“If You See Your Friend Get Killed…”
“If You See Your Friend Get Killed…”
A member of the Marine unit under investigation for an alleged atrocity (who was a casualty of the roadside bomb which began the incident) speaks:
The incident began November 19 when the Humvee that North Bend, Wash. native Lance Cpl. James Crossan was riding in was blown up by a roadside bomb.
He was seriously injured and one of his good buddies died.  Lance Cpl. Miquel Terrazas, TJ, was killed by the blast.
“He was my point man and he was pretty much the guy that I went to if I needed anything,” Crossan says now.
Terrazas was so admired that Crossan tattooed his name on his leg as he recuperated from the broken back, shattered bones, and perforated eardrums he suffered in the blast.
Now some, including Crossan, believe the anger his colleagues felt over that attack may have driven them to kill innocent civilians.
I know in my heart if I was there I possibly could’ve stopped what happened,” Crossan said.
Lance Cpl. James Crossan, or North Bend, Wash. was severely injured in Haditha last November in an incident that may have provoked an alleged massacre of Iraqis by members of Crossan’s group.
But the military is now investigating whether other members of the close-knit unit expressed their grief in a more immediate and lethal manner.
Several are now under investigation for the murder of 24 civilians immediately after the blast, several of them women and children, some of them in their beds.
Crossan said he doesn’t think much about those who were killed.
“Probably half of them were bad guys and we just never knew, so it really doesn’t cross my mind.”
Crossan said the guys in his unit were young and that he was often the calming influence.
While he doesn’t condone the apparent rampage, he says he understands why it happened.
“If you see your friend get killed… you’re going to do something irrational and all that stuff and they probably just weren’t thinking and they killed a bunch of people,” he said.
“I feel bad for the guys because they are going to get in trouble and… but other than that I really don’t have any emotions for it,” he said.
Sounds like the PTSD docs will be needed for this young man. Video here.
Until the details become known, this is about all I have to say. I have said before that this sort of thing happens in war, and that we have a history of punishing the guilty. I take no solace or comfort in that, however.