Copyright John T. Reed
Some U.S. military personnel are getting away with murder.
It needs to be the subject of a major investigative piece on 60 Minutes or some such. Not to mention a couple of Hollywood movies.
The public has long known about fragging. Fragging is typically the murder or serious injury of a U.S. military person by enlisted men who throw one or more grenades into a confined space where the target is sleeping. In the typical case that I have heard of, the target is a superior of the perpetrators—either an NCO or an officer.
I expect that some fragging victims have been peers of the perpetrators. Wikipedia has an article about fragging at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frag_(military). The word “fragging” refers to a fragmentation grenade which is the weapon most often used.
But it has a broader meaning of intentional friendly fire. In combat situations, it would be relatively easy for a U.S. military personnel to shoot a fellow American military person or journalist deliberately. No one may ever know. If they figure out it was friendly fire, it is hard to figure out whose weapon it was or why the shot was fired. The perpetrator can almost always plead that the “error” was caused by the “fog of war.” That is, the smoke, dust, noise, and general chaos of battle.
According to Wikipedia, there were 230 U.S. officers fragged to death in Vietnam as well as 1,400 other officer deaths that were unexplained.
I was startled to read the following in the May/June, 2007, Columbia Journalism Review in an article titled “Rules of Engagement” by John Laurence.
My camera crew and I are seated at a table next to one of the battalion officers [101st Airborne Division battalion commanded by LTC. James O’Brien in 2005]...and his father—a retired general who has come to say goodbye to his son, a smart, likable young major who graduated as first captain from West Point. The general shouts some advice over the noise to his son; “It is not a good career move to get a reporter killed while they’re with you”...Everyone laughs and looks at me...Then the general says as an afterthought, “Unless they’ve been chosen.”
Another hour passes...Now I ask the general what he meant by the phrase, “Unless they’ve been chosen.” He seems embarrassed to be reminded. “Nothing I saw with my own eyes,” he says quickly. “It’s just something I heard.” For the rest of the evening, the general does not appear entirely comfortable around me.
Eighteen months [later after the unit’s tour in Iraq with Laurence embedded] I call the retired general who said reporters were not to be killed “unless they’ve been chosen.” We discover that we were both born in 1939...In the 1960s, coming back from Vietnam, his West Point classmates told him they tried to get reporters killed on combat operations. “You came to mistrust some journalists,” he said. “Those guys were given every opportunity to get on hot LZs, ammo logs [combat resupply], and things like that. Some of the guys made it, some of them didn’t.”
Laurence never names the major or his father.
Top cadet
The major was the First Captain of his class at West Point. That is the top cadet in the cadet chain of command, that is, the cadet commander of all the other cadets. If he was a major in 2005, he likely graduated from West Point between 10 and 20 years earlier, that is, the classes of 1985 to 1995. Laurence also describes the major as the operations officer for his battalion. That job is also called the S-3.
A general who was born in 1939 would have entered West Point from 1956 to 1961 because you have to be between 17 and 22 when you enter. That means he graduated from 1960 to 1965. More likely 1960 than 1965. I was a freshman there when the class of 1965 graduated.
The 101st Airborne Division unit with which Laurence was embedded was First Platoon, Charlie Troop. That sounds like a unit designation that would repeat in each battalion in the division. (I was in the 101st at Fort Campbell, KY for a month in July, 1966, for what was then known as Army Orientation Training—the equivalent of a civilian internship.)
The regiment the major was in was the 187th and the Regimental Commander was Colonel Mike Steele. In the modern Army, regimental designations are really vestigial battalion designations. The next unit above battalion in the modern U.S. Army is brigade, not regiment, then division.
