Team Infidel
Forum Spin Doctor
Wall Street Journal
January 26, 2008
Pg. 1
Just four U.S. soldiers are missing in Iraq. For their parents, it's a lonely vigil.
By Gina Chon
Cincinnati--The disappearance in Iraq of Army Reserve Staff Sgt. Matthew Maupin turned his parents into activists. They speak at rallies, have met eight times with President Bush and have sent 9,000 care packages to soldiers in Iraq, each containing 10 wallet-sized photos of their son, missing nearly four years.
"Matt's in trouble," says Keith Maupin, Matthew's father, who quit his home-construction job to run a soldier-support center that he and his former wife founded. Now living off savings, Mr. Maupin says, "I don't need much. He needs me."
In Ann Arbor, Mich., the parents of missing Army Reserve Sgt. Ahmed Altaie are no less committed to finding their son. Yet they avoid ceremonies honoring him and other missing soldiers. They often shun reporters, hoping to curry favor with their son's captors in Iraq. "We don't want to make the kidnappers angry," says Nawal Altaie, Ahmed's mother.
The two families haven't met or spoken, but they share a peculiar anguish. Their sons are two of only four soldiers categorized as "missing-captured" in the Iraq war. In Afghanistan, no U.S. soldiers are missing. The handful of families with lost sons grieve in isolation.
The small list of Iraq's missing is a big change from previous American wars. In Vietnam, Pentagon officials designated some 2,600 soldiers either as a Prisoner of War or as Missing in Action. Their plight became a symbol of that conflict's deep wounds for decades to come. There are still efforts to recover missing remains from World War II, the Korean War and Vietnam.
The reasons for the smaller numbers in this war are straight-forward: There are fewer troops on the ground in Iraq, and U.S. commanders largely have control over the battlefield. Technological advances like satellite phones and imagery help make tracking troops easier. And commanders can deploy big search parties and offer rewards. Countless lost soldiers in Iraq have been found within hours or days of going missing.
Military officials, meanwhile, have quietly dropped the emotionally charged designation for Iraq's military missing. Following Vietnam, "POW" and "MIA" became acrimonious acronyms as veterans' supporters accused the government of doing too little to find and bring home missing soldiers. Behind the new designation -- "missing/captured" -- is the Bush administration's argument that terrorist captors don't warrant the use of terms recognized by the Geneva Convention.
The families of the four soldiers missing in Iraq say the new designation, while accurate and inoffensive, is so unfamiliar that the public doesn't understand it. "Nobody knows what 'missing-captured' means," says Carolyn Maupin, Sgt. Maupin's mother. "We always call Matt a POW. People understand that."
All four of the missing U.S. military personnel in Iraq belonged to the Army, whose soldiers constitute more than 80% of American forces there. Two of the missing are Army Sgt. Alex Jimenez and Army Pvt. First Class Byron Fouty. Both are members of the 10th Mountain Division, based in Fort Drum, New York. They were captured together during an attack last May.
The father of Mr. Jimenez has talked and met with both the father and former stepfather of Mr. Fouty. They've organized a motorcycle ride and prayer vigil in Michigan in September in honor of the four missing-captured soldiers.
Of course, their hope is that the two men will be found alive before then. But haunting all of these families is the fate of Private First Class Joseph Anzack Jr., who went missing along with Messrs. Fouty and Jimenez. Almost two weeks after his disappearance, the body of Mr. Anzack was found in the Euphrates River.
The Pentagon says it hasn't given up on any of Iraq's missing. It is continuing to pay their salaries, to their designated beneficiaries. If a body is found, life insurance will be paid.
U.S. commanders still send out search missions for the two Mountain Division soldiers. Army commanders have formed a 10-man task force to seek fresh information about their whereabouts.
Last October, Navy dive teams and dogs searched areas along the Euphrates River near where the two went missing. Apache helicopters circled overhead, and American troops handed out fliers with pictures of the two. Last month, the U.S. military arrested two suspects believed to be related to their capture.
For the longest-missing U.S. soldiers, Sgts. Maupin and Altaie, the trail has gone cold, spurring their families to employ two very different strategies.
Signing Up
Matt Maupin grew up about 20 miles from Cincinnati in the town of Batavia, Ohio, played football in high school and later worked at the local Sam's Club. While studying nutritional science at the University of Cincinnati, he joined the Army Reserves in 2002 to earn money for school. He deployed in February 2004 as a private in the 724th Transportation Company based out of Bartonsville, Ill. He was 20 years old.
Chaos gripped Iraq when he arrived there that March. That month, four American security contractors were killed in Fallujah, west of Baghdad, inciting widespread violence. Anti-American cleric Moqtada al-Sadr's Mahdi Army was fighting American troops in Baghdad and elsewhere. In April, the U.S. issued an arrest warrant for the cleric.
