Radio Collector's Afficionado's Resource

It is hard to believe that it has been three years since Jessica Lynch and the 507th Maintenance Company rolled through the dusty streets of An Nasiriyah on March 23, 2003. Eleven of Jessica’s fellow soldiers were killed that morning, five were captured and a dozen more injured. Lynch was seriously injured and near death when she was brought into a military hospital near the website of her ambush.

Within hours of the ambush, the North Carolina Marines of Task Force Tarawa moved to secure the bridges in An Nasiriyah. LtCol Rickey Grabowski’s 1st Battalion, of the 2nd Marine Regiment rolled into the city and encountered stiff resistance. By midmorning they had rescued closely half of the soldiers who had been ambushed and by noon the Marines were charging forward through a hail of RPGs, AK-47 gunfire, mortar and artillery barrages. By sunset, Grabowski’s Marines had secured their goals intended to be attained but at a terrible cost. Eighteen of America’s finest passed away and another dozen were wounded.

In all, twenty-nine Americans passed from physical life that day in An Nasiriyah. Their story has never in truth been told. Initially, the circumstance in Nasiriyah was so mixing up and filled with the fog of war that no one knew the connection among the 507th Maintenance Company and the brave Marines of the 2d Marine Regiment. At first, Jessica’s capture was held quiet for fear that the enemy would move her if they suspected that America knew where she was and most of the Marines who passed away that day could not be identified without DNA testing.

As the days and weeks passed, the news media moved on to Lynch’s rescue and then the fall of Baghdad. When the Department of Defense in the long run sorted things out and freed the names of the Marines and soldiers who passed away that day, the media took very little interest. No one ever realized that that bloody day in Nasiriyah, on March 23rd, was the costliest day of combat for America in the invasion of Iraq. These twenty-nine American soldiers and Marines were never given a fitting tribute to the uttermost sacrifice they made while in the service of their country.

Before sunrise on the 23rd on March 2003, thirty-three soldiers, journeying in eighteen trucks, stumbled into the dusty desert city of An Nasiriyah. It wasn’t until they had driven all the way through the city that they realized that they were hopelessly lost. As soon as they turned around and tried to retrace their path, each Iraqi with a gun started shooting at the beleaguered convoy. The lead three vehicles managed to run the gauntlet and get back to the U.S. Marines’ front lines.

Five vehicles broke down and ten soldiers scrambled for cover in a nearby ditch. Surrounded, they each vowed to go down fighting. They had fought to hold off the enemy for closely an hour, when Major Bill Peeples and the Marine tankers of Alpha Company, 8th Tanks arrived to save the day. The Marines beat back the enemy and rushed the ten soldiers to safety.

The remaining seventeen soldiers were not so fortunate. Eleven were killed and six captured. Specialists Jamaal Addison and James Kiehl both passed away when their vehicle careened through an intersection and rolled over on it is top. Private First Class Howard Johnson II and Private Ruben Estrella-Soto’s truck crashed at the same intersection. Sergeant Donald Walters was lost north of An Nasiriyah when his vehicle broke down. He leapt from his disabled vehicle behind enemy lines and laid down covering fire so that the rest of his unit could turn their vehicles and get out of a horrific ambush. Private Brandon Sloan was shot and killed while the vehicle he was in was racing south. Chief Warrant Officer Johnny Mata’s truck shuddered to a stop atop a railroad overpass and burst into flames. Mata was killed, but his driver, Specialist Hudson, survived.

Near the end to the doomed convoy, First Sergeant Robert Dowdy tried to shepherd his soldiers to safety. Private First Class Lori Piestewa was driving Dowdy’s HMMWV. Specialist Edward Anguiano, Sergeant George Buggs and Private First Class Jessica Lynch were riding in the back. Piestewa managed to maneuver around obstacles and raced all the way back through Nasiriyah when the flatbed in front of her jackknifed. Lori was unable to refrain from the back of the skidding truck. She plowed into the rear of the flatbed, without any delay killing Dowdy.

