US platoon mutinies, refuses to go on patrol

Not us. We're not going.'

Soldiers in 2nd Platoon, Charlie 1-26 stage a 'mutiny' that pulls the

unit apart

Stories by KELLY KENNEDY - Staff writer

Posted : Saturday Dec 8, 2007 14:32:57 EST

Spc. Gerry DeNardi stood at the on-base Burger King, just a few miles

from downtown Baghdad, hoping for a quick taste of home.

Camp Taji encompasses miles of scrapped Iraqi tanks, a busy U.S.

airstrip and thousands of soldiers living in row upon row of identical

trailers. Several fast-food stands, a PX and a dining facility the

size of a football field compose Taji's social hub. The base had been

struck by an occasional mortar round, and a rocket had hit the

airfield two weeks before and killed an American helicopter pilot. But

the quiet base brought on a sense of being far from roadside bombs,

far from rocket-propelled grenades and far from the daily gunfire that

rained down on the soldiers of Charlie 1-26 as they patrolled

Adhamiya, a violent Sunni neighborhood in northeastern Baghdad.

Just two weeks earlier, the 20-year-old DeNardi had lost five good

friends, killed together as they rode in a Bradley Fighting Vehicle

that rolled over a powerful roadside bomb.

As DeNardi walked up the three wood steps to the outdoor stand to pick

up his burger, the siren wailed.

Wah! Wah! Wah! "Incoming! Incoming! Incoming!"

The alarms went off all the time -- often after the mortar round or

rocket had struck nothing but sand, miles from anything important.

Many soldiers and others at Taji had taken to ignoring the warnings.

DeNardi glanced around at the picnic tables to make sure everyone was

still eating. They were. The foreign nationals who worked the fast-

food stands hadn't left; so he went back to get the burger he had paid

for.

The mortar round hit before he could pick up his order.

"I turned around and all of Burger King and me went flying," DeNardi

said.

He'd lived through daily explosions in 11 months with Charlie Company,

1st Battalion, 26th Infantry Regiment, at nearby Combat Outpost

Apache, a no-frills fortress smack in the middle of Adhamiya's hostile

streets. He had rushed through flames to try to save friends and

carried others to the aide station only to watch them die.

"I'm not getting killed at Burger King," he thought, and he dived for

a concrete bunker. People were screaming. DeNardi saw a worker from

Cinnabon hobbling around, so he climbed out of the bunker, pulled

shrapnel out of the man's leg and bandaged him. The Pizza Hut manager

was crying and said two more foreign workers were injured behind her

stand -- near the Burger King.

"Lightning doesn't strike twice," DeNardi said, "so I went back. But

there were body parts everywhere." The first man's leg had been blown

off, his other leg was barely attached and he had a chest wound. "He

was going to die," DeNardi said.

The other wounded man had shrapnel to his neck. DeNardi peeled off his

own shirt and fashioned a bandage out of it as other soldiers started

streaming in to help.

Then, "all clear" sounded over the loudspeakers as medics arrived and

took over.

"I'm covered in blood, but I still have my hamburger receipt," DeNardi

said. "I went back to Burger King the next day, but they wouldn't give

me my burger."

For all his dark humor, the "Hero of Burger King," as fellow soldiers

teasingly called him, was deeply rattled by the carnage of the

explosion at the fast-food court. At Apache, he expected trouble. But

not at Burger King.

"That affected me," he said. For the next few days, he said, he slept

in the open-ended concrete bunkers positioned between the housing

units.

It was just another bad day to add to many -- and DeNardi's platoon had

already faced misery that seemed unbearable. When five soldiers with

2nd Platoon were trapped June 21 after a deep-buried roadside bomb

flipped their Bradley upside-down, several men rushed to save the

gunner, Spc. Daniel Agami, pinned beneath the 30-ton vehicle. But they

could only watch -- and listen to him scream -- as he burned alive. The

Bradley was far too heavy to lift, and the flames were too high to

even get close. The four others died inside the vehicle. Second

Platoon already had lost four of its 45 men since deploying to

Adhamiya 11 months before. June 21 shattered them.

Though their commanders moved them from the combat outpost to safer

quarters, members of 2nd Platoon would stage a revolt they viewed as a

life-or-death act of defiance. With all they had done and all they had

seen, they now were consumed with an anger that ate at the memory of

the good men they were when they arrived in Iraq.

