Paging Captain Troy King...
The administration's spin machine today pumps up their latest designated hero. Today's media event is the homecoming of Pvt. Jessica Lynch.
However, the mystery surrounding the truth of what happened that night still misses a key player. One who has thus far escaped the harsh glare of public inquiry or the possible justice of a military court martial.
Just where is Army Captain Troy King?
(And just when are the manufacturers of the deadly equipment, aircraft and shoddy weapons our troops are forced to deal with going to be brought to task?)
Captain King isn't listed on the official casualty list, so he's supposedly alive and available for questioning.
Unless he's being hidden. According to the Los Angeles Times (through the AP) of July 10th, "King could not be reached for comment [last] Wednesday. A spokeswoman at Ft. Bliss said he was on routine leave."
According to the Department of the Army, Captain King was the commander of the 507th Maintenance Company convoy as it drove throught the desert. As the main U.S. army force veered to the left, attempting to skirt the Iraqi army stronghold in the city of Nasiriyah by taking a southern loop around it, King zigged when the rest of the army zagged, and turned north at a critical intersection. He then proceeded to make a minimum of four other wrong turns, trying to un-"lost" himself.
Along the way, Capt. King allowed the vehicles under his command to run out of gas. Others, forced to drive off-road, were allowed to become stuck in the sand.
Although this may sound rather like the classically comic, "Honey, why don't you just stop and ask these nice people for directions?" male nightmare, this directional incompetance came with deadly results.
Then, once they were under heavy Iraqi fire, the army admits, both the 507th's equipment and their weapons failed them, leading to eleven dead, nine wounded and others captured.
[While we await the inquiries into Capt. King's actions, where are the Congressional commissions to look into the fatal jamming of M16s, 50 years after they were first introduced into general usage?]
In all of this, Pvt. Jessica Lynch becomes a classic prototype.
Pvt. Lynch becomes the "schnook."
I don't know if there's a female form of the word, schnook. It's normally applied to guys. A schnook is defined in the few different dictionaries I double-checked it in as, "an easily victimized person; a dupe."
History, novels and films are filled with instances of your typical nobody—perfectly happy to lead a thoroughly unknown, non-public life—thrown by events into the heart of a horribly public maelstrom, with lights and microphones thrust into their faces. An adoring public sings their praises, out of any context of achievement. Powerful figures love making this person the hero, solely because the schnook seem so "normal." And, "normal" and "just a regular Joe/Jane" plays so well in the media.
And "normal" so thoroughly deflects any heat these powerful interests may have been experiencing recently.
The impact we see on the individual involved, of course, is usually far less enjoyable. An horrific example, of course, is the recent fate of Britain's schnook, Weapons Inspector and Scientist David Kelly, who responded to the pressures of the unwanted attention by taking his own life.
Private Lynch, according to reports at the time of her capture, was a young girl who joined the army to escape the poverty of her West Virginia community. She may never have really thought through that her generation would become only the second in over twenty-five years to have their lives put at risk in return for the sizeable benefits of a military job.
Even when faced with a combat situation, we see that Pvt. Lynch was not your typical Audey Murphy action hero. She was a passenger in a Humvee that was hit a glancing blow by a grenade, swerved out of control, and plowed into the back of a 5-ton tractor-trailer that was one of the vehicles that earlier was allowed by Capt. King to break down and become immobilized.
The driver of the Humvee died on impact. Another passenger died later of her injuries from the crash. The deaths of two others, according to the army, "remain under investigation."
Lynch, suffering from a head wound, an injury to her spine and fractures to her right arm, both legs, and her right foot and ankle in the crash, was captured by Iraqi forces and brought to a hospital.
Shortly after, the Iraqi fighters abandoned the hospital, leaving the wounded behind, including Lynch. The reports abound now of how the Iraqi doctors and nurses cared for Lynch, nurtured her in her helpless condition, and attempted to return her to U.S. forces, only to have their ambulance come under American small arms fire, forcing them to return her to the hospital.
But, when the Wag the Dog Show started, with night cameras, special forces troops, helicopters, et al., determined to leave no well-tended and cared for young, female American soldier behind, a book deal was created, a legend was born, and it was only a matter of time before the Talking Heads were spinning, and the "Pvt. Lynch, We Love You!" refrigerator magnets and T-shirts were rushed into production.
It's so much more fun—and so much more helpful—to honor our plucky young heroine (who, unfortunately for interviewers and myth makers alike, has no recollection of any of this; oh well...), than to focus on just what is to be done with the thoroughly inept young Captain who screwed up so badly and got so many of his troops killed, wounded or captured. Or to bring to task Armalite, Bushmaster, Colt, DPMS, FN Manufacturing, Olympic Arms and Z-M Weapons, who all make the M16s which jammed in the middle of a firefight, costing defenseless Americans their lives.
Not to mention how well honoring Pvt. Lynch dovetails with deflecting the surging wave of horrid press that's tossing the White House about, this way and that. How much better to make people look elsewhere, to steer the public's eye from plunging poll numbers to this young girl who just happened to have been involved in the most famous car accident of our time.
And who now becomes the Schnook.
She may just be in more danger now.
***
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posted by Gotham 7:05 PM