We know that Lori and Jessica pulled through the collision. It is not clear what happened to Buggs and Anguiano. When Patrick Miller neared the crash scene, he glanced in and thought everyone was dead. Hudson, Hernandez, Lynch, Miller, Piestewa, Riley, and Shoshana Johnson were all taken prisoner. Lynch and Piestewa were separated from the others and in the end ended up in the Tykar Military Hospital. Lori passed from physical life while being treated, leaving Lynch alone and near death.

The soldiers of the 507th Maintenance Company that were killed that day were from all walks of life and each corner of this nation. They were a swatch cut from the American fabric and the firstborn to die in this protracted war. Lori Piestewa was an American Indian and single mother. Brandon Sloan and Robert Dowdy were both from Cleveland Ohio. Brandon, 19, had left high school early to join the Army, while Dowdy, 38, was a career soldier. James Kiehl, 22, was a friendly computer technician who left behind a pregnant wife. Buggs and Anguiano were not even members of the 507th. Dowdy had convinced them to take one of their vehicles in tow two nights before. Their tow truck ran out of gas north of An Nasiriyah and Dowdy, Piestewa and Lynch had picked them up.

By noon, the Marines were pressing north to secure two critical bridges in An Nasiriyah. The fighting started long before they reached the Euphrates River but it wasn’t until they moved into downtown Nasiriyah that all hell broke loose. Alpha Company secured the Euphrates River Bridge while Bravo Company swung out to the east side of town. Charlie Company raced over the Euphrates River Bridge and charged through “Ambush Alley” to the Saddam Canal Bridge.

Eighteen Marines passed from physical life in Charlie Company’s battle for that northern bridge. Donald Cline was a twenty-one year old husband and father of two young boys. Patrick Nixon loved history and wanted to at last be a teacher. Phillip Jordan was a career Marine and loving husband and father. Fred Pokorney was a giant of a man who had just been promoted to 1st Lieutenant. Sergeant Michael Bitz was the father of two young boys and one-month old twins. David Fribley and Brian Buesing were both Florida natives. Fribley joind the Corps after 9/11 and Buesing had been in the Marines since he graduated from high school. Brendon Reiss was the son of a beautified Vietnam Veteran and Randal Rosacker was the son of a Navy Master Chief submarine sailor. Jose Garibay and Jorge Gonzalez were both from Southern California. Thomas Slocum was a 22 year old from Colorado and Nolen Hutchings was from South Carolina. They were both bothered teens who had worked to turn their lives around in the Corps.

Tamario Burkett was a young Marine from upstate New York. Kemaphoom Chanawongse was born in Thailand and came to the United States at nine years old. He was the primary to have a Buddhist funeral at Arlington National Cemetery. Johnathan Gifford wanted to be a Marine since he was a little boy. Michael Williams joined the Corps late in life. At 31, he was just a Lance Corporal but older than most of the young officers he worked for. On his trip over to Iraq, he emailed his girlfriend and asked her to marry him. Thomas Blair was not a fellow member of Charlie Company. He was portion of an anti-aircraft unit that had been assigned to Charlie Company. He too, went directly into the Marine Corps after high school graduation.

Twenty-nine lives ended too soon on that clear Sunday in March. Twenty-nine families mourn to this day. These soldiers and Marines passed from physical life before there was a every day box score in the newsprints of America. They have been buried underneath 2000 more stories. Donald Cline and Michael Williams passed from physical life because they chose to aid their wounded comrades.

Many more soldiers and Marines would have passed away that day had it not been for the Herculean attempts of men like, Private First Class Patrick Miller, Sergeant Michael Bitz, Gunnery Sergeant Jason Doran, Lieutenant Mike Seely, Captain Eric Garcia, and Major Bill Peeples. These men are true American heroes.