Primed for revenge

After June 21, most of Charlie Company moved out of COP Apache, their

makeshift home on the grounds of one of Saddam Hussein's son's

palaces. At Taji, the company would try to recover for a new mission.

Sgt. 1st Class Tim Ybay, 38, served as 2nd Platoon's platoon sergeant,

but also its father figure. The former drill sergeant teased

constantly and tried to treat his men like family. At memorial

services for lost soldiers, he cried the loudest. He'd been on patrol

June 21 when the five 2nd Platoon soldiers died in the Bradley. When

he came back, his grieving platoon circled him as the weight of the

loss forced him to his knees in the sand. He'd promised to bring all

his boys home.

Now he would concentrate on the ones that remained.

"I knew after losing those five guys, my platoon had to get out of

there," he said. "These were the guys they slept with, joked with,

worked out with. I don't think they'd be able to accomplish the

mission."

the tears came again as he spoke, and he looked away.

"And I was having a hard time losing my guys."

At Taji, the company had a week off. DeNardi looked more surfer than

soldier after a couple of days at the pool. Ybay and his sergeants sat

at the picnic tables drinking frozen coffee concoctions. The guys

bought Persian carpets and brass lamps to send home as souvenirs -- as

if Taji were a vacation spot. But the anger over Adhamiya emerged even

poolside, and erupted at the mental health clinic, which they visited

in groups.

"You never really get over the anger," said Staff Sgt. Robin Johnson,

a member of Charlie's scout platoon who had been especially close to

Agami. "It just kind of becomes everything you are. You become pissed

off at everything. We wanted to destroy everything in our paths, but

they wanted us to keep building sewer systems and handing out teddy

bears."

Some of the younger members of the platoon were particularly

disillusioned.

Spc. Armando Cardenas, 21, had taken honors classes in high school but

feared college would bore him. He wanted something challenging and

found it in the Army, in Iraq. As a soldier, he was the guy who leaped

out of a truck to chase an insurgent, or instantly returned fire with

an uncanny ability to tell where the rounds came from. When a friend,

Pfc. Ryan Hill, was killed in battle, Cardenas helped carry him back.

But Cardenas' anger was just as quick as his heroics.

He said the platoon had been waiting for June 21 -- that they had known

they would eventually hit a big IED and have a catastrophic loss.

Cardenas wanted revenge. "But they don't let us take care of the

people responsible," he said. "It was a slap in the face."

Adhamiya remained under the control of 1-26, but the brass moved

Charlie 1-26 to another combat outpost, Old Mod -- so called because it

used to house Iraq's Ministry of Defense -- in a calmer area on the

outskirts of Adhamiya. From there, they patrolled Kadhamiya.

"If my guys had stayed at Adhamiya, they would have taken the gloves

off," said Capt. Cecil Strickland, Charlie's company commander. "We

were afraid somebody was going to get in trouble."

There had been close calls before. DeNardi had to fight back a strong

desire to kill an Iraqi -- accused of triggering an IED that killed two

Charlie Company soldiers -- as he held a 9mm Glock handgun to the man's

eye socket.

And Cardenas and Staff Sgt. John Gregory had been ordered to the Green

Zone to talk to an investigator after they roughed up two insurgents.

A week after Pfc. Ross McGinnis fatally threw himself on a grenade to

save four friends, Cardenas and Gregory had chased a couple of guys on

a scooter and managed to stop them. Cardenas kicked over a wooden box

the two Iraqis stood next to.

"There was a grenade full of nails," Cardenas said. "We had to go see

a major about detainee abuse. We told him [the Iraqis] didn't want to

get in the Bradley."

Nothing came of the investigation.

Such incidents belied the squared-away record Charlie 1-26 posted

during its deployment to Iraq. In 15 months, they had one incident

when two soldiers were caught with alcohol, Strickland said, but that

was all.

"I think the performance comes from the level of discipline,"

Strickland said. "And the discipline comes from the hardship. They're

a little bit more mature than a lot of other units."

In Shiite Kadhamiya, Charlie Company found paved, clean streets. In

Sunni Adhamiya, so many garbage collectors had been killed that the

Shiite government workers refused to go there. "It was one road and

one river away from Adhamiya," DeNardi said. "But there was

civilization on one side and chaos on the other."

