Statements from Lt. Pantano, Sgt. Coburn and other Marines at the scene agree on basic facts: that Lt. Pantano had the two Iraqis search their car, which the Marines had stopped outside a house that served as a bomb-making factory. He shot the two on that spot.

But according to Lance Cpl. Jason Gillian, Sgt. Coburn told him a different story that same day back at base camp.

“Best I recall, Sgt. Coburn told me that they came under attack while assisting another platoon,” Cpl. Gillian told the Naval Criminal Investigative Service. “I think he said they were taking sniper fire from a house or a building. Sgt. Coburn said Lt. Pantano and one of the corpsman assaulted the house where the sniper fire was coming from. I think Sgt. Coburn told me he saw Lt. Pantano kick the door in and shoot two insurgents. Sgt. Coburn said the insurgents’ weapons were away from them. Sgt. Coburn then told me he … hated Lt. Pantano and said he did not think the lieutenant should be here anymore.”

Lt. Pantaon’s main accuser had an ax to grind.

Lt. Pantano said he fired Sgt. Daniel L. Coburn as a squad leader for incompetence and demoted him to radio man days before the April 2004 shooting of two Iraqi insurgents in the notorious Triangle of Death south of Baghdad.

Sgt. Judd Word, another squad leader in Lt. Pantano’s platoon, which fought in al Anbar province in the violent spring of 2004.

“There were several incidents that led to his firing,” said Mr. Word, now back home in Tennessee. “He didn’t know how to read a map, which is kind of important over there. … He did not have accountability for three of his guys in his squad. Three of his guys went unaccounted for for some time. Lt. Pantano had no choice but to fire him because he couldn’t trust him anymore.”

Photo credit: Associated Press
Marine 2nd Lt. Ilario Pantano, charged with a military count of premeditated murder for shooting two Iraqis during a search for a terrorist hideout on April 15, 2004, is shown at his home in Wilmington, N.C.

Of course, there’s no question in my mind (after the MSM was defending John Kerry’s abismal “war hero” story, Dan Rather’s fake documents and how they admitted the documents were fake but kept saying the story was true (yeah right), and now trying to nail Pantano for killing those two scumbag Iraqis…) that Pantano is getting a bum rap. If this is going to happen with our boys who go over defending our freedom, it’s a sad state of affairs.

Lt. Pantano’s platoon was dispatched to a bridge that the day before had taken mortar fire. Later on, on April 15, the incident in question occurred.

Pantano was investigated and cleared at the field level last year and continued combat operations. But civilian defense lawyer Charles Gittins said that a disgruntled enlisted man complained after Pantano’s unit returned to Camp Lejeune. A new probe led to the charge.

So what’s with this guy, radio operator Sgt. Daniel Coburn? Is anybody investigating his charges or what motivated him to do this?

Here’s the background on Pantano’s story. Whoever the lady is that said that Pantano is making over $50 grand a year–may be right since he’s in a war zone. Can you put a dollar value on living in a combat zone? I ask you. How many people can live through what he has? How many people would want to, and what is your freedom worth to you? How much are you willing to pay a young man who’s standing in harm’s way so you can sleep in peace tonight?

Photo credit: Katy Grannan

It was not far from Camp Mahmudiyah, where the unit was based, and Lt. Pantano was told that a nearby house was the suspected lair of insurgents responsible (for the mortar fire).

After a meeting on the bridge, one of three 13-man squads walked toward the house, which was enclosed by a wire fence, according to accounts from a former rifleman.

Following up behind the rifle squad was Lt. Pantano, along with a radio operator, Sgt. Daniel Coburn, and a Navy medical corpsman, George A. Gobles. Marines who were at the house have since related concerns that the entire operation could have been an insurgent setup, and there were fears of an ambush.

With the Marines 500 to 600 feet from the house, two men attempted to flee in a white, four-door sedan.

