violently into his pile of mashed potatoes and left it there. "Man, I can't eat like this," he said. "Like what?" I said. "Chow hall food getting to you?" "No-with that fucking freak behind us!" he exclaimed, loud enough for not only her to hear us, but everyone at the surrounding tables. I looked over at the woman, and she was intently staring into each forkful of food before it entered her half-melted mouth. "Are you kidding? I think she's fucking hot!" I blurted out. "What?" said my friend, half-smiling. "Yeah man," I continued. "I love chicks that have been intimate-with IEDs. It really turns me on-melted skin, missing limbs, plastic noses . . . ." "You're crazy, man!" my friend said, doubling over with laughter. I took it as my cue to continue. "In fact, I was thinking of getting some girls together and doing a photo shoot. Maybe for a calendar? ‘IED Babes.' We could have them pose in thongs and bikinis on top of the hoods of their blown-up vehicles." My friend was practically falling out of his chair laughing. The disfigured woman slammed her cup down and ran out of the chow hall, her half-finished tray of food nearly falling to the ground.
 Is it possible that American soldiers would be so sadistic when confronted by a badly burned woman, who may be a fellow soldier? Well, yes: Anything is possible when it comes to human depravity. But consider: these are enlisted men who, by the author's own account, don't know who this woman is or what rank she might hold. (Incidentally, wouldn't soldiers be able to distinguish a soldier from a contractor--especially if she is a regular at the chow hall?) Would they really ridicule her with raised voices in a public place, on "one especially crowded day"? The next episode is every bit as shocking. Indeed, the behavior it describes is a clear violation of the Uniform Code of Military Justice. The author claims that his unit stumbled across a mass grave filled with the remains of Iraqi children, and, rather than report the find, chose to desecrate the corpses:
About six months into our deployment, we were assigned a new area to patrol, southwest of Baghdad. We spent a few weeks constructing a combat outpost, and, in the process, we did a lot of digging. 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. 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. The private wore the skull for the rest of the day and night. Even on a mission, he put his helmet over the skull. He observed that he was grateful his hair had just been cut-since it would make it easier to pick out the pieces of rotting flesh that were digging into his head.
 Again, American troops might be capable of such behavior. But most incidents of soldiers taking such war "trophies," to be blunt, involve dead enemy fighters, not massacred children. The questions pile up. Would a child's skull fit on the head of fully-grown man? Would pieces of flesh and hair still remain so long after the fact? Would American soldiers fail to report the discovery of a mass grave? Are there really units corrupt enough for a private to dare do such a thing for a day and a night? Finally, the author tells of a friend who drives a Bradley armored vehicle and has a penchant for careening around the streets of Baghdad in the hope of causing as much destruction--and killing as many stray dogs--as possible.
I know another private who really only enjoyed driving Bradley Fighting Vehicles because it gave him the opportunity to run things over. He took out curbs, concrete barriers, corners of buildings, stands in the market, and his favorite target: dogs. Occasionally, the brave ones would chase the Bradleys, barking at them like they bark at trash trucks in America-providing him with the perfect opportunity to suddenly swerve and catch a leg or a tail in the vehicle's tracks. He kept a tally of his kills in a little green notebook that sat on the dashboard of the driver's hatch. 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. The second kill was a straight shot: A dog that was lying in the street and bathing in the sun didn't have enough time to get up and run away from the speeding Bradley. Its front half was completely severed from its rear, which was twitching wildly, and its head was still raised and smiling at the sun as if nothing had happened at all.
 One simple fact renders this tale highly implausible. Such erratic driving is likely to greatly increase a vehicle's exposure to roadside bombs, which insurgents frequently hide in the corpses of animals, or beside trash-strewn curbs. We contacted the New Republic in order to get any information that might help us to verify the authenticity of "Thomas"'s disturbing account, and the magazine, while insisting that it had promised to protect the identity of the author to shield him from retribution by the military, did provide us with some additional details. "Scott Thomas" claims that the incident at the chow hall occurred at Forward Operating Base Falcon. And the mass grave, he says, was discovered a couple miles south of Baghdad International Airport in farmland. We have also contacted the Pentagon in the hopes of getting more information to either corroborate or disprove "Thomas"'s account. But we believe that the best chance for getting at the truth is likely to come from the combined efforts of the blogosphere, which has, in the past, proven adept at determining the reliability of such claims. To that end we'd encourage the milblogging community to do some digging of their own, and individual soldiers and veterans to come forward with relevant information--either about the specific events or their plausibility in general. Does anyone who has served at FOB Falcon remember hearing about or seeing the humiliation of this woman? Do they know her name and how we might get in contact with her to confirm the author's account of the events that day? Is anyone familiar with a combat outpost a few miles south of the Baghdad airport where a mass grave of Iraqi children was discovered? What about the other parts of the story? And does anyone else know of Bradleys careening wildly through the streets of Baghdad? Please email any information, thoughts, and suggestions for further lines of inquiry to the WORLDWIDE STANDARD at wws@weeklystandard.com . We'll report back as information comes in. Updated 12:37 pm : Just a quick update on some interesting responses we've already gotten, and you can also read a lot of comments and commentary at the other blogs that are all over this story: The Corner Ace of Spades Blackfive Hot Air Dean Barnett Powerline Op-For Dadmanly Haft of the Spear Badgers Forward Responses posted after the jump.