Here is a list of the West Point first captains from what I surmise is the period pertinent to those who could be majors in 2005.
| Brian L. Dosa | Maryland | 1984-1985 |
| Timothy A. Knight | Ohio | 1985-1986 |
| John K. Tien Jr. | California | 1986-1987 |
| Gregory H. Louks | Minnesota | 1987-1988 |
| Mark M. Jennings | Utah | 1988-1989 |
| Kristin H. Baker | North Dakota | 1989-1990 |
| Douglas P. McCormick | Pennsylvania | 1990-1991 |
| Omar J. Jones | IV Maryland | 1991-1992 |
| Shawn L. Daniel | Kentucky | 1992-1993 |
| Howard H. Hoege III | Texas | 1993-1994 |
| Hans J. Pung | Minnesota | 1994-1995 |
| Robert S. Brown | North Carolina | 1995-1996 |
| Daniel C. Hart | South Carolina | 1996-1997 |
| W. Patrick Connelly | Texas | 1997-1998 |
| Robert M. Shaw | North Carolina | 1998-1999 |
| Robert C. Stanton | Florida | 1999-2000 |
As far as I can tell, the only ones who have a relative who graduated from West Point are Hoege, Baker, and Brown. Baker was the first female First Captain. Laurence refers to the former First Captain as a male. Also, I find no record that any of these people ever served in the 101st Airborne Division. I checked the West Point Association of Graduates Register of Graduates. It has brief bios of each graduate, although you have to respond to the annual questionnaire they send you to keep it up to date and accurate. Most graduates have a bio. A relatively few West Point haters do not. The Register also has an elaborate section telling about all genealogical relationships between graduates going back to the start of the Academy in 1802. So if you and your father both graduated from there, there would be a helmet of Pallas Athene symbol next to the name of each of you and another section called “Genealogical Succession” showing the relationship. I surmise that Laurence was not familiar with the detail in the Register when he promised anonymity then published so much information about two graduates including a First Captain and that Laurence now regrets publishing that much detail.
Brown has a grandfather who graduated in 1950 and another who graduated in 1941. The ’50 grad retired as a lieutenant colonel and that man’s son graduated in 1978 and also retired as a lieutenant colonel. Both of those men have different last names than Brown. The ’41 grandfather retired as a colonel. Brown’s father graduated in the Class of 1971 and retired in 2005 as a Brigadier General. I was a senior at West Point when his father was a freshman. I did not know him. Members of the Class of 1971 graduated too late to participate in the Vietnam war and Brown’s father did not serve in Vietnam. None of Brown’s ancestor grads could have been born in 1939.
Brown was in Iraq in 2003-4 with the 8th Infantry Division, not the 101st. His time in Iraq is mentioned in the book Warrior King by Nate Sassaman which I reviewed elsewhere at this Web site. I am not sure how fast West Point grads get promoted to major these days. Perhaps someone will enlighten me. Based on the Vietnam era, I would say that Brown might have been too young to be a major in 2005.
I asked Brown if he was the officer Laurence wrote about. Brown responded:
Sir,
Not me. I never served in the 101st, and never met the reporter in question. My dad wasn't there when I left for Iraq and he didn't serve in Vietnam. I was in Iraq from 2003-2004. The story has a lot of holes in it. I was promoted to Major in JAN 2006, so it would have to be someone older. Sorry to not be of much help.
MAJ Todd Brown
That leaves Hoege whose father graduated in 1969, the year after me, did not serve in Vietnam, and resigned from the Army as a captain. Since he graduated in 1969, and you cannot enter West Point unless you are 17 to 22, Hoege’s father could not have been born in 1939. He also was never a general. Hoege switched from the infantry to the JAG Corps (Army lawyers) in 2002.
No West Point graduate from the classes of 1960 through 1965 retired as a general and is related to any of these First Captains.
A search of the computer database of West Point grads at AOG finds none that have “101AbnDiv OIF” (the Association of Graduates abbreviations for 101st Airborne Division Operation Iraqi Freedom) in 2005.
In other words, it appears that Laurence’s description of the major and his father contains at least one error, perhaps deliberate to prevent anyone from figuring out who they are. Laurence refers to all others in the article by both name and rank.
I would appreciate it if anyone with knowledge of the 101st in 2005 would tell me the names of the major and his father or how I can get them. Or, I would appreciate hearing from the major and/or his father.
Journalists being deliberately and unnecessarily exposed to combat danger in order to get them injured or killed is a story that at least needs to be investigated and explained to the public.
I sent Laurence an email. He declined to talk to me saying he was too busy. I sent him an email explaining the above discrepancy and asking him to help me get in touch with the major’s father. I did not hear back from him about that.
