An altered reality

[thedrifter]

November 21, 2005 <br />
An altered reality <br />
A former Marine told the press of U.S. atrocities against Iraqi civilians, but does his story check out? <br />
By Ron Harris <br />
St. Louis Post-Dispatch <br />
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For more...

[thedrifter]

November 21, 2005
‘He couldn’t keep his story straight’
By Ron Harris
St. Louis Post-Dispatch

Media outlets throughout the world have reported Jimmy Massey’s claims of war crimes, frequently without ever seeking to verify them.

For instance, no one ever called any of the five journalists who were embedded with Massey’s battalion to ask about Massey’s claims.

The Associated Press, which serves more than 8,500 newspapers and radio and television stations worldwide, wrote three stories about Massey, including an interview with him in October about his new book.

But none of the AP reporters ever called Ravi Nessman, an Associated Press reporter who was embedded with Massey’s unit. Nessman wrote more than 30 stories about the unit from the beginning of the war until April 15, 2003, after Baghdad had fallen.

Jack Stokes, a spokesman for the Associated Press, said he didn’t know why the reporters didn’t talk to Nessman, nor could he explain why the AP ran stories without seeking a response from the Marine Corps. The organization also refused to allow Nessman to be interviewed for this story.

Some media did seek out comment from the Marine Corps and were told that an investigation of Massey’s accusations had found them baseless. Still, those news outlets printed Massey’s claims without any evidence other than the word of Massey, who had been released from service because of depression and post-traumatic stress disorder.

That Massey wasn’t telling the truth should have become obvious the more he told his stories, said Phillip Dixon, former managing editor of the Philadelphia Inquirer and currently chairman of the Howard University journalism department.

Dixon examined dozens of newspaper articles in which Massey told of the atrocities that Marines allegedly committed in Iraq.

“He couldn’t keep his story straight,” said Dixon, who has also been an editor at the Washington Post and the Los Angeles Times.

Editors at some papers look back at the Massey articles and are surprised they ran them without examining whether the claims were true or without ever asking the Marine Corps about them.

“I’m looking at the story and going, ‘Why, why would we have run this without getting another side of the story?’” said Lois Wilson, managing editor of the Elmira (N.Y.) Star-Gazette.

Michael Parks, director of the University of Southern California Annenberg School of Journalism and formerly the editor of the Los Angeles Times, said reporters need to check accusations, even when they’re made at public gatherings, which many consider fair game.

“A reporter’s obligation is to check the allegation, to seek comment from the organization that’s accused,” said Parks, a Pulitzer Prize winner who covered the Vietnam War as a reporter for the Baltimore Sun. “They can’t let allegations lie on the table, unchecked or unchallenged. When they don’t do that, it’s a clear disservice to the reader.”

This story was reprinted with permission.

Ellie

[thedrifter]

November 21, 2005
Staff sergeant’s ‘outing’ is justified to some, but Massey takes high road
By John Hoellwarth
Times staff writer

Leathernecks with 3rd Battalion, 7th Marines, feel betrayed. They’re angry. And now they feel like they’re beginning to get even.

A staff sergeant who went to Iraq with them wrote a book accusing them of wartime atrocities. Now, a reporter has written an article that says former Staff Sgt. Jimmy Massey’s claims in interviews, speeches and court testimony are untrue or exaggerated.

“I think it’s awesome that the report is out. I think he’s getting what’s coming to him as far as being found out,” said Gunnery Sgt. Matthew Saintpierre, who was a platoon sergeant in the battalion’s Lima Company.

Marine spokesman Maj. Doug Powell said the Corps investigated Massey’s claims, but it failed to turn up anyone who could corroborate his allegations.

Officers who served with 3/7 said Powell instructed them not to take a position on Massey, but no similar guidance was given to Massey’s peers in the enlisted ranks.

Responding to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch article, Cpl. John Colonder, who served beneath Massey in Iraq, wrote a letter to the paper, saying: “He was fired in Baghdad for being an ineffective leader. Jimmy Massey became angry at the Marine Corps and 3/7. ... He was angry that he was fired and embarrassed that he was sent home early.”

Massey acknowledged his troubled performance in Iraq during a Nov. 11 interview.

“I think I was ineffective because I didn’t necessarily believe in the missions that were put forth,” he said. “A lot of intelligence reports over-inflated what was going on on the ground.”

Massey also said he became depressed while deployed, and that also affected his leadership ability.

But Gunnery Sgt. Sandor Vegh, a platoon sergeant in Massey’s company, said Massey lost respect among his fellow Marines when he admitted his problems.

“What idiot in his right mind comes out in Karabilah and says he’s on medication and he couldn’t think straight?” Vegh said. “That’s not a confidence booster for the Marines. He was kind of sketchy the whole time, but he came out and said he was on medication. ... I would have just thought he was weird.”

Massey said in the interview that he was prescribed the anti-depressant drug Zoloft after telling the regimental surgeon about recurring nightmares involving civilian casualties. But he said he never spread the word. Instead, he told one fellow platoon sergeant that he felt himself slipping into a bout of clinical depression, and the word spread on its own.

Massey previously had been diagnosed with depression during a stint on recruiting duty.

Now he’s out and about, talking up all he sees as wrong with the service he once proudly represented. And he’s not getting rich doing it, either. Massey said he’s three months behind on his car payments and he didn’t make enough money last year to file a tax return. His book, which was published in French only, is unlikely to become the kind of hit that gets turned into a movie, as was the case with “Jarhead,” by Anthony Swofford, which offers a different but somewhat unflattering view of Marines at war.

Speaking out

Vegh, who coincidentally appears in both Massey’s book and “Jarhead,” is among the most affected by Massey’s accusations. He recalled that when Massey testified on Dec. 7, 2004, in Canada at the refugee board hearing of an accused deserter, he specifically named Vegh as having participated in atrocities.

Vegh’s response is to dismiss Massey as “a foul non-American pathetic individual.”

Massey did not return the favor. He said Vegh had always been “a good Marine.”

Massey maintains that his book and his anti-war work are not at odds with the values he learned and prized in the Marine Corps, nor are they inconsistent with his oath or commitment to his former brethren.

“The taxpayers are the ones who paid for the bullets that went into those civilians,” he said. “My honor, courage and commitment is given to them.”

But Gunnery Sgt. David Wilson, an instructor at the Staff Noncommissioned Officers Academy at Camp Pendleton, Calif., said Massey’s claims were a disgrace to the Corps.

“Staff NCOs in the Corps are the consummate professionals who influence subordinates as well as the upper echelons of the command. When a Marine staff NCO speaks out, he will be heard,” Wilson said. “It’s a damn shame [Massey is] a staff NCO.”

In fact, Wilson continued, Massey is no longer deserving of the title Marine.

“We have ceremonies where we bestow the honorary title Marine on people who deserve it. We should have a ceremony to strip the title from people who don’t,” he said.

But Massey said the Corps will always be a part of him.

“I’ve got the Marine Corps tattoo on my right forearm,” he said. “That will never go away.”

Ellie

[germe1967]

I think Gunny Wilson is right! Let's strip him of the title in a nationally televised public ceremony, and then medically remove the Marine Corps tatoo from his arm.