Alyssa Peterson (1976-2003)

[First published November 3, 2006 and reposted last year. This post is part of the reason that I am enthusiastic about Barack Obama. His principled opposition to the war in Iraq, all that I have read by and about him, make me believe that tawdry stories like these would not be swept under the rug if he were president. The deaths of Alyssa Peterson and Ted Westhusing are tragic reminders of the moral bankruptcy of the Iraq adventure.] [With the torture issue again in the news, the Alyssa Peterson story is again timely. Here is what I collected several years ago.]

She would be the same age as one of my children. She died in Iraq under conditions that are still unclear. This is from an article now three five six years old.

Friends say Army Spc. Alyssa R. Peterson of Flagstaff always had an amazing ability to learn foreign languages.

Peterson became fluent in Dutch even before she went on an 18-month Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints mission to the Netherlands in the late 1990s. Then, she cruised through her Arabic courses at the military's Defense Language Institute in Monterey, Calif., shortly after enlisting in July 2001.

With that under her belt, she was off to Iraq to conduct interrogations and translate enemy documents. Then, for reasons still being investigated, Peterson became the third American woman soldier killed since the war began on March 19. President Bush declared the end of major combat operations on May 1, but clashes have continued, and more than 150 U.S. soldiers have been killed since then. Since hostilities began, 297 U.S. soldiers have died.

Peterson, 27, died of a gunshot wound to the head Monday from what was described as a "non-combat weapons discharge," said Martha Rudd, an Army spokeswoman. The fatality occurred near the northwestern Iraqi town of Tel Afar, about 50 miles southwest of the Turkish border.

Rudd and other Army officials said that a number of possible scenarios are being considered, including Peterson's own weapon discharging, the weapon of another soldier discharging or the accidental shooting of Peterson by an Iraqi civilian.

Notice the number of casualties at the time of her death, 297. It seems so long ago.
I cannot find it now, but as I woke up either yesterday or the day before I heard the closing words of a story on NPR's Morning Edition. Through the cloudy consciousness of waking up I remember the voice of the reporter telling of a woman soldier who objected to interrogation techniques she had witnessed. I didn't pay close attention as he told how she had been transferred to another unit...the military reported that the facility had been done away with..."all records were destroyed"...and she had killed herself with her service revolver.

I immediately regretted not having paid closer attention. I think they were reporting a followup on the story of Alyssa Peterson who died three years ago. The case has recently received further scrutiny.

This is a column by Greg Mitchell from Editor and Publisher.

(November 01, 2006) -- The true stories of how American troops, killed in Iraq, actually died keep spilling out this week. On Tuesday, we explored the case of Kenny Stanton Jr., murdered last month by our allies, the Iraqi police, though the military didn’t make that known at the time. Now we learn that one of the first female soldiers killed in Iraq died by her own hand after objecting to interrogation techniques used on prisoners.

She was Army specialist Alyssa Peterson, 27, a Flagstaff, Ariz., native serving with C Company, 311th Military Intelligence BN, 101st Airborne. Peterson was an Arabic-speaking interrogator assigned to the prison at our air base in troubled Tal-Afar in northwestern Iraq. According to official records, she died on Sept. 15, 2003, from a “non-hostile weapons discharge.”

She was only the third American woman killed in Iraq, so her death drew wide press attention. A “non-hostile weapons discharge” leading to death is not unusual in Iraq, often quite accidental, so this one apparently raised few eyebrows. The Arizona Republic, three days after her death, reported that Army officials “said that a number of possible scenarios are being considered, including Peterson's own weapon discharging, the weapon of another soldier discharging, or the accidental shooting of Peterson by an Iraqi civilian.”

But in this case, a longtime radio and newspaper reporter named Kevin Elston, unsatisfied with the public story, decided to probe deeper in 2005, "just on a hunch," he told E&P today. He made "hundreds of phone calls" to the military and couldn't get anywhere, so he filed a Freedom of Information Act request. When the documents of the official investigation of her death arrived, they contained bombshell revelations. Here’s what the Flagstaff public radio station, KNAU, where Elston now works, reported yesterday:

“Peterson objected to the interrogation techniques used on prisoners. She refused to participate after only two nights working in the unit known as the cage. Army spokespersons for her unit have refused to describe the interrogation techniques Alyssa objected to. They say all records of those techniques have now been destroyed. ...".

She was was then assigned to the base gate, where she monitored Iraqi guards, and sent to suicide prevention training. “But on the night of September 15th, 2003, Army investigators concluded she shot and killed herself with her service rifle,” the documents disclose.