The subsequent issue of Columbia Journalism Review, the July/August 2007 issue, had a letter to the editor from Arnold Isaacs, a free-lance writer and a former Vietnam correspondent. It expressed skepticism that U.S. military officers deliberately tried to get reporters killed in Vietnam.
Laurence responded to the letter to the editor with the following “war stories” which I am paraphrasing for copyright reasons.
Vietnam and Iraq
Laurence was a Vietnam war correspondent from 1965 to 1970 and an Iraq war correspondent in 2003, 2005, and 2006. He notes that Isaacs was in Vietnam from 1972 to 1975 which was after U.S. ground forces had left the country.
Multiple death threats
Laurence says he was threatened with death or placed in mortal danger by U.S. soldiers who did not like his reporting several times. One occasion in Vietnam involved his report that some soldiers refused to go down a road in “War Zone C.” In Iraq, an officer threatened him against using his satellite phone and thereby “breaking security.” I do not know what the phrase “breaking security” means in this case.
Choosing who sits in the ‘death seat’
Laurence said with few exceptions in Iraq, he and other reporters were given the right rear passenger seat in Humvees. Laurence said that is called the “death seat.” I would note that if all the seats in the Humvee are filled, someone has to sit in the “death seat.” If I were the unit commander, I would not expect one of my men to sit in the “death seat” so a reporter could sit in a safer seat. If the seat were truly dangerous, I would apprise the reporter of that and remind him that he could wait for another trip that might have more attractive seats. If the Humvee were not full, I would let the reporter sit in any available seat after the military personnel chose their seats.
A commander’s priorities are accomplishment of the mission first and the welfare of his men second. The welfare of reporters is no better than third. On the other hand, deliberately murdering, injuring, or exposing reporters to danger unnecessarily is criminally and morally wrong.
‘On point’
Laurence said he was also sent into combat in Vietnam with soldiers who were “on point” without having been told that they were “on point.” Point, meaning the forwardmost men in a formation that is moving through enemy-infested territory, is typically the most dangerous place.
I note that when he was in the “death seat,” he was in it alone. But when he was on point, he was among soldiers who were “on point” as well.
He should have been told that it was the point if it was. As a commander, I would not want or allow a reporter with the point man because it is a skilled, important job that relates to accomplishment of the mission and the welfare of the men. I would not allow any tourists or bumblers to be there.
Laurence says he believes the general who said West Pointers bragged about having gotten reporters they did not like killed in Vietnam. Isaacs said that was implausible. I am neutral on the matter until I track down the retired general. That is not a working position in which I am concealing my true feelings. My true feeling are neutral. I could make an argument in favor of Laurence’s general’s statements. And I can make an argument that Isaacs is correct.
Isaacs was disturbed that CJR would print such an explosive charge without naming the general in question or investigating the veracity of his claims. I agree with Isaacs on that and expressed the same complaint to CJR myself. Laurence said he promised the general anonymity.
1. Given the gravity of the charges, that seems a bit much.
2. Laurence has already broken his promise of anonymity by providing too many details about the father-son West Point graduate pair.
3. Since I cannot verify that any of the various facts Laurence cites jibe, I tentatively conclude that Laurence’s account is not true.
4. Laurence’s response to Isaacs is not credible on its face, that is, when he specifies the details of efforts to kill him, they sound like normal, sensible, non-mandatory, offers that were accepted by reporters who understood the danger implications of the location or seat in question.
I appreciate informed, well-thought-out constructive criticism and suggestions.
John T. Reed
Here is a very belated response I got from Laurence on 1/3/12 along with my comments in red.
