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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 four 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 throw that up. Yeah, they the, 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, 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 milit 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. And 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. 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 they're saying, oh, well, it's actually two separate conflicts or three separate conflicts or whatever. And, and you know, 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. I mean, 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 it is. Know, 18 is not a huge number compared to past wars, 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, 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. You know, 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 they called it.
- [04:10]
B
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. I'm prone not to use profanity on. On our conversations, but the only thing I can say is what's needed to be said. This is bullshit with a capital B.
- [05:00]
A
It totally is. And, you know, I just want to go through, because you detailed this, all the people who are being lied to right now. And. And, you know, it starts with the Trump administration lying to themselves. They've been lying to themselves about the war, and they said, oh, well, President Trump declared a ceasefire, therefore there wasn't a 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. Right. 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 you. If we had been spectacularly successful and the. And the President could come to the 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]
A
Right. 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 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. Just don't disrespect people like that. And the one I really 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 Feenan 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. 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, a political narrative, 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 2000, 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. 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, where 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. Then the third category obviously is non seriously injured. You see that right hand column where all the casualties are listed together, but at the bottom you also see the roll up. 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.
- [12:26]
A
All right, we're going to talk about support the troops in a second, but I know we 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.
- [12:40]
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 soldiers, 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. This is the body of.