I served 4 years in the Army, including service in Desert Storm, and was in a Bradley Fighting Vehicle battalion, the 1/9 Cav Regiment out of Ft. Hood. As with most things written by the the traitorous media, the Shock Troop story is a collection of lies, complied by sissy leftist who don't even do enough research to make their lies believable. Sort of like the story of flushing a Koran down a toilet. I've been in the drivers seat of a Bradley, and as Stuart Koehl says, you have terrible visibility on the right hand side. The engine is over there, and it's like trying to put a Ford Excursion in a parking space for a compact car. The closest you can see on the right side is probably 15 feet away, and that would be with the seat all the way up, and the hatch fully opened back. No trooper is going to ride down a road in Iraq sitting that high, he'd be a sitting duck for a sniper. They either roll with the hatch fully shut, looking through the periscopes for visibility (think driving a sub down the street), or at most, with the hatch at half-cock, where you look though a slit (think sitting in a trash can with the lid on your head). You're not going to be able to see a dog over there, so that's one lie. Another lie is running things over with the Bradley. Take a look at the front it. The first thing that sticks out is the tracks, which are also the most vulnerable part of it. If you went around running into buildings or concrete barriers with your Bradley, you'd throw a track, and after your BC (Bradley commander) put his boot up your ass for being a dumb-ass, you'd spend the rest of your tour demoted down to sitting in the dreaded side turret jump seat between the driver and the rest of the crew, breathing diesels fumes, mixed in with BO and MRE gas from the dismount team. Other lies - how does a dog sit in the road and get run over by an armored vehicle? How many dogs have you ever seen run over like this? Dogs aren't dumb, they get out of the way of a 23 ton armoured vehicle. The Bradley is not a Formula 1 race car either - the usual rolling speed is about 20-30 MPH. The article makes it sound like the BFV (Bradley Fighting Vehicle) is some sort of Klingon warship with a clocking device and a sound silencer, capbale of sneaking up on sleeping dogs and running them over before they can get up and move the 2 feet they'd have to get out of the way. Then there's the story of a dog getting run over, with the two sections twitching around. Notice how it's written for shock value, with some lie about the head just staying there. The tracks of a Bradley are pretty wide - it's not a tire, it's a track. That would have to be one damn big stray dog to be cut in two by a Bradley, and still have identifiable parts on either side. Besides, how did he know what happended after he had run it over? Did he stop, get out of his vehicle, and walk over to it to take a look? You don't have real view mirror on a BFV. Ian Kress US Army, 1989-1993 MOS 11H (Infantry - Anti-Armor) 1/9th Cav Regiment, 1st Cav Division, Ft Hood.
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FWIW: I hold rank of Major in the Judge Advocate General Corps, U.S. Army Reserve. From first week of October 2005 to first week of September 2006 I served with the 3d Corps Support Command at LSA Anaconda (@40 miles north of Baghdad, our Army's chief logistic "rear" base). 3d COSCOM ran primary logistics for Iraq--we had people all over the country. I ran the Legal Assistance Office/Client Services. My sole contacts with FOB Falcon amounted to drawing some LAO clients from that post. But down the hall to our East from LAO you'd find Military Justice (Prosecution). To West of LAO sat the Trial Defense Service boys (Defense attorneys). Around two corners the Administrative Law attorney reviewed and advised investigations. All these men were friends of mine. From neither office did I ever hear word of any legal discipline taken against anyone, for any such actions as your story relates. And we Client Services attorneys often heard scuttlebutt through the other offices of what was going on around Iraq. Now, from the description I'd say that "Scott Thomas" (*IF* he's really a soldier) belongs to a combat unit. So he would not come under 3d COSCOM direct authority, to include military justice issues. 3d COSCOM would have no command & control (C2) responsibilities over combat units, to include military justice issues. So I can't say with absolute certainty that none of the incidents occurred. As you say, the depths of man's total depravity allow any and every conceivable evil... The Lord Jesus Christ may forgive, but the Army won't. I agree with your posters: Soldier stupidity committed in public WILL get out--even if no one stopped such actions right away, you may be sure that even private soldiers GOSSIP. David James Hanson MAJ, JA, USAR formerly of 3d COSCOM, LSA Anaconda, Balad, Iraq
 __________________________________________________ From an active duty soldier who asks that his name be withheld:
I was based at Falcon last year for six months with the 101st Airborne. I never saw a woman who fits Thomas's description. That's not conclusive since I haven't been there for almost eight months. But I can say this. The dining facility at Falcon is not large (maybe 200 yards by 50 yards) and the tables are very close together. I cannot remember eating a meal without having an officer or a senior NCO in earshot -- none of whom would tolerate such cruelty for a moment. Moreover, Falcon isn't that large and the faces become familiar quickly. One gets used to and comes to know everyone pretty easily. I can't definitely refute the mass-grave or dog-chasing stories, but both sound implausible. Again, I can't imagine an officer and several NCOs all letting a junior soldier act in such a manner. Nor can I imagine soldiers driving so cavalierly, not just because of the IED risk, but also the danger of damage to a vehicle. The driver would have to repair the damage, which cuts deeply into their sleep-IM-video game time.