Dear Mr. Reed -
Your article about my piece in the Columbia Journalism Review called "Rules of Engagement" has recently come to my attention. [I brought it to his attention before I published it. My guess is he did not think I was prominent enough to matter so he blew me off saying he was too busy to talk to me as I said above in my article. I surmise the fact that it has come to his attention 4 1/2 years later means someone he thinks DOES think is important to him brought it to his attention.] The source was the West Point First Captain who I mentioned in the CJR story. The clues you needed to identify him were in the article, but you did not see them or were careless or negligent in your investigation and unable to put them together. [I explained above in great detail how I used the clues to identify him and how I concluded there was no such person. Note that he does not deny any of my analysis is correct, only that he stands by his story. If there is a flaw in my analysis, tell me what it is and I will recheck with that information. He provides no new evidence, only a conclusory statement. He speaks of “libel” at the end of this letter. Conclusory statements are not admissible evidence in court. If he wants to use a court to resolve this, he will damned well provide hard evidence there, not just his own statements that he is right and I am wrong or saying you made a mistake but I won’t tell you what it is. One of the defenses against libel is providing all the facts and logic you used to make your analysis so the reader can make their own evaluation of the validity of the conclusion. I deliberately did precisely that when I wrote the article.] He and I have been in close touch since I deployed with his airborne unit in 2005. I was embedded with his brigade for 14 months and made a documentary film about it called, "I Am an American Soldier." (There is a web site by that name.) I assure you that he and his father do actually exist and said what I attributed to them. [He already said that in his original article. Tell us something we did not already know.]
I do not understand why it would be in anyone's interest to identify him. Naming him, in the original article or elsewhere, would put him and his father, the retired general, at the center of a controversy and possibly hurt the major's army career. I promised the general while we were doing the interview that I would not identify either of them by name. Your only purpose, it seems, is to disprove the factual basis of my story by asserting a negative--that the general does not exist and so could not have said what I quoted him as saying. But, why would I invent someone and make up quotes to help prove a point that is made in other ways? In 50+ years of reporting, including three combat tours in Vietnam, I have never made up a character or a quote. No one has ever accused me of making up a quote or inventing a character. My work has received every major award for broadcast journalism including ten Emmys and two Columbia-duPont Awards. My book, "The Cat from Hue: a Vietnam War Story." (Public Affairs, 2002) received the Cornelius Ryan Award for "the best book" of non-fiction for 2002. [Laurence accuses me of libeling him. Oh, and what does he do in his CJR article? Accuse U.S. military officers of murder. I am one of the staunchest critics of the U.S. military. See www.johntreed.com/military.html, but I am very skeptical of a charge of murder. Military officers have plenty of flaws, but they also have limits. If you are going to quote a military officer accusing his fellow officers of murder, you will damned well name that officer. That it the rather obvious answer to why it would be in the nation’s interest to name him. The rest of this is more conclusory statements that are non-denial denials as they used to say in the Watergate investigation. That was the phrase coined by Ben Bradlee of the Washington Post. He also has won some journalism awards. Proving a negative is quite possible when sufficient facts are provided to do so. This the essence of science. When a scientist makes discovery, he publishes the details of what he did and other scientists around the world replicate the experiment and confirm it. If they replicate it and get different results, as in a proclaimed discovery of controlled fusion, the original claim is disproven. This paragraph contains a bunch of “my journalistic resume is bigger than yours” attempts to intimidate me. It has the same tone as “I am too busy to respond to you” he sent me before, only with more details. I have an article about intellectually-dishonest debate tactics at www.johntreed.com/debate.html. Please note #26 in that list.]
Don't you think the editors at the CJR asked me to identify the retired general and his son so they, at least, could be sure they existed? That's how it works in journalism. The editor is responsible for checking the reporter's facts thoroughly and trusting him not to make things up. [Ha! Tell it to Woodward and Bernstein and Bradlee. The fact that this is NOT the way it works in journalism was well documented in the Watergate story including the book and movie All the President’s Men. Most prominently, Washington Post reporters Woodward and Bernstein did NOT identify “Deepthroat” to Ben Bradlee or anyone else until “Deepthroat” outed himself decades after the Watergate incident. I have been a journalist for almost as long as Laurence, although he seems to regard me as some sort of Untermensch in that regard, talking down to me as he does. Note he does not say whether he identified the general to his editor—another non-denial denial.
