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Sports profile on Army officer left out a key fact
A story Tuesday about Lt. Col. Nate Sassaman told in detail how the former football star turned de facto mayor of an Iraqi city.

The well-written profile on the Sports cover described how the former Aloha High School and West Point quarterback spoke at a Portland-area church about his Iraq experiences, sharing "The Christian Warrior Ethos."

But missing from the story was a key fact: Sassaman was reprimanded for impeding the investigation of soldiers who since have been charged in the drowning of an Iraqi detainee who was pushed off a bridge north of Baghdad. "To do a story on somebody and have such a big hole in it, it's as bad as it gets," says Sports Editor Dennis Peck.

Given the journalistic size of that hole, it deserved a post-mortem. ...