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The Battalion
Page 3 ♦ Wednesday, April 16, 2003
Never leave a man behind
isdi ■ rr■ irrkm
dion
^Rescuers find seven American POWs
ing machines, i
: punch-card syster
said the
have been
a far.
rust the new syst*
lie Hooks, Coi
y secretary.
; will be open lro'|
p.m. today the
ind from 7 a.m.
28 - 29.
By KRT Campus and
The Associated Press
in to head
bia journals!
>RK (AP) - Nicks
a longtime journi
i-winning author,
:o head Cob:
s journalism sek
liversity presic:
d Tuesday,
ointment is sul
iroval of theuniv; 1
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MARINE COMBAT HEADQUARTERS,
q —U.S. Marines were about to call off their
arch for seven American POWs, unable to find
use No. 13 and edgy about the growing knots
civilians watching them from surrounding
joftops when one of the scouts heard a shout.
“Hey, we're Americans! We're over here!” It
las Chief Warrant Officer David Williams, one
of seven missing soldiers,
j i said, ‘Let's get them the hell out of here
[fore we start taking fire,’” said Cpl.
ristopher Castro, 21, of San Antonio, head of
eof the eight-man units rushed into the Iraqi
|wn of Samarra on Sunday to hunt for
POWs.
Castro recalled the events Tuesday after he
dCpl. Curney Russell returned from escorting
former POWs to a U.S. military hospital
Kuwait.
I “We thought it could be a ‘Black Hawk
Devn' situation.” said Russell, 18, of
■anchester, N.H., referring to the movie and
has been m 0 ^ recount ' n 8 American soldiers surrounded
)n corresponderlMogadishu, Somalia.
Yorker since 2111 Castro's unit. Delta Company of the 3rd Light
the "Letter It mored Reconnaissance Battalion, was sup-
column andi rt ' n g the Marine assault on Saddam Hussein's
and w: rthern redoubt of Tikrit when company com-
anderCapt. Gordon Miller summoned his offi-
rs to an emergency meeting.
Word had reached the Marines — exactly
iw remains unclear — that the Iraqi men
)n
national
3ns Tuesday
>y to not have
Burke,
engineering mi;
that will now tel
luled.
ive
>avid Prior said
d classes mi
f the cancellation «|
ip.
will be an
:up what wasmissei
^ larding the Americans wanted to surrender
eir prisoners in house No. 13 of one neighbor-
>od.
The Marines should knock three times on the
; u r ‘. „ Bor, and the guards would surrender, Delta
V‘cePres,dM^ m|)anywast0|d
Miller ordered two of his platoons to secure
e area while Castro's platoon with five
mored vehicles plus an Arabic translator and
intelligence officer looked for the house.
One platoon reported receiving sniper fire.
Juan Tomayo • KRT CAMPUS
NUMANIYAH, IRAQ- Spc. Shoshana Johnson, 30, of El Paso, Texas, right, is escorted to a C-130 trans
port en route to Kuwait, Sunday April 13. Johnson and six other American prisoners were found alive and
well Sunday after their captors fled from U.S. Marines advancing towards Tikrit.
but the order was to be careful.
“They didn't want any firing,” Castro said.
Castro’s platoon reached the right area, with
the help of the translator and a map sketched by
Miller. But 30 to 45 minutes into the search they
could not find the house.
“We were going building to building. We
found 11 and we found 12,” he recalled, describ
ing a warren of alleys off the empty lot.
Then civilians started to appear.
“I was thinking it was maybe a setup,” said
Castro, whose four-year enlistment runs out this
summer.
Miller was about to order his men to with
draw when Lance Cpl. Aaron Greenleaf heard
Williams,- an Apache helicopter pilot, shout
from behind a window of a two-story house,
Castro said.
Russell said he entered the house's front yard
and knocked three times but got no answer. “So
I kicked it in,” and shouted “Everyone on
the ground!”
Three guards stood inside the house, no
weapons near them, in civilian clothes, he said.
The Americans were in two rooms to the right of
a hallway. Russell gave another shout. “If you're
American, get up and get out.”
Out came Williams, his gunner, Chief
Warrant Officer Ronald Young, and five mem
bers of the 507th Maintenance Battalion: Sgt.
James Riley, Pfc. Patrick Miller and Spcs.
Joseph Hudson, Edgar Hernandez and Shoshana
Johnson.
Castro quoted one of the POWs as urging him
to protect the guards. “Don't hurt them. These
are our friends. They helped us out.” The
Marines offered to take the guards with them for
their own protection.
“They were scared for their lives and scared for
their families' lives,” Castro said, but they decided
to remain in Samarra, telling the Marines, “This is
our house, and we want to stay.”
The Americans were packed into one of the
Marine vehicles and driven three miles out of
town, where a team of POW specialists
debriefed them for about one hour, they said.
Ordered to protect the POWs until they were
turned over to a colonel or higher, Castro and
Russell joined them in the two Marine CH-46
helicopters that flew them to the Numaniyah air
field southeast of Baghdad.
They stuck with the POWs until they were
flown to a U.S. military hospital in Germany on
Monday morning.
Castro said one of the POWS told him that he
had always made fun of his ex-Marine father.
“He said he's never making fun of the Marines
ever again,” Castro said.
The POWs are currently in Kuwait, and the
military has not said when they will be
flying home.
Joseph’s wife, Natalie, said military officials
gave her information about what Hudson will
undergo as a returning prisoner of war. That
Each will undergo a military debriefing and the
mental and emotion process of reintegration
after the trauma of being held prisoner, she said.
When Chief Warrant Officer David Williams
gets home, his wife will be waiting to listen.
Michelle Williams finally heard her husband’s
voice Sunday on the phone at her home in
Killeen, Texas.
“I was so teary, he probably didn’t under
stand anything 1 said,” Michelle said. “And I
said, ‘Sweetie, you don’t have to tell me any
thing. When you’re really ready to talk, when
we can be together, you can talk. I’m here to
listen.’”
uise of Comma
iniquities will
ihe British Musei
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-led invasion
treasures from
id set afire Bagl
i one of the oldest!
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educational, Scieit
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I be a first-class, i
perience. We have
and best college!
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c Department
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sing one of the
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I. “Texas A&Mis ;
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BATTALK'
Brandie Liffick
Editor in Chief
v (ISSN #1055-4726) is
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Discover, or American
11.
J
Christia
CULTY NETWOR
TEXAS A&M UNIVERSITY
Is There Historical Evidence
for the Resurrection of
Jesus Christ?
Author Dr. William Lane Craig.
V^illiam Lane Craig earned a Ph.D. from the University
of Birmingham and another Ph.D. from the Universitat
Mtinchen. He has been Professor of Philosophy of Religion
at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School. Dr. Craig is the author
of numerous books including The Son Rises, Reasonable
Faith and The Existence of God and the Beginning of the
Universe. He is internationally renown speaker and scholar.
Don 7 miss this event!
Wednesday April 16, 2003
7:00 p.m.
Rudder Tower Room 601
Texas A&M University
Co-sponsored by Resurrection Week and
The Christian Faculty Network at Texas A&M University
Enriching the ideological diversity of the university
community with the Christian world-view.
More than just another pretty face.
We've changed our name. But we're not stopping there.
We're moving in a whole new DIRECTION as well.
That movement is forward.
Forward, into the future.
Forward, with a new way of doing business.
Forward, with innovative products and services to meet your needs.
Keep watching . . . And we'll keep listening.
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now *for rail
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