Read in regards to these brave young men and women in the only book to tell the entire story of America’s initial major battle in Operation Iraqi Freedom – Marines in the Garden of Eden, Berkley, New York, will be freed on June 6, 2006.

Visit www.MarinesintheGardenofEden.com today.

Battle Lines American Media Intifada

Lederman draws on his intimate cognition of the country & his long experience in journalism to make an analyzation of how the American media operate overseas for the duration of newsbreaking stories. In this instance, the breaking story was the “the Intifada,” a spontaneous uprising of young Palestinians on the West Bank & in East Jerusalem that started out on Dec. 8, 1987. Examines how the American media function in crisis situations far away from their home turf. He demonstrates how the media is manipulated by it is own needs & proclivities & by the demands of the new technologies, & how it manipulates not only the policies of the host country but also the politics & policies of the U.S. itself.

From Publishers WeeklyThe author has covered the Middle East for more than 23 years for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation and National Public Radio. Here he zeros in on the original five months (December 1987-April 1988) of the Palestinian uprising, scrutinizing the media’s fundamental interaction with domestic and international politics. He raises disturbing questions when it comes to political crisis management, the role of alien reporters and the nature of their responsibility, the powerful capacity of TV news to manipulate images and send subliminal messages. After reviewing hundreds of nightly newscasts, wire-service dispatches and U.S. and Israeli newspaper accounts, Lederman concludes, “There’s no question that the U.S. alien press played the leading role in raising the subject of the uprising as a matter for international debate, or that the Israelis and Palestinians sought to exploit the media’s interpretation of events as rallying points.” His thoughtful book is commended for those concerned with the relationships amid the media, the military and policy makers.
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library JournalReaders looking for heroes in this analysis of Palestinian intifada media reporting won’t find them here. Lederman, a veteran alien correspondent based in Jerusalem, contends that the American media, Israeli government, and internal Palestinian factions all contributed to misleading news consumers. Lederman analyzed the coverage of the primary year of the intifada by the three major broadcast networks, three newspapers, and the Associated Press. He expertly weaves a discussion of topics such as subliminal messages, agenda setting, censorship, intimidation, and “imagespeak,” and argues for instructing “visual literacy.” He also demonstrates what happens when old ideas are applied with new technologies. Some similar views appear in former Israeli press officer Ze’ev Chafets’s lively, pre-intifada Double Vision: How the Press Distorts America’s View of the Middle East ( LJ 9/15/84). Recommended for journalism and international affairs collections.
- Bruce Rosenstein, “USA Today” Lib., Arlington, Va.
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Kirkus ReviewsA steely-eyed look at the ways in which American print and TV newscasters handled (and apparently mishandled) the Palestinian demonstrations that, starting in December 1987, rocked the occupied zones of Israel and Lebanon for more than a year. Writing from a background of 23 years of reporting in the Mideast, including 14 years as NPR’s Israel correspondent, Lederman provides not only the details of the Intifada but a clear and cogent wrap-up of the convoluted background of the Palestinian- Israeli confrontation. Happily, the author eschews the political and professional pieties of his colleagues. He finds, for example, that TV coverage of the crisis was almost without fail shoal and often times self-serving. Lederman is specially incensed by the medium’s try to shape American alien policy, as it did, he charges, when covering George Shultz’s 1988 peacemaking efforts. He describes Israeli authorities as systematically arrogant and xenophobic, distrustful and quick to take offense when criticisms are leveled at their policies and actions–and then goes on to depict Yasir Arafat’s PLO as disorganized and opportunistic, more fascinated in advertising than in real achievements and more caring with regards to expatriate Palestinians than those living in the occupied areas. An epilogue briefly discusses media coverage of the Gulf War; CNN gets high marks for it is objectivity and depth. Stimulating, straight-from-the-shoulder analysis. — Copyright ©1991, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

Battle Lines American Media Intifada Pic

Battle Lines American Media Intifada Photo

Battle Lines American Media Intifada Photo

Battle Lines American Media Intifada Picture