And therein rested the disquieting aspect of the case. It was as if the final decision had been taken out of the navy’s hands, that somehow the verdict had been agreed before the trial started, won and lost before it was heard. Was Mack Bedford the officer whose fate was already decided? No one liked the sound of that.
The days passed slowly in the two weeks leading up to the trial. Bedford himself became very withdrawn. The navy had arranged for him to spend this time in private officers’ quarters and make his own decisions about attending work and training with Foxtrot Platoon. Almost surreptitiously, new men had been brought in to replace those who had died.
No one mentioned the tragedy, and the leading petty officers supervised the brutal fitness regime being played out on the long beaches, out in front of the world-famous Hotel del Coronado. Every day, damn near all day, they pounded along that tidemark in their boots and shorts, searching for the firmest wet sand, trying to beat the clock. Some days Mack Bedford joined them, running easily alongside the new kids, demonstrating a naval lifetime of supreme physical fitness, strength that bordered on that of a wild animal, determination, and discipline ingrained in him since he had first pounded this same stretch of beach as a BUDs student.
In the evenings, he saw very few people, not simply because his close buddies had all died in the tanks but because he sensed he was now isolated until the court-martial was over. He spent long hours with Al Surprenant, endlessly poring over maps of that western side of the Euphrates where the SEALs had been hit by the missiles.
Every night Mack wrote to Anne at their home in Maine, trying to explain that the forthcoming court-martial was only a formality and that he would not be found guilty. But he also needed her to understand that he was the unnamed commanding officer in the newspaper reports describing the “massacre” on the bridge. He did not go into any detail, and neither did he point out that he was the only American to have opened fire on the tribesmen. Mostly, his carefully written lines concerned Tommy and the fact that there was no improvement in his condition.
Anne’s news from the health insurance company was not encouraging. Despite that blanket coverage the navy had provided for him and his immediate family, none of the underwriters had come forward to volunteer payment to the Swiss clinic, which increasingly seemed to be the Bedfords’ only hope.
It was difficult for Mack to find anything much to feel cheerful about. On every front there was trouble—career, money, and family. Sometimes, in a darker mood, he felt the shadow of death formed an unfair canopy over him alone. Every day the court-martial loomed closer, that moment of truth when his peers would sit in judgment. After all these years, was he still a right and proper person to lead the front line of U.S. military muscle?
Five days after the return from Iraq, the story leaked out to the San Diego Telegraph. They did not name the commanding officer at the bridge, but someone had briefed them well. The story ran over four columns on the front page of the newspaper beneath the headline:U.S. NAVY COURT-MARTIALS SEAL COMMANDER CHARGED WITH MURDER OF SURRENDERING IRAQIS
The United States Navy confirmed last night that the SEAL commander whose men shot dead twelve surrendering Iraqi tribesmen has been court-martialed. He will be tried this month in the navy courtroom at the SPECWARCOM base on Coronado Island, San Diego. The officer stands accused of murder, shooting unarmed men in cold blood.
The incident took place three weeks ago on the western bank of the Euphrates River south of the ancient Mesopotamian town of Hit. According to the navy, armored vehicles transporting the SEAL team had come under rocket attack from insurgents on the other side of the river. The SEALs had prepared to return fire, but, according to the Arab television network al-Jazeera, the tribesmen had surrendered and started to walk across the bridge with their hands held high.
At this point, the Arab network states, the SEALs opened fire, gunning down the unarmed tribesmen until not one of them was left alive. Several witnesses from the Bedouin village of Abu Hallah have come forward to confirm this account. A spokesman for the Iraqi parliament says the prime minister is “shocked beyond belief” at the conduct of the Americans.
No details have ever been made public regarding losses sustained by the SEAL convoy. And the navy has resolutely refused to reveal the names of any SEAL combatants who took part in the action. They have also refused to reveal the identity of the officer who will stand trial in San Diego this month.
Last night there were rumors in the SEAL compound that the SEAL team had come under sustained attack across the Euphrates and suffered many casualties. A military source, who cannot be named, confirmed that at least four U.S. tanks were damaged in the battle. He stated that the account from al-Jazeera was dangerously one-sided and was unlikely to stand up to searching cross-examination at the court-martial. A spokesman for the SEALs’ public information department, Lt. Dan Rowe, explained to our legal staff that, pending the court-martial, nothing further could be confirmed.
