Word: kilos
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...threatens to become one of the war's signature debacles, an alleged atrocity committed by a small group of service members that comes to symbolize the enterprise's larger costs. To some U.S. officers, the impact of the daily stream of accusations about the actions of the men of Kilo Company is conjuring comparisons with the blow from the country's most searing example of battlefield misconduct, the My Lai massacre of 1968, in which U.S. soldiers slaughtered more than 500 Vietnamese. "I worry the combination of Abu Ghraib and Haditha will be the My Lai of this generation," says...
...that the U.S. invaded Iraq with a force large enough to topple a government in 21 days but too small to maintain order in a nation of 26 million with deep ethnic divisions. That strategic decision had tactical consequences, and they can be seen in the record of Kilo Company, 3rd Battalion, 1st Marines. Late last year, U.S. commanders tried to hold Haditha, a town of 90,000 riddled with insurgents, at times with just one company of 160 men. The job fell to Kilo, which had already seen some of the ugliest fighting in the postinvasion period. According...
After pulling out of Fallujah, Kilo returned home, but by last summer it was gearing up for another tour in Iraq. The unit remained about 65% intact from the year before. In October it moved as part of a roughly 900-man Marine battalion into Haditha, a Euphrates River--valley farm town that had been in insurgents' hands for half a year. At first, the Marines encountered almost no resistance. According to Read, Kilo took up residence in a municipal building as other Marine companies spread out around town. But over time, the other units were called to duty elsewhere...
Read, 31, reports that Kilo was the "most human" of the numerous units he was embedded with. "They were never abusive," he said. "There was a certain amount of antagonism and frustration when people didn't cooperate. But it's not like they had KILL 'EM ALL spray-painted on the walls." Most of Kilo's members had at least one Iraqi tour under their belt, Read noted; several had two, and one was working on his third...
...some men in Kilo Company apparently snap? Perhaps because of the stress of fighting a violent and unpopular war--or because their commanders failed them. Military psychiatrists who have studied what makes a soldier's moral compass go haywire in battle look first for a weak chain of command. That was a factor in the March 1968 My Lai massacre in Vietnam, when U.S. soldiers, including members of an Army platoon led by Lieut. William Calley, killed some 500 Vietnamese. Says a retired Army Green Beret colonel who fought in Vietnam: "Somebody has failed to say, 'No, that...