Memories of Iraq haunt Tri-City man, ordered to abandon tortured prisoners

[Barrett808]

Memories of Iraq haunt Tri-City man
Schoolteacher, guardsman struggles to forget atrocities
By Rob Dennis, STAFF WRITER

Capt. Jarrell Southall still can't shake the nightmares.

They intrude on his sleep with military precision at 2 every morning -- horrific visions of starving, beaten, tortured men. Men he tried to help. Men he was ordered to abandon.

Southall, a Union City resident who taught history at the Challenger School in Newark before he was called back to uniform and sent to Iraq, gives his nightmares a historical context.

"It stank of near-death," he says, his gaze fixed on the desktop in his office at the Camp Parks Reserve Forces Training Area in Dublin. "What I'd compare this to would be witnessing Dachau or Auschwitz before the Final Solution -- 1941 or 1939 in a German concentration camp. Historically speaking, that's how I'd explain what I saw."

... nothing had prepared him for that June day in Baghdad when his squad of national guardsmen stumbled upon an atrocity they were told to forget.

"We tried to help those people, and we weren't allowed to help them," he says. "It still haunts me. The damage to those prisoners who were abused ... haunts me so much."

...

In a move that shocked Southall and the rest of the squad, Hendrickson was ordered, over the lieutenant colonel's strong objections, to return the prisoners to their captors and withdraw his troops. In the days that followed, there were reports that many of the prisoners were released. Still, the memory stings for Southall.

...

"I can't shake it, you know, I can't shake it. The nightmares."

(more)

http://www.theargusonline.com/Stories/0,1413,83~1968~2577817,00.html

[nadinbrzezinski]

1. Chip, chip to teh war suport, these are the stories that will

do it

[acmavm]

2. Nothing will penetrate the wall of the true believers. Not until they lose

their children, then maybe the walls of hypocrisy and stupidity will come tumbling down.

These people need to see the pictues of what their support of bush* & co. have made them a party to. I fully believe that those that supported bush* and voted for him are just a complicit in war crimes as the liars and thieves in that administration.

[Barrett808]

4. Let's hope so n/t

[Pirate Smile]

3. I hope this terrible story gets picked up by some larger papers.

Tragic.

[Supersedeas]

8. Nadda chance....you know with all the liberal bias....nadda chance

[DeepModem Mom]

5. There is a wealth of information in this man's story --

thanks for posting.

[struggle4progress]

6. kick

:kick:

[UpInArms]

7. who or what in the hell prepared these troops?

"That was a very treacherous road," he says. "It was supposed to be secure. What we were told was it would basically be a walk in the park. Iraq was won. The war was over. Mission accomplished. We wouldn't see any combat, basically."

It didn't turn out that way. As they traveled along "RPG Alley," the dangerous 10-mile stretch of road linking Baghdad International Airport with the central part of the city, the convoy in front of them was struck by a rocket-propelled grenade.

Southall's company was trapped in its soft-skinned Humvees until a tanker truck demolished a guardrail, allowing them to flee the road and regroup.

:wtf: