← Bulwark Takes
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- [00:00]
A
Hi, I'm Ben Parker from the Bulwark. Welcome to an emergency episode of Command Post, joined as always by Lieutenant General Mark Hartling. And, General, I'm really mad about this. I've just been frustrated all day. We're talking about the fact that the Defense Department is refusing to classify forest soldiers who were killed as part of the war with Iran as being killed as part of the war with Iran. The New York Times originally reported this story. Mr. Matt, if we can clear that up. He. Yeah. The four most recent fatalities from this war from Iranian attacks in Jordan and in northern Iraq, they originally reported as being casualties during Operation Epic Fury, and then they changed the number on the official website because a source told the New York Times President Trump had declared a ceasefire, so therefore it doesn't count. And, you know, I'm basically speechless about how cynical and disrespectful this is to a whole bunch of people. But you have much more experience dealing with combat fatalities than I do, certainly. So I'd like you to start us off. What is the proper way to deal with combat fatalities and the proper way of approaching it?
- [01:18]
B
Well, I'll start off with something different, Ben, and that is, it's not just casualties, it's everybody. I mean, every military commitment commander, every leader is charged to assume accountability and responsibility for the people under their command. So it's not just dead and wounded and missing in action, it's everyone. So for everyone in the military understands that casualty reporting is sacred. One of the first obligations of a professional military is to account for all of its people and those on the ground do it. So you would anticipate that those in the higher headquarters do it. That's what we're going to talk a little bit about today. What matters in terms of accounting for all people? This isn't politics, this is military ethics. And long before statistics are compiled for Congress or historians, casually accounting exists because commanders owe something to families, to the force, and to the nation. And again, I just go back and repeat, this isn't politics, this is military ethics and responsibility.
- [02:32]
A
Yeah, I think you said that exactly right. The idea that you would say, I mean, this is related to all the games they're trying to play with the War Powers act and the 60 day clock and the 90 day clock, and you're saying, oh, well, it's actually two separate conflicts or three separate conflicts or whatever, and it is possible to interpret this as the people at the Pentagon super scrupulously enforcing that sort of very lawyerly reading of the law. I don't Think that's it. My intuition here is that it's the administration trying not to admit how many people we're losing in this war. And as the President likes to remind us constantly, it's not as many as Vietnam or Afghanistan or Iraq or World War II or the Civil War, whatever. 18 is not a huge number compared to past wars, but. But it's 18 for what? And as long as we keep on seeing casualties and fatalities, the number of wounded. I have the website up in front of me just in case they update it. As we're talking here, the number of wounded is in the hundreds. It's. Let me see. Thank you, Matt. It's 420 right now. Total wounded in action.
- [03:38]
B
Yeah. Hey, and Ben, you know what I'd say, too, since you mentioned it, you now have the website up when, when the New York, I think it was the New York Times called them on this, they initially said, oh, no, no, it's because we weren't in a war, we were in a ceasefire period. And then they got smart because they realized that was really a bad answer, that was unethical, and then they said, no, no, no, it's a technical glitch. Right. Is that the phrase they used?
- [04:06]
A
Temporary data disruptions is what.
- [04:09]
B
Ok, and that was two days ago. Right, Right. So if we have what you're currently showing right now on the screen two days plus later is what's up on the website. If they haven't fixed a disruption on casualty figures within two days, there's a whole lot more things wrong with our Department of Defense than what meets the eye.
- [04:33]
A
Yeah. Temporary data disruptions is what I'm going to call it next time I'm caught in a lie. Oh, no, I wasn't lying. That was a temporary data disruption with the words coming out of my mouth.
- [04:43]
B
And you know, you know, Ben, that I'm prone not to use profanity on our conversations, but the only thing I can say is what's needed to be said. This is bullshit with a capital B.
- [04:59]
A
It totally is. And I just want to go through, because you detailed this, all the people who are being lied to right now. And it starts with the Trump administration lying to themselves. They've been lying to themselves about the war. And they said, well, President Trump declared a ceasefire, therefore there wasn't into war. As we always say, the enemy gets a vote. Right. And just because you say there's a ceasefire doesn't mean these people didn't die as part of this operation.
- [05:24]
B
Right.
- [05:25]
A
Second, they're lying to every American And I think that's actually the point of what's going on here is they are trying to hide the number of casualties that we're suffering because they don't want people to think, what is this for? Right. If we had been spectacularly successful and the President could come to American people and say we suffered 18 fatalities, 420 odd wounded, but what we got out of that was Iran is no longer a danger to the United States. There's a new regime that is going to be much more friendly than the United States that's democratic and respects the rights of its people and isn't going to pursue nuclear weapons and isn't a sponsor of terror. I think people would go, you know what, that's a tragedy, but it was worth something.