Four days later, Sgt. Maupin was riding in a truck, part of a security escort for a 26-vehicle convoy of fuel supply tankers and Army vehicles headed to the Baghdad airport. As they traversed the Abu Ghraib district of Baghdad, insurgents hiding in ditches and nearby homes launched an ambush. In a hail of mortar rounds, rocket-propelled grenades and gunfire, attackers destroyed most of the convoy.
Two people died in the attack and 10 were wounded. Two soldiers and seven civilians were missing. The bodies of five civilians and one of the soldiers were later found, but Sgt. Maupin wasn't among them.
The military set up a task force to search for him. Troops conducted raids and detained suspects. But many roads in Baghdad were unsafe, and insurgents constantly attacked convoys, making it difficult to gather evidence.
"It's like trying to find a needle in a haystack," says Staff Sgt. Michael Bailey, who worked with the missing soldier in Iraq and helped look for him.
Terrifying Video
A week after his disappearance, Sgt. Maupin appeared in a video with men carrying guns and wearing scarves to hide their faces. The group -- calling itself the Sharp Sword Against the Enemies of God and His Prophet -- said it could swap Sgt. Maupin for prisoners held by the U.S. But weeks passed without any further communications.
Then in June, Al-Jazeera broadcast a grainy video of a blindfolded man it identified at Sgt. Maupin. The network said the next scene, which it didn't air, showed the man being shot in the head. But the U.S. Army said a few days later that it wasn't clear who the person in the video really was.
In early May, one of the missing contractors from the ambush escaped his captors, but he had no information about Sgt. Maupin and had learned little of the men who held him. The other missing contractor was never found but is presumed dead.
Back in Ohio, military officials, friends and neighbors initially swarmed the homes of Mr. Maupin and his former wife. Friendly since their divorce more than 15 years earlier, the Maupins became partners in the campaign to find their son. Mr. and Mrs. Maupin have seen the video that Al-Jazeera claimed shows their son being shot, but they don't believe the victim was him. They call their son a 24-year-old, though he hasn't been seen since age 20.
As the media clamored for interviews, the Maupins became star attractions at Veterans' Day ceremonies and Memorial Day parades. They thought the press attention would help the public, and the kidnappers, get to know their son as a person.
January 26, 2008
Pg. 1
Just four U.S. soldiers are missing in Iraq. For their parents, it's a lonely vigil.
By Gina Chon
Cincinnati--The disappearance in Iraq of Army Reserve Staff Sgt. Matthew Maupin turned his parents into activists. They speak at rallies, have met eight times with President Bush and have sent 9,000 care packages to soldiers in Iraq, each containing 10 wallet-sized photos of their son, missing nearly four years.
"Matt's in trouble," says Keith Maupin, Matthew's father, who quit his home-construction job to run a soldier-support center that he and his former wife founded. Now living off savings, Mr. Maupin says, "I don't need much. He needs me."
In Ann Arbor, Mich., the parents of missing Army Reserve Sgt. Ahmed Altaie are no less committed to finding their son. Yet they avoid ceremonies honoring him and other missing soldiers. They often shun reporters, hoping to curry favor with their son's captors in Iraq. "We don't want to make the kidnappers angry," says Nawal Altaie, Ahmed's mother.
The two families haven't met or spoken, but they share a peculiar anguish. Their sons are two of only four soldiers categorized as "missing-captured" in the Iraq war. In Afghanistan, no U.S. soldiers are missing. The handful of families with lost sons grieve in isolation.
The small list of Iraq's missing is a big change from previous American wars. In Vietnam, Pentagon officials designated some 2,600 soldiers either as a Prisoner of War or as Missing in Action. Their plight became a symbol of that conflict's deep wounds for decades to come. There are still efforts to recover missing remains from World War II, the Korean War and Vietnam.
The reasons for the smaller numbers in this war are straight-forward: There are fewer troops on the ground in Iraq, and U.S. commanders largely have control over the battlefield. Technological advances like satellite phones and imagery help make tracking troops easier. And commanders can deploy big search parties and offer rewards. Countless lost soldiers in Iraq have been found within hours or days of going missing.
Military officials, meanwhile, have quietly dropped the emotionally charged designation for Iraq's military missing. Following Vietnam, "POW" and "MIA" became acrimonious acronyms as veterans' supporters accused the government of doing too little to find and bring home missing soldiers. Behind the new designation -- "missing/captured" -- is the Bush administration's argument that terrorist captors don't warrant the use of terms recognized by the Geneva Convention.
