July 13, 2009 • Vol. 14, No. 40
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Reporting From FOB Falcon

Milblogger Matt Sanchez is currently at FOB Falcon and has been asking questions at the base about Scotty Beauchamp, whose stories for the New Republic are being investigated by both the Army and the editors at TNR. Sanchez reports:

Despite a full day of dealing with securing a dangerous Baghdad neighborhood, even Lt. Colonel Crider was aware of the recent Beauchamp scandal and could only shake his head at how absurd the initial details of the accounts seemed....

[With calls from the] New York Times, O'Reilly Factor, ABC, CNN, Hot Air, in the past two weeks, Major Luedeke has dealt with more media inquiries over the Beauchamp controversy than any other subject in his entire career.

After several terse conversations, it was obvious soldiers at FOB Falcon took the events described in The New Republic very seriously.

We emailed Sanchez to see if we could get anything more definitive. Sanchez reports that the New Republic has sent "one or two emails" to the PAO at FOB Falcon to ask what were called "lukewarm" questions as part of their effort to "re-report" the stories.

Sanchez added that,

No one has seen or heard of the melting lady. No soldier would confuse an officer with a contractor. It just wouldn't happen. It's a small base and most people have seen each other. I just got back today and all these people I haven't seen in a month are welcoming me back. They don't know me, but they've seen me before.

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