- [06:05]
B
Yeah.
- [06:05]
C
Right.
- [06:05]
A
Now it's like, why are we still suffering fatalities? What are we gaining from this? What are those people giving their lives for? It's infuriating. And so I think they're trying to hide it.
- [06:14]
B
Yeah.
- [06:14]
A
Also.
- [06:15]
B
I'm sorry, go ahead.
- [06:16]
A
No, I mean, I can't imagine this is something I'd like you to comment on. Well, I'll say first. I mean, the families of those people, right. Like, what must they be thinking that like, you know, their loved one, one of these soldiers was 19 years old, lost their life in the service of their country, and now the government is playing politics with if they're going to classify them as a victim, sorry, as a casualty of this operation, like, just don't disrespect people like that. And the 1 like to ask you about is, what does this say to the other people in those units? If someone you're serving right next to dies and the Department of Defense says, ah, but you didn't die as part of the operation. You don't get counted. What are you supposed to do with yourself the next day?
- [07:01]
B
There are additional factors that play a part in this, and that is hazardous duty pay, casualty support afterwards. What happens in terms of awards and medals? I mean, Lieutenant Feenix was allegedly already given a Bronze Star medal. If you're not in combat, you can't get a Bronze Star. How's that? But it gets to your point. I mean, you bring up the thing that we beat the drum on so many times and that is the enemy gets a vote. The other phrase we beat the drum on is that trust is a strategic resource. Any democracy asked extraordinary things of young Americans that serve in the cloth of the country. Country. It asks them to accept unlimited liability. And in return, the government owes complete honesty and Transparency, we're not getting that. That's obvious from testimony recently from the press pool at the Pentagon. From what's happening in terms of not allowing reporters to report. We are not getting honesty or candor. And if Americans begin believing casualty numbers are being adjusted to fit a political narrat, whether the perception is accurate or not, the damage is going to extend far beyond an administration. Like you just said, families are wondering, colleagues are wondering, Congress is wondering, allies are wondering, adversaries are taking notice. And all of this leads to the institution losing credibility precisely when credibility matters most.
- [08:47]
A
So I'd like to ask you about this because we were talking before we went live and you were giving us some of your experiences when you were a commander in Iraq about the kind of casualty reporting you did. You were able to share this picture with us of a kind of casualty report you had. You can see how detailed that is. So why don't you talk us through. We have this, we have a few other pictures we can show of what you did for casualty reporting when you were a commander in Iraq.
- [09:10]
B
Yeah, well, this was a roll up because I had to testify before several members of Congress after my tour in Iraq in 2007, 2008 during the surge, because the first armored division was what was called the first plug and play division. I think I've mentioned this on the bulwark before. What it was was our first Armored Division headquarters. And then we got units from all over the army because we were surging forces. So I didn't have my own divisional base with me. I had members of the 10th Mountain Division and the 101st and the 82nd 1st Cav Division. So we were asked afterwards to give a briefing to members of Congress on how it worked out. This was one slide taken from that. And you can see the detailed reporting from the months we were in combat, the 15 months in combat. The deceased category consists of three different subcategories. Killed in action, died of wounds, dow and death by non battle disablement. And that third category is everything from an accident to a suicide to. In one case we had a helicopter crash. In another case a truck with a bunch of people went off the side of a ravine down a mountain and killed a couple of soldiers, which was tragic. So even those kinds of deaths outside of direct action with the enemy were accounted for. But the killed in actions were something that occurred in a firefight. The died of wounds occurred that we tracked not only from a medevac helicopter picking them up. And we lost zero forces during the medevac Run. But back at the combat support hospital and theater, if they were moved back to Walter Reed or San Antonio and Beaumont, we continued to track them at those hospitals. And we had a couple of soldiers who died after multiple amputations or actual burns that caused them to die. So we were tracking even the died of wounds after they left the combat zone. And then you go over to the wounded in action. We were even tracking things like the VSI stands for very seriously injured. SI says seriously injured. So those were ones that could be treated usually in theater or at Landstuhl Hospital in Germany without being sent back to the United States. And then the third category obviously is non seriously injured. So you see that right hand column where all the casualties are listed together, but at the bottom you also see the roll up. And I had no doubt that my casualty figures were going from company to battalion to brigade to my division. I know they were going to my headquarters in Iraq as well as the headquarters in the Department of the army and that they were feeding it in to what's called a casualty feeder report at the Department of Defense. To have this kind of BS going on, where people are obfuscating these numbers is just wrong.
- [12:27]
A
We gotta take a very short break right here to play an ad, but when we come back, I want to talk about support the troops because I know you got thoughts and feelings about that too.
- [12:35]
B
Yeah.