In 1986, I appeared as the refuter on a 60 Minutes broadcast called “Nothing Down” with Morley Safer. As a result of that broadcast, a Time reporter named Jon something interviewed me then did a conference call with me and my 60 Minutes opponent Joe Land. Among other things, Land claimed he got a regular bank to make him some sort of cockamamie nothing-down loan. I said I was extremely skeptical that any bank would make such a loan. Like Laurence here, Land swore that it was true. I asked for the bank’s name. As with Laurence, Land said he could not divulge it for various reasons. Jon the offered to not disclose the name in the Time story but said he needed to verify that what Land said was true. Land still refused to divulge it. I do not believe any such banker existed. I would be willing to consider making Laurence the same offer the Time magazine reporter made Land. If you divulge the names of the general father and First Captain son, I will use that to confirm that the depiction of who they are and what they said in the CJR article is true and I promise to disclose the results of my confirmation investigation using those names, but not the names of the father and son officers. That’s one of the ways we journalists deal with situations like that. Although I am not certain I would be willing to make that agreement in this case. Laurence would need to convince me it was warranted. Murder charges are very serious. There is no statute of limitations on murder. West Point graduates are supposed to be above this. I may send this article to the Army Inspector General or Congress or investigative journalists who would be more inclined to dig deeper or all of the above. The charges made in Laurence’s CJR article are too serious to be subordinated to the preservation of the major’s career.]
John Reed: "I sent Laurence an email. He declined to talk to me saying he was too busy. I sent him an email explaining the above discrepancy and asking him to help me get in touch with the major's father. I did not hear back from him about that."
I find no record of any correspondence with you. [Nondenial denial. I imagine I have it somewhere in my old computer files. But I did not make it up when I said it in 2007 above. And this guy repeatedly accuses me of being lazy about checking things. He needs to look harder in his files, but given his propensity to engage in nondenial denials, also known as negative pregnants, I will not hold my breath.]
Since you do not date your articles, it is hard to pin down the period you refer to. If you have copies of the alleged email exchange, I would be grateful to see them. If you do not, please remove that reference from your web page. I always answer correspondence about my work unless it comes from someone who appears to be deranged or malicious. [I wrote the article shortly after I read the CJR story, which was dated. I believe I also mentioned in that email to Laurence that I bought his book The Cat From Hue. I put the date I buy books inside the front cover. The date I bought the book was 5/24/07 so I probably sent the email probably within a week or two of that purchase.]
You state in the article: "Also, I find no record that any of these people ever served in the 101st Airborne Division. " This is not accurate. The records you checked are wrong. Did you consider they might be? If not, that shows carelessness on your part. [The records I checked were the bios in the West Point Register of Graduates. Since I did not say that the people never served there, only that I could not find confirmation, I was not careless. Since those records are based on reports from the individuals in question, if they are inaccurate or incomplete, the carelessness lies with the graduates in question. Laurence’s says,“ This is not accurate.” The statement that I found no such records is accurate. He seems to acknowledge that the records I checked were at fault, not me. So in other words his use of the phrase “This is not accurate” regarding what I found is itself careless. What he meant is what he later says, that he implies the records I checked were inaccurate or incomplete. Since those records are kept by the Association of Graduates and they get the information therein from annual questionnaires sent to all graduates for whom they have addresses, my research was not careless especially given the careful way I worded my statement. The U.S. Military Academy Association of Graduates is a legitimate source for information about West Point graduates.]
"In Iraq, an officer threatened him against using his satellite phone and thereby "breaking security." I do not know what the phrase "breaking security" means in this case. "
Your tendency toward cynicism is showing itself. In March, 2003, in Kuwait and later in Iraq, reporters embedded with U.S. military forces (I was with the 101st) were forbidden to use a particular brand of satellite phone that was manufactured by a French company (Thuraya) and used widely by the regime of Saddam Hussein and his cohorts. I suspected and confirmed later that NSA was monitoring Thuraya frequencies in Iraq and its officials did not want them crowded with reporters talking on them. Fortunately, my battalion commander was kind enough to allow me to use one of his battalion sat-phones to broadcast back to the States and talk to my editor at Esquire. (See Esquire Magazine, August, 2003: "Rakkasan!") [I am an investigative reporter. Laurence seems to claim to be the same. An absence of cynicism in an investigative reporter is rather odd.“The power of accurate observation is commonly called cynicism by those who have not got it.” George Bernard Shaw]
John Reed: "A commander's priorities are accomplishment of the mission first and the welfare of his men second. The welfare of reporters is no better than third."