The families of the four soldiers missing in Iraq say the new designation, while accurate and inoffensive, is so unfamiliar that the public doesn't understand it. "Nobody knows what 'missing-captured' means," says Carolyn Maupin, Sgt. Maupin's mother. "We always call Matt a POW. People understand that."
All four of the missing U.S. military personnel in Iraq belonged to the Army, whose soldiers constitute more than 80% of American forces there. Two of the missing are Army Sgt. Alex Jimenez and Army Pvt. First Class Byron Fouty. Both are members of the 10th Mountain Division, based in Fort Drum, New York. They were captured together during an attack last May.
The father of Mr. Jimenez has talked and met with both the father and former stepfather of Mr. Fouty. They've organized a motorcycle ride and prayer vigil in Michigan in September in honor of the four missing-captured soldiers.
Of course, their hope is that the two men will be found alive before then. But haunting all of these families is the fate of Private First Class Joseph Anzack Jr., who went missing along with Messrs. Fouty and Jimenez. Almost two weeks after his disappearance, the body of Mr. Anzack was found in the Euphrates River.
The Pentagon says it hasn't given up on any of Iraq's missing. It is continuing to pay their salaries, to their designated beneficiaries. If a body is found, life insurance will be paid.
U.S. commanders still send out search missions for the two Mountain Division soldiers. Army commanders have formed a 10-man task force to seek fresh information about their whereabouts.
Last October, Navy dive teams and dogs searched areas along the Euphrates River near where the two went missing. Apache helicopters circled overhead, and American troops handed out fliers with pictures of the two. Last month, the U.S. military arrested two suspects believed to be related to their capture.
For the longest-missing U.S. soldiers, Sgts. Maupin and Altaie, the trail has gone cold, spurring their families to employ two very different strategies.
Signing Up
Matt Maupin grew up about 20 miles from Cincinnati in the town of Batavia, Ohio, played football in high school and later worked at the local Sam's Club. While studying nutritional science at the University of Cincinnati, he joined the Army Reserves in 2002 to earn money for school. He deployed in February 2004 as a private in the 724th Transportation Company based out of Bartonsville, Ill. He was 20 years old.
Chaos gripped Iraq when he arrived there that March. That month, four American security contractors were killed in Fallujah, west of Baghdad, inciting widespread violence. Anti-American cleric Moqtada al-Sadr's Mahdi Army was fighting American troops in Baghdad and elsewhere. In April, the U.S. issued an arrest warrant for the cleric.
Four days later, Sgt. Maupin was riding in a truck, part of a security escort for a 26-vehicle convoy of fuel supply tankers and Army vehicles headed to the Baghdad airport. As they traversed the Abu Ghraib district of Baghdad, insurgents hiding in ditches and nearby homes launched an ambush. In a hail of mortar rounds, rocket-propelled grenades and gunfire, attackers destroyed most of the convoy.
Two people died in the attack and 10 were wounded. Two soldiers and seven civilians were missing. The bodies of five civilians and one of the soldiers were later found, but Sgt. Maupin wasn't among them.
The military set up a task force to search for him. Troops conducted raids and detained suspects. But many roads in Baghdad were unsafe, and insurgents constantly attacked convoys, making it difficult to gather evidence.
"It's like trying to find a needle in a haystack," says Staff Sgt. Michael Bailey, who worked with the missing soldier in Iraq and helped look for him.
Terrifying Video
A week after his disappearance, Sgt. Maupin appeared in a video with men carrying guns and wearing scarves to hide their faces. The group -- calling itself the Sharp Sword Against the Enemies of God and His Prophet -- said it could swap Sgt. Maupin for prisoners held by the U.S. But weeks passed without any further communications.
Then in June, Al-Jazeera broadcast a grainy video of a blindfolded man it identified at Sgt. Maupin. The network said the next scene, which it didn't air, showed the man being shot in the head. But the U.S. Army said a few days later that it wasn't clear who the person in the video really was.
In early May, one of the missing contractors from the ambush escaped his captors, but he had no information about Sgt. Maupin and had learned little of the men who held him. The other missing contractor was never found but is presumed dead.
Back in Ohio, military officials, friends and neighbors initially swarmed the homes of Mr. Maupin and his former wife. Friendly since their divorce more than 15 years earlier, the Maupins became partners in the campaign to find their son. Mr. and Mrs. Maupin have seen the video that Al-Jazeera claimed shows their son being shot, but they don't believe the victim was him. They call their son a 24-year-old, though he hasn't been seen since age 20.
As the media clamored for interviews, the Maupins became star attractions at Veterans' Day ceremonies and Memorial Day parades. They thought the press attention would help the public, and the kidnappers, get to know their son as a person.