 _______________________ And from WWS pal Stuart Koehl, who's expert on just about every piece of military hardware we've ever had to write about:
From the description of the dog-killing incident, the Bradley driver slowed the vehicle down and tried to do a skid turn. When you turn a tracked vehicle like a Bradley, you do it through differential braking--you slow down the inside track and accelerate the outside track, so the vehicle skids through the turn. Anyone who has ever seen it done will tell you it would be just about impossible (a) to catch a dog like that (dogs have better reflexes than tracked vehicles). But even assuming that this guy was the world's greatest track driver, I still think the story as presented is pure BS. According to the story, the dog is on the right side of the vehicle, because the driver turns right to run it down. I am looking now at a 1/32nd scale model of a Bradley, and I can say with some assurance that the driver's hatch is on the left side of the vehicle. Immediately to the driver's right is the engine compartment, the cooling grill of which rises above the level of the driver's hatch, making it impossible to see anything on the right side of the vehicle. Even if the driver was head-out, he still couldn't see anything to his right below the level of the top deck (all armored vehicles have significant blind spots close in, which is why they need dismounts to protect them from RPG guys in foxholes). So, if, as the blog says, the driver "twitched" the Bradley to the right, he must have used extrasensory perception in order to catch the dog. Because there's no way he knew the dog was even there. In my opinion, the whole thing is a shaggy dog story.
I find this all highly dubious. To say the least. A guy mocking the wounded in a chow hall? Let's just leave out the fact this mystery woman may have been a colonel or a senior NCO who would have dropped the bomb on him, for all he knew. "Chuckles" is liable to get his butt kicked all over the chow hall pulling a stunt that. I've never heard of anything like that and can't imagine it happening in public. Gallows humor off in some corner - hey, people can be idiots - but no one's a big enough idiot to do that. Hunting dogs in a Bradley? Most any squad leader would "re-focus" that guy on his job. And most of our guys like dogs (I used to have to order guys to get rid of dogs they adopted - disease prevention, and it broke my heart). Again, that's the kind of stunt that would get a guy clobbered. The skull skull-cap? From a little kid? Walking around with it on for a day? Nonsense - sounds like that scene in "Jarhead" with the corpses. And apparently there were no officers or NCOs around for over 24 hours. Right. Most of my junior enlisted boys would have slapped him silly. I'm not Pollyana, and ugly things happen. But my trial lawyer and my colonel BS detectors are both flashing red. To believe this crap, you have to want it to be true. 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. Either these things didn't happen, or this guy is as much of a slimeball as his pals. I'm betting both are true. Kurt A. Schlichter Lieutenant Colonel, Infantry, California Army National Guard Commanding 1st Squadron, 18th Cavalry and Rear Element, 1st Battalion, 160th Infantry
 Blackfive sends along this note from an active duty soldier who asks that his name be withheld:
Sir, I am and have been an avid reader of your milblog for many years and wanted to answer your request for help with the entry about the TNR article 'Shock Troopers'. I am one of the many thousand American soldiers at FOB Falcon. We do have an IA Battalion here, but they are on a completely isolated portion of the camp. I don't mean to contradict your trusted source about the ownership of this place, but I'm sitting in my barracks right now typing this email here on the FOB. Without naming units or giving specific personnel counts, I can assure you this is definitely an American post. 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 *** Squadron 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. The part about running over the dog, in my opinion, is somewhat plausible, but I doubt the PL or CO of that individual would let them do it more than once if they valued the lives of their men at all. The vehicles we drive are all top heavy and violent swerving to hit a dog is not advisable. As for the human skull bit, I know that any NCO worth his salt, and most certainly a PSG or higher, would literally crush a Joe for taking his ACH helmet off in the middle of a mission only to put a portion of human skull on his head. You've probably received multiple emails about all this already, but I just wanted to help crush the bullshit surrounding this story. Thank you for your milblog [ed.--Blackfive] and for all you do for us overseas.
 That's pretty damning...this guy's been there for eleven months and hasn't seen or heard of our mystery IED victim. Our first response, above, was from a guy who hasn't been there in eight months but was there for six months before that, so we now can say that no such woman was at FOB Falcon in the past 14 months...it'd be good if we could push that back even further, but now one has to wonder how long "Scott Thomas" has been in Iraq that no one has seen or heard of this woman at FOB Falcon over the last 14 months at least.
Web Link: http://www.weeklystandard.com/article/19693
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