---

Military form letters hijack soldiers' rights
October 26, 2003

BY THOMAS LIPSCOMB Advertisement

Napoleon stated that every French private carried a field marshal's baton in his knapsack. But American soldiers have always carried in their backpacks the U.S. Constitution they are sworn to "uphold and protect." For while some of their liberties may have been curtailed under the conditions of military service, most remain fully exercisable -- and none so vigorously as freedom of speech.

American soldiers since the revolution have horrified authoritarian military commanders by loudly questioning their orders and the reasons for them, writing to their congressional representatives and the president of the United States, as well as mom and dad, their significant others, and the local newspaper, if things didn't make sense to them....

...The real issue is a major abuse of command influence. Where did these hundreds of letters come from? Public affairs Sgt. Todd Oliver at the 503rd host 173rd Airborne Brigade said he was told a soldier wrote the letter but he "doesn't know who." Another soldier stated that his platoon sergeant had distributed the form letters and asked for the names of their hometown newspapers and men willing to sign it.

Platoon sergeants of airborne units in combat situations have no end of time-consuming duties. But one of them is not distributing form letters for hundreds of soldiers to sign lobbying newspapers back in the United States for better public relations for the Army. Someone ordered that platoon sergeant to do that. That someone turns out to have been the 2nd battalion commander of the 503rd Airborne, Lt. Col. Dominic Caraccilo. His explanation to his superiors was: "The letter was purely an effort made by soldiers of the 2nd Battalion, 503rd Infantry to afford our soldiers an opportunity to let their respective hometowns know what they are accomplishing here in Kirkuk," which is "purely" a blatant lie. The effort was totally Caraccilo's, whose soldiers were dragooned into being stooges for his private PR campaign by his direct orders.

The military has no plans to discipline Caraccilo because in its view his intentions were "honorable."

American troops just fought and defeated a politicized Iraqi army, which, according to a study currently under way at the Army War College, was demoralized and ineffective partly because the opinions and judgments of its troops had been turned into an echo chamber for their leaders. ...