The car was disabled by rifle fire. Sgt. Coburn, Corpsman Gobles and Lt. Pantano headed for the car while the rifle squad entered the house, where they were met by two screaming women and crying children. The civilians were taken to a place of safety.

Inside the house, Sgt. Judd Word and his riflemen found mortar aiming stakes, rifles, ammunition and bomb-making equipment, and they radioed Lt. Pantano.

IN HIS OWN WORDS

Outside the house, according to reports, the two men emerged from the car with their hands raised.

They were ordered to the ground, and Corpsman Gobles searched the car for weapons under Lt. Pantano’s order. According to Lt. Pantano’s attorney, nuts, bolts and cans - commonly used to make bombs - were found in the trunk of the car.

After learning that there were weapons in the house, Lt. Pantano ordered Corpsman Gobles to handcuff the men, identified as Hamaady Kareem and Tahah Ahmead Hanjil. The pair, believed to have resided in the insurgent-infested town of Latifiyah, resisted but were eventually subdued.

Shortly after that, reports state, Lt. Pantano ordered that the plastic flexicuffs binding the prisoners be cut, and he ordered them to search their own car. He expressed a concern that there could be booby-traps.

Sgt. Coburn and Corpsman Gobles were ordered to take positions facing away from the car, and Lt. Pantano stood approximately 10 feet from it.

“As the sergeant and the corpsman served as my guardian angels, I told the two Iraqis via hand signals to search the car and to pull apart the seats,” Lt. Pantano said in his statement, given after he was advised of his rights against self-incrimination. “They were talking the whole time … I told them several times to be quiet by saying ’stop’ in Arabic. They continued to talk.”

NO BETTER FRIEND

One of the men was searching the front seat, leaning in from the driver’s side, while the other man was searching the rear driver’s side.

In the statement, Lt. Pantano said he could not see their hands and that they had their backs to him.

“After another time of telling them to be quiet, they quickly pivoted their bodies toward each other. They did this simultaneously, while speaking in muffled Arabic. I thought they were attacking me and I decided to fire my M-16A4 service rifle in self-defense,” Lt. Pantano’s statement reads. “I believed that they were attacking me, and I felt I was within the rules of engagement to fire.”

Lt. Pantano said in the statement he set his weapon to fire three-round bursts; his magazine held anywhere from 25 to 30 rounds of ammunition.

“I hit the men with my rounds and continued to fire until my first magazine was empty. I then changed magazines and continued to fire until the second magazine was empty … I had made a decision that when I was firing I was going to send a message to these Iraqis and others that when we say, ‘no better friend, no worse enemy,’ we mean it. I had fired both magazines into the men, hitting them with about 80 percent of my rounds.”

Mr. Kareem and Mr. Hanjil were moving for a while after he started to fire, Lt. Pantano said, but he was not sure if that was because of muscle contractions or bullet impact.

“I simply knew that I had told my platoon that if we were engaged in a gunfight, we would send a strong message that we were not going to be attacked. Again, I believed that by firing the number of rounds that I did, I was sending a message that we were ‘no better friend, no worse enemy.’È”

The phrase, Marines have said, means that they can be a good friend to the Iraqi people but, if attacked, can be a formidable foe.

The platoon received a call to respond to an improvised explosive device and began to move out, Lt. Pantano said.

“I decided to leave the two bodies as they were, face down into the car, with their upper torsos inside the car and their lower bodies outside of the car, feet, knees, etc., on the ground. I believed this would send a message to the local people that again, we were no better friend and no worse enemy.”

He changed his mind, however, and asked another officer to order the Red Crescent for body pickup.

The sign left atop the car was removed by Lt. Pantano, according to his lawyer, Charles Gittins. But photographs of the bodies with the sign above them were taken at the scene by Marines, copies of which may end up being used as evidence at the hearing.

Another statement, that of Corpsman Gobles, verifies information supplied by Lt. Pantano but conflicts in some key areas. Taken two days before Lt. Pantano’s, the corpsman’s written statement describes the men as running away from Lt. Pantano when they were shot.

Military officials say that statement has been amended; the defense has expressed concerns that the corpsman has been “browbeaten” by investigators.

LAWYER RESPONDS

Attorney Gittins disputes the contention in the charge sheet filed against Lt. Pantano that the men were shot in the back. The bodies were not forensically investigated, he said, and cannot be exhumed because they are buried in an insurgent camp area.

While details of the incident - including the repeated “no better friend, no worse enemy” references in Lt. Pantano’s account - may relate to how prosecutors are viewing his state of mind at the time of the shooting, Mr. Gittins maintains it is irrelevant.

He did not use the slogan or even make the sign up until after the men were dead, Mr. Gittins notes.

“After he had been placed in a position to have to use deadly force,” Mr. Gittins said. “The sign is indicative of a young lieutenant who just had the stuff scared out of him, using Gen. Mattis’ words as a little bravado under the stress of the moment. And he took it down on his own after thinking about it. The sign doesn’t have anything to do with the exercise of self-defense.”

A suggestion in the charges that Lt. Pantano ordered Corpsman Gobles and Sgt. Coburn to “look away” from him and the car - the order to take sentry positions facing outward - does not hold water, Mr. Gittins said.

“He didn’t tell them where to look,” the attorney said. He ordered them to take up positions to provide security. They knew what that meant and acted accordingly.”

RULES OF ENGAGEMENT

At the preliminary hearing, Mr. Gittins is expected to attempt to discredit Sgt. Coburn, who is believed to have first voiced complaints about how Lt. Pantano handled the shooting. He declined to be interviewed but said, when reached at his Jacksonville home, that he holds no grudge against Lt. Pantano. Members of the platoon differ on that point.

What Mr. Gittins does expect to do at the hearing is raise questions about the rules Lt. Pantano and other Marines were operating under at the time of the incident. Called Rules of Engagement, they are similar to use-of-force guidelines followed by police officers.

But police guidelines do not change frequently.

“They were always changing the ROEs,” one Marine from Lt. Pantano’s platoon said. Another complained about the rules Marines were given to follow but said it was his duty to do so because he is a Marine.

“These guys are killing us …,” a Marine in current service said. “Out of hundreds detained by the battalion, only one was prosecuted in any kind of court system and the majority of the others were released within 72 hours or a couple of weeks or months. And then they kill us by the dozen … It is the higher leadership that doesn’t want to acknowledge that it is a war.”

The actual Rules of Engagement for the area where the platoon was working for April 15 are not available for public inspection because they are considered classified information, military spokesmen said.

One Marine officer said both a display of hostile intent and an outright hostile act were required for deadly force to be used. Additionally, as with all Rules of Engagement, deadly force may be used if the service member’s life is in danger.

Pantano

Pantano: “I was told to go do a job. My job is to locate the enemy. In this case, the enemy threatened me and I killed the enemy.”

The Marine corps wouldn’t comment on Pantano’s case. It’s scheduled to be heard at the end of April. He goes into the legal battle with plenty of support, from strangers to fellow Marines. But no one has been more active in his defense than his mother. She started an organization called “Defend the Defenders” and it has generated thousands of letters and emails and tens of thousands of dollars in donations.

But it also inspired a macabre imitation, a Web site whose threat Pantano has taken seriously. To protect his wife and two sons, the combat veteran installed a sophisticated home security system and armed himself with an old stand by as well. He’s digging in for a long battle.

Pantano: “This is my fight now.”

Phillips: “The Corps trained you and now you’re fighting the Corps.

Pantano: “The saddest day of my life is this day, is this moment where I have to use my, my passions to defend myself against my Corps instead of defending my country against our enemies. That is what breaks my heart.”

Please note: Any anti-war activists with their Tom Hyaden/Jane Fonda type communist vitriole will be deleted if they try to comment on this post. This is out of respect for Pantano and all the guys who are serving over there.

See Blackfive’s take on Pantano here.