- [12:37]
C
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- [13:39]
A
All right, we're going to talk about support the troops in a second, but I know you Also wanted to talk about memorial services in theater and what it looks like to memorialize those who give what Lincoln called the last full measure of devotion.
- [13:52]
B
Yeah, you know what? If we can pull up the pictures of the memorial service, I want to talk a little bit about that. This was a picture from my unit that somebody took of all of the chain of command, including the soldiers of a unit. You can see this gym is packed in Iraq. We were using a facility in Iraq for the memorial service. And if you can go to the next one, you can see at the front of the service, the soldier's boots, rifle, and helmet, along with the pictures of soldiers and their dog tags hanging from the weapon are all displayed. And everyone in the unit passes by and touches usually the dog tags or the. Puts their hand on top of the helmet. The body is not there. This is not like a funeral parlor. This is a memorial service. And, Ben, I want to talk a little bit about this, because it's moving, and it gets to the point of why this dissection of numbers is so critically important. When a soldier is killed in combat, usually within 24 hours, this memorial service occurs. Everyone shows up for it to pay their last respect. The body is probably already on its way to Dover. The buddies of the deceased soldier usually give a type of eulogy. The chaplain stands up. There's then everyone who knows a soldier talks about him or her and says how they contributed to the unit. And usually the first sergeant, or at least all the units I've been in, does what's called the last roll call. And if that doesn't bring people to tears, I don't know of any event that will, because what the first sergeant normally does is call a couple of names out, as you would normally do in a formation, and then calls the soldier's name who was killed in action. So it would go something like this. Sergeant Smith. Here, First Sergeant. Lieutenant Hertling. Here, First Sergeant. Private Parker. Here, First Sergeant. And then the name of the deceased soldier would be called one time, two times, three times, with no answer. And the answer becomes the trumpeter playing Taps. Ben, you can tell I'm getting a little emotional even thinking about it. That brings you to your knees. We would then go in the 1st Armored Division, something that General Dempsey established. We would stand outside, let all the soldiers pass by the boots and the dog tags in the helmet. And as they pass by, we would say to them, make it matter. Go back out, do your duty, continue on with your service. To know that that's happening in theater, that it did happen in theater for the four soldiers we're talking about. And then their names were scratched off or taken off a list in the Pentagon to me is abhorrent. It's criminal. It's just a distinct understanding that somebody wants to say we're suffering less casualties that we don't want to talk about, so we'll just scratch the number off. But the number is a name and a person and a being. And that's where if I can talk very quickly about the four soldiers. Lt. Feehan, ROTC graduate, part of the 32nd AMDC, the Army Air Defense Missile and Defense Command. He was in a headquarters somewhere. Sergeant Swinton, part of the 55th Air Defense Brigade. Now those two individuals, the one on the left and the one on second to the right, were out of Fort Bragg, South Carolina. North Carolina. Excuse me, Fort Bragg, North Carolina. Sergeant Rampernard was from the 57th Air Defense Command, as was Private. Now Specialist Gonzalez. The two young women in the picture, they were also air defenders and they were out of Ansbach, Germany. So you can see that these four individuals were defending their battle space with air defense equipment, two of them with Patriot missile systems because they were the strategic operators. That would be Lieutenant Feehan and Sergeant Swinton, but especially Sergeant Rampad and Private Specialist Gonzalez were part of a Stinger air defense unit, which means they were on Striker vehicles that had close in support for air defense. The missiles they shot would only go about four to six kilometers. So they were the tactical element coming out of a brigade in Germany. But they were all together in Jordan defending that base at different levels, the ages. They were all under 30 years old. Gonzalez was 19. I mean, and the last comment I'll make from this, Ben, I have never had in the over 200 soldiers that served under my command or when I was an assistant commander, division commander. I have never seen an air defender killed in action. We have in this one instance four of them. And I would venture to say that a lot of the other ones that were wounded in action, that were also scratched off this list were all defenders. Those are the low density, high demand pieces of equipment in these types of war. And by the way, I'll point out one of them is black, two of them are women. And these are the kinds of soldiers that seem to be contrary to DEI initiatives that Secretary Hegseth has been raging about. And yet they are all serving together and they gave their life for their country.
- [20:19]
A
You know, this is especially Secretary Hegseth likes to shield himself in the behind other people's sacrifice, behind the sacrifice of the people who are currently in uniform and say that anyone who questions him or wants accountability or disagrees with his decisions or doesn't believe in his leadership doesn't support the troops. You have a forthcoming article at the Bulwark about this. He did this just recently to Senator Gary Peters, who said, your Iran strategy doesn't seem to have. Well, it doesn't seem to have a strategy.
- [20:54]
B
Right.
- [20:54]
A
There doesn't seem to be a plan to achieve anything. And Hegseth's response was, you don't support the troops. Right.
