October 15, 2004
WASHINGTON —
The Army is investigating reports that several members of a reservist supply
unit in Iraq refused to go on a convoy mission, the military said today.
Relatives of the soldiers said the troops considered the mission too
dangerous.
The reservists are from the 343rd Quartermaster Company,
which is based in Rock Hill, S.C. The unit delivers food and water in combat
zones.
According to The Clarion-Ledger newspaper in Jackson, Miss., a
platoon of 17 soldiers refused to go on a fuel supply mission Wednesday because
their vehicles were in poor shape and they did not have a capable armed
escort.
The paper cited interviews with family members of some of the
soldiers, who said the soldiers had been confined after their refusals. The
mission was carried out by other soldiers from the 343rd, which has at least 120
soldiers, the military said.
Convoys in Iraq are frequently subject to
ambushes and roadside bombings.
A whole unit refusing to go on a
mission in a war zone would be a significant breach of military discipline. A
statement from the military's press center in Baghdad called the incident
"isolated."
"The investigating team is currently in Tallil taking
statements and interviewing those involved. This is an isolated incident and it
is far too early in the investigation to speculate as to what happened, why it
happened or any action that might be taken," the coalition press information
center said in the statement, sent to The Associated Press in Washington.
In the statement, U.S. military officials said the commanding general of
the 13th Corps Support Command had appointed his deputy commander to investigate
the incident.
The statement did not confirm several aspects of the
relatives' stories, including the number of soldiers involved and the reason
they refused the mission.
The soldiers refused an order on Wednesday to
go to Taji, Iraq -- north of Baghdad -- because their vehicles were considered
extremely unsafe, Patricia McCook of Jackson, Miss., told The Clarion-Ledger.
Her husband, Sgt. Larry O. McCook, was among those detained, she said, saying
her husband had telephoned her from Iraq.
The platoon being held has
troops from Alabama, Kentucky, North Carolina, Mississippi and South Carolina,
said Teresa Hill of Dothan, Ala., who told the newspaper her daughter Amber
McClenny is among those being detained.
Patricia McCook said her
husband told her he did not feel comfortable taking his soldiers on another
trip.
"He told me that three of the vehicles they were to use were
'deadlines' ... not safe to go in a hotbed like that," she said, according to
the newspaper.