The Army talked to some of Peterson's colleagues. Asked to summarize their comments, Elston told E&P: "The reactions to the suicide were that she was having a difficult time separating her personal feelings from her professional duties. That was the consistent point in the testimonies, that she objected to the interrogation techniques, without describing what those techniques were."

Elston said that the documents also refer to a suicide note found on her body, which suggested that she found it ironic that suicide prevention training had taught her how to commit suicide. He has now filed another FOIA request for a copy of the actual note.

Peterson's father, Rich Peterson, has said: “Alyssa volunteered to change assignments with someone who did not want to go to Iraq.”

Peterson, a devout Mormon, had graduated from Flagstaff High School and earned a psychology degree from Northern Arizona University on a military scholarship. She was trained in interrogation techniques at Fort Huachuca in Arizona, and was sent to the Middle East in 2003.

The Arizona Republic article had opened: “Friends say Army Spc. Alyssa R. Peterson of Flagstaff always had an amazing ability to learn foreign languages.“

Peterson became fluent in Dutch even before she went on an 18-month Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints mission to the Netherlands in the late 1990s. Then, she cruised through her Arabic courses at the military's Defense Language Institute in Monterey, Calif., shortly after enlisting in July 2001.“

With that under her belt, she was off to Iraq to conduct interrogations and translate enemy documents.”On a “fallen heroes” message board on the Web, Mary W. Black of Flagstaff wrote, "The very day Alyssa died, her Father was talking to me at the Post Office where we both work, in Flagstaff, Ariz., telling me he had a premonition and was very worried about his daughter who was in the military on the other side of the world. The next day he was notified while on the job by two army officers. Never has a daughter been so missed or so loved than she was and has been by her Father since that fateful September day in 2003. He has been the most broken man I have ever seen.”

An A.W. from Los Angeles wrote: "I met Alyssa only once during a weekend surfing trip while she was at DLI. Although our encounter was brief, she made a lasting impression. We did not know each other well, but I was blown away by her genuine, sincere, sweet nature. I don’t know how else to put it-- she was just nice. ... I was devastated to here of her death. I couldn’t understand why it had to happen to such a wonderful person.”

Finally, Daryl K. Tabor of Ashland City, Tenn., who had met her as a journalist in Iraq for the Kentucky New Era paper in Hopkinsville: "Since learning of her death, I cannot get the image of the last time I saw her out of my mind. We were walking out of the tent in Kuwait to be briefed on our flights into Iraq as I stepped aside to let her out first. Her smile was brighter than the hot desert sun. Peterson was the only soldier I interacted with that I know died in Iraq. I am truly sorry I had to know any."

Thanks to Truthout blog for the link.

I'm not sure why this story resonates so sadly with me. I'm not a conspiracy nut and have no patience with those who would treat such a story as though it suggested some kind of conspiratorial spin. Too many people involved. Too unlikely.

But having said that, I also know that individual people in prominent positions are perfectly capable of putting a lid on what might be considered bad publicity or something they don't want to get out. I have witnessed and experienced that kind of deception in my own life and I imagine most adults can recall similar, less dramatic examples themselves.

The case of Col. Ted Westhusing comes to mind.
I'm not the only one who raises questions about cases such as these.

But even though we may never know all the details of what happened in these two tragedies, one fact is clear. Whether they committed suicide or died in some other manner, both of these people are gone. Their deaths witll be remembered for generations by all who knew them. And both are casualties in one of the most disgusting conflicts in American history.

Yesterday at work there was a bit of conversation about the Kerry remark. I used to be amazed how the most inane stories get the most attention but I got over it long ago. All one has to do is study crowd behavior at an outdoor rock concert or sports event and no human behavior will seem shocking. Anyway, after the one-liners and jokes had been said, one guy said seriously, "We really do need to get out from over there. Those troops need to come home. I don't see why they are still there..."

I tried to give him a larger picture of how if that happened the results might be even worse for the country than what we now witness. A wholesale civil war in which the mad and well-armed forces inside and outside Iraq could come together in a bloodbath of unimaginable dimensions, with other stronger countries such as Syria, Iran, Russia and Turkey being sucked into the mess with devastating results.

His eyes started to glaze over as I spoke, and I knew that I had got out of his depth in the first sentence or two. All I could do was end with "Nobody has anything but good solutions. The reason that the first President Bush stopped pushing into Baghdad when he did, after getting the Iraqi army out of Kuwait, was that no one knew what might happen if Saddam Hussein were no longer in control. He was an evil man, and it's a good thing that he is no longer in control. But now we see what happens when no one is in control."

We both went back to work, glad to push aside such unsettling thoughts...

Update, Monday, November 6

This story seems to be picking up interest. Here is another link to a couple of excellent comments by Scott Horton at Balkinization.