Should've Been Left Behind

The video below is popping up on progressive sites again. I ignored the accusations of troops abandoning these men the first time the video made the rounds a year ago.

"Preston Wheeler, a truck driver for KBR a subsidiary of Halliburton shot this amazing video of his truck convoy being ambushed in Iraq. The attack occurred after the U.S. military made a wrong turn down a dead-end street. Mr. Wheeler is lucky to be alive. Three KBR truck drivers were killed after U.S. troops apparently abandoned the truck drivers."

My biggest gripe with this type of "reporting" is that self-proclaimed progressive sites also never hesitate to portray the troops as murdering thugs or sniveling cowards, and rarely do said "progressive" sites offer any possible alternative view of what really happened in situations such as this.

Many of the same websites bitch, moan, and condemn Halliburton contracts and contractors – then cry crocodile tears for the poor contractors abandoned by US troops, sometimes smugly panting that apparently US troops are cowards. Or worse yet the old line "see what an illegal war does to the troops?" Turns them into cowards?

Here's the official report from BigDaddy gov.

Another eyewitness view after good old trustworthy ABC reported on the attack in 2006: "Capt. Mike Waterman, the 1173rd's commander in Iraq, said all the surviving civilian drivers except Wheeler say the soldiers reacted properly. Soldiers at the back of the convoy fought forward to reach the rest of the civilian drivers, including Wheeler, until reinforcements arrived, military officials said.

"To me, those guys are gods," said civilian driver Rick "Poncho" Wynne of Wellpinit, Wash. "I have all the respect in the world for them. If it weren't for them, a lot more people would have died."

Waterman said two gun trucks were initially about 50 yards behind Wheeler's disabled truck before fighting their way forward to him.

"I'm sure he thought it was the insurgents doing all the shooting," Waterman said. "He was freaking out, but he didn't realize two gun trucks were holding off I don't know how many insurgents."

----So I ask, who saved blood money-maker Preston Wheeler's butt so he could return home to Mena Arkansas and whine? And why do anti-war "support the troopistas" pass around one-sided material as if it's gospel? 'Cause they know the ignorant among us cannot be objective, cannot or will not research the story, or hold an original opinion on anything, preferring to believe in captions.