The best American commanders try to take good care of civilian reporters in their midst. [Here we have a reporter talking down to a West Point graduate airborne ranger Vietnam vet about how commanders behave. Let me get a pad of paper and pencil so I can takes notes here.] Their well-being is usually considered to be equal to that of their soldiers, NCOs and other officers in the unit. The exceptions were those officers who I wrote about in CJR and The Cat from Hue. Since you do not appear to have had an opportunity to work with reporters and photographers in combat, your cynical disregard for our safety is obvious. I have had continuing, close friendships with officers, NCOs and enlisted men from my visits with U.S. units in Vietnam since 1965 and Iraq since 2003. [My “cynical disregard for the safety of reporters” is a logical response to the hieararchy we were taught at West Point: 1. accomplish the mission 2. Take care of the welfare of the men, in that order. Reporters were never mentioned in my four years at West Point. Reporters are tourists. They are more likely to be a hindrance than a help in the accomplishment of the mission and when it comes to assigning seats in a humvee going on a combat patrol, they sit wherever there is room after the soldiers choose their seats, period. It will be a cold day in hell before a good officer puts his men at risk to improve the safety of a reporter. I would suspect an officer who took better care of a reporter than he did of his men of seeking favorable publicity. I had a little interaction with journalists in my years as an officer. In one case, they tried to direct me as if it were a movie. I nixed that and limited them to candid photos. In another, I turned down their request for an interview because the situation was one where I felt it would look like I was seeking publicity rather than doing what I thought was right. If I had a reporter with me in Vietnam, I would have befriended them and probably enjoyed talking with them away from a mission situation. I have been a reporter myself for 36 years. I would have helped the reporter find a place to sleep and get meals and communicate with his media superiors—in rear areas. In a combat situation, I would urge him not to be there and tell him mission and men came first and he was going to be the hindmost. If he was willing to accept that deal, okay. Otherwise, find some publicity-seeking officer to go into combat with, not me. General Stanley McChrystal trusted a journalist from Rolling Stone in a BS session far from the combat zone. It ended McChrystal’s career. If a journalist praises an officer, it may also end his career by suggesting that the junior officer deserved more credit for some action than his superiors thereby making them jealous and angry.]
John Reed: "As a commander, I would not want or allow a reporter with the point man because it is a skilled, important job that relates to accomplishment of the mission and the welfare of the men. I would not allow any tourists or bumblers to be there."
Your cynicism assumes that reporters and photographers are tourists and bumblers. See my book. During the invasion of Cambodia, a squadron commander of the 11th ACR (LTC Grail Brookshire, as I recall) put me and my camera crew on point with a three APC team to recon an approach to the city of Snoul which was heavily defended. He did not warn us we were going on point. He gave me a wicked look as he gave the order. Commanded by a captain, we drove into an enemy bunker complex. Under heavy fire, I helped the captain reload his .50 caliber machine gun with boxes of ammunition from the back of the track. I also took action that resulted in the killing of an NVA soldier who was about to open fire on us at very short range from our rear. On at least one occasion, one of my cameramen, Dana Stone, walked point for a company of soldiers from the 1st Cav (C/2/7)--with the knowledge of the company commander (CPT Robert Jackson)--because Dana was the most experienced combat veteran and tracker in the unit. Again, see the book. [Don’t try this at home boys and girls. The evidence that this was a good idea from a military standpoint is not evident to me. I doubt this would be approved by either the captain’s or the journalist’s superiors, nor should it be. Laurence seems to be proving that military training is totally unnecessary. I think it needs to be improved greatly and have often said so. But having journalists walk point or serve as soldiers in a given incident tells me they should not have been there to begin with. Those of us who were in the military risked our lives in Vietnam for a good reason. It was our job and we were ostensibly defending the South Vietnamese from a Communist takeover. A lot of soldiers and Marines are in the military for the wrong reasons, like proving their manhood. But I have never understood the motives of a war correspondent. They are tourists who are trying to advance their journalism career. In a bull session with such people in Vietnam, I would have asked “And exactly what the hell is your motive for being here?” and I expect I would have pronounced their answer nuts, akin to the kooks who take dangerous chances to get YouTube or reality TV fame.]
