Marine Lance Cpl. Roel Ryan Briones, 21, from Hanford, CA, is a member of the outfit involved in the Nov. 19th Haditha Marine Murders, Kilo Company 3rd Battalion, 1st Marine Regiment, 1st Marine Division. He is the first in his unit to speak publicly about the events. Although Briones was not one of the shooters that day, he is still a victim of those crimes. He is haunted by two memories from that day. One is of the body of his best friend blown apart by a roadside bomb. The other is of carrying a little girl murdered by his company. He suffers from post-traumatic stress syndrome. Shortly after getting home from Iraq, he got drunk, stole a pickup and crashed into a house in his home town. He is on bail pending a mid-June court date. The rest of his story below the fold.
Published Tuesday, May 30, on the front page of my local, conservative paper, (The Fresno Bee), the story was titled "Tragedy Haunts Hanford Marine". It was covered because of it's "local" element, (Hanford is about 30 miles south of Fresno). That's probably the only reason they covered this story. Fresno is in the Central Valley of California, a Red state within a Blue state, where Bush easily won a majority. A little piece of the Bible-belt plunked down in the middle of Babylon. That's why it was suprising to see such a revealing article on the front page. In fact, the story isn't posted on their website at all, it was only on their paper version.
Nov. 19th, 2005 in Haditha started off like any other day but events would soon change that.
Shortly after 7 a.m. on Nov. 19, Briones, was called to a roadside bomb explosion. When they arrived at the smoky, chaotic scene, he said he saw the remains of his best friend, Lance Cpl. Miguel "T.J." Terrazas, his body split in half, resting in the destroyed Humvee in which he had been riding.
"He had a giant hole in his chin. His eyes were rolled back up in his skull," Briones said of his drinking companion and workout partner. "It was such a blur. Smoky and smelled like an explosion. I only saw T.J. because he was right there. I practically walked into him."
After draping his buddies body with his poncho and saying a prayer, his team evacuated two other wounded Marines from Terrazas' unit, including Lance Cpl. James Crossan from Washington State. Then they went back to their base and waited.
They were called back to the scene bout 5:30 p.m. that same day.
When they arrived, Briones said that most of the Marines on the site were sargeants or above, including several officers: "I remember because they didn't have enough corporals to deal with the bodies."
Briones' team was assigned to mark the bodies of victims and place them in body bags.
"They ranged from little babies to adult males and females. I'll never be able to get that out of my head. I can still smell the blood. This left something in my mind and heart".
When asked if any of them they had personal cameras, Briones and another marine, Lane Cpl. Andrew Wright of Novato, said they did.
"You are going to be combat photograpers," Briones said they were told. Briones said he took pictures of at least 15 bodies before his camera batteries died. He said his worst moment, and one that haunts him to this day, was picking up the body of a young girl who was shot in the head.
"I held her out like this," he said with his arms extended, "but her head was bobbing up and down, and the insides fell on my legs."
He turned over the camera and pictures to the Marines for their investigation and has been questioned multiple times. They also have video shot from a drone aircraft that day, but it is unclear whether the video obtained that day captured the violence. "He saw the killings and knew who sent the word to do the killings," said his mother, Susie Briones. She is angry at what she described as the Marines failure to "decompress" him and other Marines when they come home from combat.
"I used to be one of those Marines who said that post traumatic stress is a bunch of bull, " said Ryan Briones, "but all this stuff that keeps going through my head is eating me up.
This will surely go down as one of the worst episodes in this whole dismal war. And long after Bush and his cronies have forgotten about it, it will still haunt the families of the victims and the young men and women who were forced to participate in it. I feel sorry for any one who is caught up in this mess. Support the troops, bring them home as soon as possible.