Suicide and a twist of fate

Lt. Col. John Reynolds replaced Lt. Col. Eric Schacht as battalion

commander July 8. Schacht left after his son died of a heart condition

in Germany, the same day Charlie Company lost five men in the Bradley.

Even with the high operations tempo and the loss of so many men,

Reynolds called the changeover "easy."

"It was the best transition you could get," he said.

But within days, he would lose five men, including a respected senior

non-commissioned officer. Master Sgt. Jeffrey McKinney, Alpha

Company's first sergeant, was known as a family man and as a good

leader because he was intelligent and could explain things well. But

Staff Sgt. Jeremy Rausch of Charlie Company's 1st Platoon, a good

friend of McKinney's, said McKinney told him he felt he was letting

his men down in Adhamiya.

"First Sergeant McKinney was kind of a perfectionist and this was

bothering him very much," Rausch said. On July 11, McKinney was

ordered to lead his men on a foot patrol to clear the roads of IEDs.

Everyone at Apache heard the call come in from Adhamiya, where Alpha

Company had picked up the same streets Charlie had left. Charlie's 1st

Platoon had also remained behind, and Rausch said he would never

forget the fear he heard in McKinney's driver's voice:

"This is Apache seven delta," McKinney's driver said in a panicked

voice over the radio. "Apache seven just shot himself. He just shot

himself. Apache seven shot himself."

Rausch said there was no misunderstanding what had happened.

According to Charlie Company soldiers, McKinney said, "I can't take it

anymore," and fired a round. Then he pointed his M4 under his chin and

killed himself in front of three of his men.

At Old Mod, Charlie Company was called back in for weapons training,

DeNardi said. They were told it was an accident. Then they were told

it was under investigation. And then they were told it was a suicide.

Reynolds confirmed that McKinney took his own life.

A week later, without their beloved first sergeant, Alpha Company

would experience its first catastrophic loss on a mission that, but

for a change in weather, was supposed to go to Charlie Company.

On July 17, Charlie's 2nd Platoon was refitting at Taji when they got

a call to go back to Adhamiya. They were to patrol Route Southern

Comfort, which had been black -- off-limits -- for months. Charlie

Company knew a 500-pound bomb lay on that route, and they'd been

ordered not to travel it. "Will there be route clearance?" 2nd Platoon

asked. "Yes," they were told. "Then we'll go."

But the mission was canceled. The medevac crews couldn't fly because

of a dust storm, and the Iraqi Army wasn't ready for the mission.

Second Platoon went to bed.

They woke to the news that Alpha Company had gone on the mission

instead and one of their Bradleys rolled over the 500-pound IED. The

Bradley flipped. The explosion and flames killed everybody inside.

Alpha Company lost four soldiers: Spc. Zachary Clouser, Spc. Richard

Gilmore, Spc. Daniel Gomez and Sgt. 1st Class Luis Gutierrez-Rosales.

"There was no chance," said Johnson, whose scouts remained at Apache

and served as the quick-reaction force that day. "It was eerily the

same as June 21. You roll up on that, and it looked the same."

The guys from Charlie Company couldn't help but think about the

similarities -- and that it could have been them.

"Just the fact that there was another Bradley incident mentally

screwed up 2nd Platoon," Strickland said. "It was almost like it had

happened to them."

The battalion gave 2nd Platoon the day to recover. then they were

scheduled to go back out on patrol in Adhamiya on July 18.

But when Strickland returned from a mission, he learned 2nd Platoon

had failed to roll.

"A scheduled patrol is a direct order from me," Strickland said.

"'They're not coming,'" Strickland said he was told. "So I called the

platoon sergeant and talked to him. 'Remind your guys: These are some

of the things that could happen if they refuse to go out.' I was

irritated they were thumbing their noses. I was determined to get them

down there."

But, he said, he didn't know the whole platoon, except for Ybay, had

taken sleeping medications prescribed by mental health that day,

according to Ybay.

Strickland didn't know mental health leaders had talked to 2nd Platoon

about "doing the right thing."

He didn't know 2nd Platoon had gathered for a meeting and determined

they could no longer function professionally in Adhamiya -- that

several platoon members were afraid their anger could set loose a

massacre.

"We said, 'No.' If you make us go there, we're going to light up

everything," DeNardi said. "There's a thousand platoons. Not us. We're

not going."