John Reed: Laurence said with few exceptions in Iraq, he and other reporters were given the right rear passenger seat in Humvees. Laurence said that is called the "death seat." I would note that if all the seats in the Humvee are filled, someone has to sit in the "death seat."
All the seats in a Humvee were not ordinarily filled. A four man fire team usually occupied 1. the driver's seat, 2. the command seat (right front), 3. Sling-seated or standing top gunner, and 4. left rear seat. The death seat was unusually unoccupied. Being put in the right rear seat directly over the gas tanks of humvees in Iraq when soldiers almost never sat there was a risk one had to take as a civilian reporter. No one in my team ever asked a soldier to give up his seat and move to the right rear. In most cases, we were told to take the "death seat" without being warned how risky it was. [He leaves out how many seats there were other than the four for the military. If it was two and there was a two-man journalist crew, what is the complaint?] Your disdain for journalists is apparent from the way you write about us. I doubt you have had the experience of sharing combat with a civilian whose primary interest was writing and broadcasting accurate stories about what you and your men were doing in wartime. [Correct]"The Cat from Hue" explores this relationship fully. [I have not yet read it.]
"Isaacs was disturbed that CJR would print such an explosive charge without naming the general in question or investigating the veracity of his claims. I agree with Isaacs on that and expressed the same complaint to CJR myself. Laurence said he promised the general anonymity.
1. Given the gravity of the charges, that seems a bit much.
(In fact, the editors at CJR confirmed what I had written.)
2. Laurence has already broken his promise of anonymity by providing too many details about the father-son West Point graduate pair.
(You are contradicting yourself. You have already concluded, based on your investigation, that they do not exist.) [The details he provided were enough to identify the men in question. West Point First Captains are a very small group, and when you start listing ranks, dates, units, and fathers who graduated from West Point, anyone with a USMA AOG Register of Graduates can identify the guy in question. If a journalist was in this situation and gave out as much info as Laurence did about a source who was not supposed to be identified, he must never have seen what information is in the Register of Graduates. If the guy was indeed a First Captain, he is listed above in my article. Fundamentally, Laurence’s position as he would have us believe is that he is criticizing the accuracy of AOG records, not me. It comes down to either some flaw in AOG records or my article’s conclusion is correct.]
3. Since I cannot verify that any of the various facts Laurence cites jibe, I tentatively conclude that Laurence's account is not true.
(Your investigation was time-consuming, no doubt, but careless in the extreme. It might have helped if you had had more experience in wartime, or were a better student of military history.)
[Gee, I spent as much time as was allowed at West Point. He’s doing the “my resume’s bigger” thing again, isn’t he?]
4. Laurence's response to Isaacs is not credible on its face, that is, when he specifies the details of efforts to kill him, they sound like normal, sensible, non-mandatory, offers that were accepted by reporters who understood the danger implications of the location or seat in question.
You have no idea how many times that I and other reporters were deliberately put in harm's way by officers and NCOs who did not like us or were testing us. Read "The Cat from Hue" and you will see. Other examples keep coming to mind. I have discussed these with Skip Isaacs, who appears to take my word for them. There are witnesses as well.
"I appreciate informed, well-thought-out constructive criticism and suggestions."
If you appreciate mine, I hope you will apologize and make immediate changes in your web blog. I hope you are aware that your comments, in effect, accuse me of lying in the CJR article and, as such, constitute a serious libel to my name and reputation.
My exact words were: Since I cannot verify that any of the various facts Laurence cites jibe, I tentatively conclude that Laurence's account is not true. Note that Laurence has to say that I “in effect” accused him of lying. In my journalistic career I learned something that Laurence apparently has not. When you think someone said a bad thing, and you go back and look at the exact words and find that you have to paraphrase or restate them to make it sound bad, you should drop the whole idea of characterizing the statement as bad. Here, I chose my words very carefully and they are accurate. Laurence had to switch to the “in effect” phrase and use the word lying without quotation marks because I did not say he lied. I stand by what I DID say and will make no effort to defend his false restatement of it. I will correct, apologize, and all that, as appropriate, if and when Laurence gives me the evidence that changes what I said. He managed to write a very long crabby, whiny, braggadocious email without ever giving me or my readers a single fact or any logic that we did not already have. His email can be summarized as the equivalent of a “Did too” hurled by a second grader at another second grader who had said, “Did not,” only my statement of the pertinent facts and logic was more than a mere assertion that I am right.
