Crossan: We used to go out on patrols and have the little kids count the patrols and all that stuff and we couldn’t really do anything except grab them and throw them inside their houses…Read the whole thing, and listen to the Malkin podcast here at Hot Air.KING 5 TV interviewer: Why would you do that? Because you were afraid that the kids were scouting for the insurgents or you thought they were in danger?
Crossan: There are little kids that scout for ‘em. ‘Cuz later that day we, along the main road there, we cut behind a few buildings and the next patrol that went out got hit. And that little kid that was just there and there was people all around. But the day that I got hit they were planning a major attack and it got spoiled, so, and there was like 20 some people, insurgents, that were gonna attack the cop that day.
Then we got hit by an IED and the cops sent out a squad of Marines, and the insurgents just started attacking then, just right off the bat and we just foiled it. We were just driving back from the cop. I remember taking a left and then a right, and then remember waking up from the ground for a split second. And then waking up in the helicopter and then finally knew what happened in the hospital.
Also, Mark Davis at RealClearPolitics reports about how "Jihad Jack" Murtha spent his Memorial Day Weekend:
Rep. John Murtha, Democrat of Pennsylvania, spent part of his Memorial Day weekend saying that an alleged Iraq war atrocity may hurt America's war effort.Read the rest...Well, what do you know? Maybe wishes do come true.
As you are about to discover, I have about had it with Mr. Murtha, who likes to flaunt his military record while abandoning the toughness such experience is supposed to bestow.
As President Bush calls on America to display the resolve and patience that have seen us through other wars, Mr. Murtha has led the pack of braying critics casting negative light on our fighting forces, their mission and their motivation.
He has led the drumbeat for a retreat before the mission is over. He has questioned the readiness and resolve of our armed forces. And now he has a gift-wrapped tragedy ready for exploitation by any other shameless opportunists willing to join him.
It will be awhile before we know whether Marines are guilty in a November slaughter of unarmed Iraqis in the town of Haditha. But this has not stopped Mr. Murtha from savoring every nugget of their possible atrocities.
For many days, he has made himself available to dwell with relish on the details of a horrible day on which it appears U.S. forces may have responded to an IED blast with a wanton, brutal overreaction - a house-to-house killing spree whose victims included women and children.
Anyone with a shred of human decency approaches this with the utmost gravity. Those of us who support the troops and the war they are fighting have a special responsibility not to sugarcoat, minimize or marginalize any wrongdoing by those troops.
But, conversely, those who are exercising their right to speak ill of the war and the Americans fighting it have a responsibility not to allow their anti-war venom to inflame their assessments of bad moments in the war's history.
(Filed under Murtha Must Go!, the fifth column, Iraq)