- [21:02]
B
How dare you?
- [21:03]
A
How dare you? Yeah. So it is so infuriating to me that you could, on the one hand say, well, you don't support the troops, and then the other disrespect these people. Sacrifice like this. I mean, who really doesn't support the troops?
- [21:19]
B
Yeah. Between that and the President saying that all four of these soldiers said that they understood they were serving to denuclearize Iran. That in and of itself, I mean, I wasn't in the room. I don't know who told him, the President, that someone said that. But I gotta tell you, I've been around soldiers for four decades, Ben, and I've never heard them saying they're going to give up their life for some strategic objective that they probably don't even understand. Not saying any of these soldiers couldn't understand it. But that's not why they fight. That's not why they serve. They go someplace because they're told to go there and serve. So to use them for political purposes. For Secretary Hegseth, in that congressional testimony, to wrap himself in the valor of the soldiers when he was being questioned about the policy and the strategy and the approach and the resources, and basically, you know, just basically condemn Senator Peters when he was asking very valid questions which were his right to do, is just, again, the title of the piece that we just worked on that'll be out soon is the War versus the Warriors. And they're two distinctly different things. I learned that lesson from a Vietnam vet when I was a young lieutenant who had come home from Vietnam and was spat on and cursed at and called a baby killer in a San Francisco airport because he had his khaki uniform on. And he had concluded years later that the American public, sometimes some in the American public, just don't understand the difference between the wars, which they can debate, and the warriors, which they should always support.
- [23:12]
A
You know, you mentioned that clip of President Trump seeming to suggest that each one of these four people, these four soldiers, it seemed to suggest that they like spent their last breath saying, well, this is for a non nuclear Iran. We have the clip there, we should play it just so people know what we're talking about.
- [23:27]
B
Yeah, some of you are going with us to honor our heroes. And they are indeed great heroes. Actually. They said, and they all of them said very strongly, we can't let you, cannot let Iran have a nuclear weapon. They won't have a nuclear weapon. So we're going to honor them.
- [23:49]
A
I really doubt they all said that very strongly.
- [23:51]
B
My first question, if I were a reporter, and I'm not, would be, Mr. President, who did they say that to and how did you hear about this? Or are you just making this up? Soldiers fight for each other. They fight for their battle buddy, they fight for their teammates, they fight for their leaders. At the small group level. I mean, I remember, I can tell a funny story. I was going out on a patrol with a platoon out of the 101st Airborne, and you know, here I am, the division commander, they're assigned to me. And I heard overheard one guy say, who's this guy? I mean, they didn't even know I was their division commander. I mean, you know, you got 30,000 soldiers under you and if you see them every once in a while, you're doing good. But they're not fighting for some higher headquarters. They're not fighting for strategy. They're fighting for the men and women next to them. They're fighting for their ideals and they've been, and they're fighting for what they've been taught to do. So to say that that was their last breath, as the President seems to imply, is just rubbish.
- [24:58]
A
I, you know, we try to keep it, we try to keep it a little bit light here. We try to make fun when we can. It makes it easier to comment on all this stuff. But sometimes you just, I don't know, this just really angered me and
- [25:17]
C
I
- [25:17]
A
don't know what to say apart from the fact that these four people deserve better, their families deserve better, their units deserve better. And we as a country deserve better. We deserve better leaders who, instead of trying to hide what the, what the human costs of war are, the way Putin tried to do in Ukraine for so many years, are just straight with us about what we're trying to accomplish and what the trade offs are. And I like to think we live in a country that has leaders like that, that deserves leaders like that and that is worthy of these people's sacrifice.
- [25:49]
B
Yeah, I'm glad we're doing this topic today, Ben. It seems like such a minor thing considering all the other stuff that's going on. But once we start denigrating the human element of war, once we start denigrating and basically ignoring the cost of war, which is always in human lives, we need to check ourselves. And the politicians especially who make the decisions to go to war, better start checking themselves too, because they are basically given America's sons and daughters and they better get it right when they put people in harm's way or at least attempt a little bit better to try and get it right. So thanks for doing this.
- [26:47]
A
Really appreciate it. Thank you too, Matt. If we could just throw up that tweet from Bill again. Our colleague Bill Kristol tweeted this out. It's just the very basic information about these four people so that they don't get erased. So if people want to find that on social media and share it, that's a great way to do something. Just because they do deserve to be honored. They sacrifice a lot for a greater purpose and they don't deserve to be betrayed and erased by their leadership. But other than that, we'll be back hopefully with some lighter topics where we can make more fun and tell some more jokes. Tell some happier stories in the next command post next week. General, thank you so much for joining me.
- [27:33]
B
Thank you, Ben. Appreciate it.