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APRIL 1, 2003 - News released by the EL Paso Times regarding rescue efforts by Marines for the 507th, MIA Jessica Lynch's company.The newspaper can be accessed on the net.
FROM EL PASO TIMES: Dianna Valdez Reporter
U.S. Marines were sent to rescue wounded members of the 507th Maintenance Company on
March 23, the day the Fort Bliss unit was attacked in Iraq, but nine of the Marines who took
part in the rescue effort were killed and eight others are missing, Pentagon officials said Sunday.
Meanwhile, efforts by the Red Cross to secure access to the American POWs have not
succeeded, officials said Monday.
U.S. military officials also confirmed that the four bodies discovered a few days ago in shallow
graves are of American troops, but have still not determined the branch of the military in which
the troops served, much less their names.
"They have not been identified yet," Navy Lt. Cmdr. Charles Owens, spokesman for U.S.
Central Command, said Sunday from Doha, Qatar.
Owens also said Iraqi paramilitary forces known as Fedayeen were involved in the attack
against the 507th Maintenance Company that left two of the 507th soldiers dead, four wounded,
five captured and eight missing.
Sunday is the first time U.S. military officials revealed that Marines conducted a
search-and-rescue operation to recover the wounded Army soldiers. All but one of the missing
Marines was assigned to the 1st Battalion, 2nd Marine Regiment, 2nd Marine Expeditionary
Brigade, from Camp Lejeune, N.C.
A U.S. Mortuary Affairs team was sent to investigate the site of the graves near Nasiriyah, which
is in the general area where the attack occurred.
"The Iraqi paramilitary or irregular forces includes the hit squads and the Fedayeen that are loyal
to Saddam Hussein," Owens said Sunday. "They are the ones that attacked the maintenance
supply convoy." Coalition commanders said the Fedayeen were trying to cut the American
supply lines reaching back to Kuwait.
Among the 507th's wounded are Spc. James Grubb of El Paso, and Cpl. Damien Luten of
Indianapolis. Luten was shown in widely distributed photographs last week with a teddy bear
tied to his stretcher as he was being taken to Walter Reed Army Hospital in Washington, D.C.
He told his mother, in a story published in the Indianapolis Star on Sunday, that a group of
Marines saved him and some other members of the 507th. "A couple of guys got shot up pretty
bad," he told her.
A memorial service was held Sunday near Checkpoint Charlie south of Najaf for the two
members of the 507th who were killed when their convoy made a wrong turn and drove into an
area controlled by the Saddam loyalists. Spc. Jamaal Addison, 22, of Atlanta, and Pfc. Howard
Johnson, 20, of Mobile, Ala., were killed.
"One week ago, things went terribly wrong," said the chaplain, Capt. Scott Koeman. Consoling
the troops, he said, "Death comes hand in hand with war."
Brig. Gen. Vincent Brooks, with the U.S. Central Command, said Fedayeen have changed in
and out of uniform, used civilians, including children, as human shields, and were forcing Iraqi
regular troops to fight on threats of death. U.S. troops who are moving toward Baghdad have
run into strong resistance from these Iraqi paramilitary fighters.
Relatives of the Fort Bliss soldiers who are missing or are POWs said it's hard to deal with not
knowing what has become of their loved ones.
"Because the Red Cross has not been able to get in there, we don't know how they're doing,"
said Claude Johnson, father of Spc. Shoshana Johnson, 30, of El Paso, one of the POWs. "I
know she's alive from the videotape and pictures that were shown, but I wish I knew more."
The International Committee for the Red Cross reported on its Web site Sunday that heavy
bombing shook its offices in Baghdad. The Red Cross has been trying to gain access to the
POWs since news of their capture aired last week.
The Iraqi government videotaped the 507th soldiers who were captured and also showed what
were reported to be the bodies of U.S. soldiers. High-ranking U.S. military officials who viewed
the tape said it was possible that the soldiers were executed after attempting to surrender.
Phyllis Hudman, mother-in-law of Spc. Joseph Hudson of Alamogordo, said the soldier's wife is
in contact with the military daily, "but they don't have any new information for her."
"I'm sure it's the same with all the families," Hudman said. "Their hearts are breaking, just like
ours."
Hudson, 23, of the 507th, was among the five Fort Bliss soldiers who were captured by the
Iraqis on March 23. He was one of the soldiers who was interviewed and videotaped by the
Iraqi government.
Diana Washington Valdez may be reached at dvaldez@elpasotimes.com | 
