MARINES REPORT ON SHOOTING IN EAST AFGHANISTAN 9/1/08

Santa Barbara News Press

Venerdi' 9 Gennaio 2009



2 Marines differ on details of deadly shooting along a crowded roadway Afghanistan in March
ESTES THOMPSON, Associated Press Writer


January 9, 2008 1:39 AM

CAMP LEJEUNE, N.C. (AP) - Two Marines who rode in the same vehicle during a deadly shooting in Afghanistan gave a Marine Corps panel dramatically different accounts of what happened. Nathaniel Travers, a former staff sergeant, said Afghans were killed needlessly. But Staff Sgt. Jose Queiro, who was riding in the gun turret of the same Humvee, said the Marines performed professionally when their convoy was attacked by a suicide car bomber.
Travers and Queiro were called Tuesday during the first day of testimony at a fact-finding proceeding on the conduct of two officers involved. As many as 19 Afghan civilians were killed; one Marine was wounded.
''We do not shoot for the hell of it,'' said Queiro, who was in a Marine reconnaissance battalion before joining special operations. ''It was controlled fire.''
But Travers, a former intelligence sergeant who left the Marines last year and who acknowledged he was unhappy in the Marine Corps, disagreed. ''I really felt there were a lot of people who died who didn't need to,'' he said. ''They were just driving their cars.''
The administrative Court of Inquiry, scheduled to last two weeks, will recommend whether the officers - Maj. Fred C. Galvin, 38, commander of the 120-person special operations company, and Capt. Vincent J. Noble, 29, a platoon leader - should be charged with a crime.
Some Marines in the six-vehicle convoy opened fire March 4 along a crowded roadway in Afghanistan's Nangahar province after an explosives-rigged minivan crashed into their vehicles. Although an Army investigation concluded 19 Afghan civilians died and 50 were wounded, attorneys for the two officers argue the death toll was lower.
Afghanistan's Independent Human Rights Commission concluded that the Marines fired indiscriminately at pedestrians and people in cars, buses and taxis at six locations along a 10-mile stretch of road. Defense laawyers have maintained the shooting was justified and wasn't indiscriminant.
The company was on its first deployment after the 2006 creation of the Marine Special Operations Command. After the shooting, eight Marines were sent back to Camp Lejeune and the rest of the company was taken out of Afghanistan.
Maj. Gen. Dennis J. Hejlik, the commander of the Marine Special Operations Command, later said the unit responded appropriately. Marine Corps commandant Gen. James T. Conway also criticized an apology issued by an Army brigade commander, calling it premature because an investigation remained under way.
Queiro, the turret gunner in the Humvee, said the unit started taking incoming small-arms fire seconds after the blast. He didn't shoot, but only because he couldn't immediately identify a target.
After the car bombing, Travers said, he heard gunfire and saw bodies in at least two vehicles as the convoy sped from the area. Some, but not all, of the gunners in the convoy began to return fire, Travers said. After a few minutes, he said, Noble issued a convoy-wide command to stop firing.
Travers, who now works for the Army Corps of Engineers, said that what appeared to be impact marks from small-arms fire were found on the Marines' Humvees after the unit returned to the base.

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