March 30, 2003
“We had a great day… We killed a lot of people”
ABOARD USS ABRAHAM LINCOLN, March 28 (Reuters) - American pilots who bombed Baghdad on Friday spoke of the thrill of a successful attack in the teeth of fierce anti-aircraft fire.
“It was exhilarating,” Commander Jeff Penfield said after landing his F/A-18E Super Hornet back on the Abraham Lincoln, which is supporting the U.S.-led invasion force from the Gulf.
“It was all nice and calm in the city,” he said. “Once those bombs hit all hell broke loose. I bet we saw 15 SAMs (surface-to-air missiles), about three or four up our way so we had to defend a couple of times.
“What I felt more than anything was exhilaration.”
… Up in the skies over the Iraqi capital, Penfield led a “strike package” of three planes that dropped 1,000-pound laser-guided bombs on mobile targets near the city.
“…[Y]ou get an element of excitement because that’s where the best targets still are and those targets have to go away so the ground forces can go in.” …
“I can’t sleep yet,” said Penfield. “I’ll go down and get something to eat, unwind, bask in the glory a little bit.”
At the base camp of the Fifth Marine Regiment here, two sharpshooters, Sgt. Eric Schrumpf, 28, and Cpl. Mikael McIntosh, 20, sat on a sand berm and swapped combat tales while their column stood at a halt on the road toward Baghdad. For five days this week, the two men rode atop armored personnel carriers, barreling up Highway 1.
They said Iraqi fighters had often mixed in with civilians from nearby villages, jumping out of houses and cars to shoot at them, and then often running away. The marines said they had little trouble dispatching their foes, most of whom they characterized as ill trained and cowardly.
“We had a great day,” Sergeant Schrumpf said. “We killed a lot of people… We dropped a few civilians, but what do you do?”
To illustrate, the sergeant offered a pair of examples from earlier in the week.
“There was one Iraqi soldier, and 25 women and children,” he said, “I didn’t take the shot.”
But more than once, Sergeant Schrumpf said, he faced a different choice: one Iraqi soldier standing among two or three civilians. He recalled one such incident, in which he and other men in his unit opened fire. He recalled watching one of the women standing near the Iraqi soldier go down.
“I’m sorry,” the sergeant said. “But the chick was in the way.”
Regardless of whether or not I condone their actions, I have no illusions: I fully expect my country’s servicemen and women to take pride in their jobs. I expect them to feel proud they have performed to their highest degree of skill.
But that a human being could be so devoid of emotion, so deep in denial about the consequences of that job, that he rejoices in the “exhilaration” of being the one responsible for “hell breaking loose” in a city that moments before was “all nice and calm” frankly sickens me.
When a man’s idea of “a great day” is killing “a lot of people,” my compassion for that man and my “support” for him ends.
I have no doubt this kind of brain-dead, barbaric gung-hoism is limited to a small minority of troops. At least, I hope so.
I pray Commander Penfield and Sergeant Schrumpf are the last of a dying breed. But I know they are are not.
With visions of William Calley in my head, it sometimes takes extra effort to “forgive them for they know not what they do.”
Penfield and Schrumpf do not make the task any easier.
And I don’t know if I can ever forgive them. Even we bleeding-heart liberal pacifists have our limits. And those, like Penfield and Schrumpf, who revel in this sort of perverted, inhuman bloodlust push me far beyond my limit.
“The chick was in the way” - ?
My disgust for these individuals defies words.
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Filed Under: Iraq