My “tentative” conclusion that some of what Laurence said about the West Point First Captain and/or his father said is “not true” does not constitute an accusation of lying. The way I worded it, there are four possibilities:
1. Laurence is lying
2. The First Captain’s father lied to Laurence
3. Either the First Captain or his father or both were inaccurate or incomplete when they responded to AOG questionnaires for Register of Graduates bio entries
4. The AOG accidentally or deliberately screwed up the Register of Graduates entries on one or both of these graduates.
I hasten to add that #4 is extremely unlikely, plus the graduates in question can contact the AOG at any time and tell them about errors or omissions that need to be corrected and the AOG will make the corrections.
I must call the reader’s attention to one great big fact. I am not hiding in relation to the CJR article. The First Captain I contacted said, “The story has a lot of holes in it,” and he is not hiding. Former Vietnam war correspondent Arnold Isaacs who wrote to CJR and said he does not believe the accusations is not hiding. The only ones who are hiding in this dispute are Laurence’s First Captain and his father. Why are they doing that? It is un-West-Point-like. The West Point motto is “Duty, honor, country.” Each of those three words commands the First Captain’s father to report what he knows about reporters being murdered by officers. Laurence essentially alleges that the two graduates in question place a higher value on the Army officer’s corps’ code of Omertà (a Mafia word meaning no snitching) and careerism than Duty Honor or Country.
Here are Laurence’s exact words: “I do not understand why it would be in anyone's interest to identify him. Naming him, in the original article or elsewhere, would put him and his father, the retired general, at the center of a controversy and possibly hurt the major's army career. ” Q.E.D.
Here is the Cadet Prayer that I and the First Captain and the First Captain’s father were required to memorize as plebes. You will note that it discusses the pertinent ethics without ever mentioning the word “career.”
O God, our Father, Thou Searcher of human hearts, help us to draw near to Thee in sincerity and truth. May our religion be filled with gladness and may our worship of Thee be natural.
Strengthen and increase our admiration for honest dealing and clean thinking, and suffer not our hatred of hypocrisy and pretence ever to diminish. Encourage us in our endeavor to live above the common level of life. Make us to choose the harder right instead of the easier wrong, and never to be content with a half truth when the whole can be won. Endow us with courage that is born of loyalty to all that is noble and worthy, that scorns to compromise with vice and injustice and knows no fear when truth and right are in jeopardy. Guard us against flippancy and irreverence in the sacred things of life. Grant us new ties of friendship and new opportunities of service. Kindle our hearts in fellowship with those of a cheerful countenance, and soften our hearts with sympathy for those who sorrow and suffer. Help us to maintain the honor of the Corps untarnished and unsullied and to show forth in our lives the ideals of West Point in doing our duty to Thee and to our Country. All of which we ask in the name of the Great Friend and Master of all. - Amen
With regard to snitching, here is the West Point Cadet Honor Code: “A cadet will not lie, cheat, steal, or tolerate those who do.”
I also note that the Columbia Journalism Review has not complained about my discussion of Laurence’s article in that publication. I believe I sent what I said to them, asking them to run a correction, back in 2007. They are who he says confirmed the existence of the First Captain and his father and that the officers in question said what Laurence says they said. If one or more editor there did confirm that stuff, they should also be contacting me to say so. They have not. Only Laurence. His email is surprisingly unprofessional and lame. It offers no new confirmable facts or logic and consists entirely of attempts to intimidate me. I would have thought that an experienced journalist would know that trying to intimidate an investigative journalist out of a story is like waving a red flag at a bull.
Link to information about John T. Reed’s Succeeding book which, in part, relates lessons learned about succeeding in life from being in the military
