A Secret War, Strange New Wounds, and Silence From the Pentagon

[Nevilledog]

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/11/05/us/us-army-marines-artillery-isis-pentagon.html

No paywall
https://archive.ph/bnUcR

When Javier Ortiz came home from a secret mission in Syria, the ghost of a dead girl appeared to him in his kitchen. She was pale and covered in chalky dust, as if hit by an explosion, and her eyes stared at him with a glare as dark and heavy as oil.

The 21-year-old Marine was part of an artillery gun crew that fought against the Islamic State, and he knew that his unit’s huge cannons had killed hundreds of enemy fighters. The ghost, he was sure, was their revenge.

A shiver went through him. He backed into another room in his apartment near Camp Pendleton in California and flicked on the lights, certain that he was imagining things. She was still there.

A few days later, in the barracks not far away, a 22-year-old Marine named Austin Powell pounded on his neighbor’s door in tears and stammered: “There’s something in my room! I’m hearing something in my room!”

*snip*


Long read, but definitely worth the time.

[WhiskeyGrinder]

1. This is one of the most sickening and heartbreaking stories I've read lately.

This cannot be the price we pay for "safety" in the world.

[Chainfire]

2. The first rule of war is that soldiers are expendable.

It has always been true and it will always be true. We would prefer that soldiers would just follow tradition and treat their wounds with alcohol like real men.

[Native]

3. This is horrifying and brutally sad. I hope & pray some good comes of this NYTimes investigation.

Thank you for posting this. I hope everyone can take the time to read it in it's entirety.

[riverbendviewgal]

4. This should be addressed . Those who are affected

Should be given medical help. Their benefits should not be taken away. The first thing I thought of are the football injuries. In these cases there are thousands more. Truly tragic 😥.

[RKP5637]

5. Horrible! n/t

[niyad]

6. I cannot say what I would really like to. FUCK T#### FUCK

the goddamned do- nothing military brass. FUCK WAR. This is the Agent Orange horror writ large. Our people are, quite literally, cannon fodder, and yet, those responsible for their care lie, deny, equivocate, and condemn them, and their loved ones, to horror and misery.

MAY ALL INVOLVED RECEIVE EVERYTHING THEY DESERVE.

[drmeow]

7. Nothing about this surprises me at all

Not the damage from guns, not the fact that mounting evidence was ignored by military brass, not that military personal were revictimized - none of it.

[mountain grammy]

8. Horrific how these Marines struggled

With no help. No excuse for this.