They decided as a platoon that they were done, DeNardi and Cardenas

said, as did several other members of 2nd Platoon. At mental health,

guys had told the therapist, "I'm going to murder someone." And the

therapist said, "There comes a time when you have to stand up," 2nd

Platoon members remembered. For the sake of not going to jail, the

platoon decided they had to be "unplugged."

Ybay had gone to battalion to speak up for his guys and ask for more

time. But when he came back, it was with orders to report to Old Mod.

Ybay said he tried to persuade his men to go out, but he could see

they were not ready.

"It was like a scab that wouldn't heal up," Ybay said. "I couldn't

force them to go out. Listening to them in the mental health session,

I could hear they're not ready."

At 2 a.m, Ybay said, he'd found his men sitting outside smoking

cigarettes. They could not sleep. Some of them were taking as many as

10 sleeping pills and still could not rest. The images of their dead

friends haunted them. The need for revenge ravaged them.

But Ybay was still disappointed in his men. "I had a mission," he

said. "The company had a mission. We still had to execute. But I

understood their side, too."

Somehow, the full course of events didn't make it to Strickland. All

he knew, the commander said, was his men had refused an order, and he

was determined to get them to Apache.

"When you're given an order, you've got to execute," Strickland said.

"Being told, 'They're not coming,' versus, 'They're taking meds and

went to mental health,' are different things. It was just this weird

situation where almost nothing connected."

A revolt in the ranks

"They called it an act of mutiny," Cardenas said, still enraged that

the men he considered heroes were, in his mind, slandered. "The

sergeant major and the battalion commander said we were

unprofessional. They said they were disappointed in us and would never

forget our actions for the rest of their lives."

But no judicial action ever came of it.

"Captain Strickland read us our rights," DeNardi said. "We had 15 yes-

or-no questions, and no matter how you answered them, it looked like

you disobeyed an order. No one asked what happened. And there's no

record -- no article 15. Nothing to show it happened."

After the members of 2nd Platoon had spent a year fighting for each

other and watching their buddies die, battalion leaders began breaking

up the platoon. Seven noncommissioned officers were told they were

being relieved for cause and moved out of the unit. Three

noncommissioned officers stayed at Old Mod. Two, including Sgt.

Derrick Jorcke, would remain in Iraq for one month after 2nd Platoon

went home in October because they had been moved to different

battalions in different areas of Iraq.

"In a way, they were put someplace where they wouldn't have to go out

again," Johnson said. "But as an NCO, they took these guys' leaders

away and put them with people they didn't know and trust. You knew 2nd

Platoon would die for you without a second's hesitation. That's what

made them so great. These guys need each other."

Then, they were all flagged: No promotions. No awards. No favorable

actions.

"We had PFCs miss [promotion to] specialist for two months," DeNardi

said. "Bronze Stars and [Army Commendation Medals] were put on hold.

You're talking about heroes like Cardenas. These are guys who save

lives and they can't get awards."

"I didn't want to punish them," Strickland said. "I understood what

was going on. But they had to understand you couldn't do something

like that and have nothing happen."

And things could not continue as they had. Strickland could not

operate for three more months with a platoon that refused to go out.

"Within the company, we made some adjustments," Strickland said. "They

needed a fresh start. After looking into it, I didn't feel the need to

punish anybody." However, he left the flags in place.

"If anything was going to be punishment, that was it," he said. For at

least one soldier, that meant going through a promotion board again.

Jorcke lost his promotion table status, but Strickland signed a memo

re-establishing it. "I've tried to fix those issues. Almost everybody

else has been promoted except one guy." Jorcke made his E-6 on Nov. 1.

Even after the "mutiny," Strickland said, he had a great deal of

admiration for his soldiers.

"I understood why they did what they did," he said. "Some of the NCOs,

I was disappointed in them because they failed to lead their soldiers

through difficult times. They let their soldiers influence their

decisions. But on a personal level, I applauded their decision because

they stood behind their soldiers. I was disappointed, but I thought

they had great courage. It was truly a Jekyll/Hyde moment for me."

And though they were horrified at being torn away from each other, the

soldiers themselves were conflicted about the outcome.

"For us being disbanded, now we definitely had unfinished business,"

Jorcke said. "If we'd cleared Adhamiya, we could have said, 'I left

Iraq and my buddies didn't die in vain.

"But in a way, the disbanding was good," he said. "We -- what was left

of the platoon -- got to come back home alive."

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