Would the identity of the commander eventually be revealed? “Unlikely,” he said. “Unless the SEAL officer is convicted of murder. And no U.S. serviceman has ever been found guilty on such a charge. Not if it was based on a confrontation with the enemy.”
The story was masterminded by the Telegraph’s formidable news editor, Geoff Levy, a former military staff reporter in the San Diego navy yards. Geoff knew his way around both the service and the law. He also knew what he called a “rattling good yarn” when he heard one. And the fact that the Silent Service had apparently turned on one of its own had a special, private journalistic glory all its own.
It is a remarkable achievement for the navy to keep anything quiet, considering it owns dozens of warships chock-full of knowledgeable, and extremely talkative, sailors. For Levy to be handed a leak as significant as Mack Bedford’s court-martial was a fantastic coup. Geoff knew what he had, and he knew he was about twenty-four hours, plus several light-years, ahead of the opposition.
When the Telegraph came out, every major news organization in the United States found itself playing catch-up—which was extremely difficult since the navy would neither confirm nor deny the story. And this put the nation’s newshounds in a quandary, since their only options were, effectively, to believe the truth of the San Diego paper, steal the information and proceed accordingly, or to ignore the story altogether. The latter option was out of the question. But the former was fraught with peril. What if the story was untrue? What if Geoff Levy was wrong? What if no court-martial was planned?
All of the above were troublesome issues, but not nearly as troublesome as missing out on the story altogether. The Fox twenty-four-hour television news channel was quickest into its stride and decided to round up Geoff Levy for an interview, ASAP. Exclusive, please. But the news editor for the Telegraph was too shrewd for that. No exclusives, and a fee of five thousand dollars, or you can all stop bothering me. Fox paid and put Geoff Levy on a telephone link in the very next slot, with a camera in a private telegraph office.
What he said confirmed, albeit unknowingly, the master journalist’s craft—bearing in mind he had already scooped the world. “I have been either gathering or preparing stories about the United States Navy in San Diego for a dozen years now. And this story about this court-martial was entrusted to me by a very senior commander. He revealed it to me not because he wished for extra publicity for the navy, because that’s the last thing they want with an issue like this. The officer gave it to me because of the outrage, the feeling of pure indignation felt by fighting men who put their lives on the line and then are told they are, somehow, murderers because they attacked and killed their enemy. In all my years, I have never sensed such outrage in the U.S. Navy, right here in San Diego. That applies especially to the SEALs, who give everything, and say almost nothing.”
The interviewer was a dazzling blonde in her late twenties who was a lot more likely to become Miss California than News Reporter of the Year. “But, Geoff,” she said, “surely the man had to face
a court-martial if he just shot innocent civilians. I mean, that is murder, right?”
Levy sighed the sigh of the truly exasperated. “Ma’am,” he said, “picture the scene, if you will. We’re in hostile desert country; the temperature is 110 degrees. We’re nine thousand miles from home. We got maybe four tanks on fire, we got men, American men, husbands, sons, and lifelong friends, either dead or burning to death. We got the screams and whispers of the dying. We got fear, terror, outrage, and shock. We got young troops in tears. We got a goddamned horror story right there in front of our eyes. And suddenly an American officer races out of the pack and opens fire on the tribesmen who committed these acts of war. He guns them down, perhaps in rage, perhaps in grief and sadness for his lost brothers. But he hits back, as he’s been trained to do, amidst all the blood and carnage. In the middle of a gruesome and terrible specter the likes of which most of us will never see . . . he hits back.”
Levy paused and let his words hit home. And then he said quietly, “And you, ma’am, and others like you, want to charge him with murder? I hope I’ve made myself clear about why there’s outrage on the San Diego Naval Base.”
Jessica Savold, the blonde interviewer, had not often been lectured like that. And she was almost overwhelmed at the lesson in journalism she had just been handed. Jessica did not live in the real world; she lived in the quasi-fantasy realm of media reporters, guys who knew a few facts, some of which might be true, but had no time or patience for the true depths of the events they related to the public. Jessica understood at that moment why her employers had paid five thousand dollars to hear the words of a big newspaper editor, a man of vast experience who would be a cut way above the rest. “Thank you, Mr. Levy,” she said, reluctant for another exchange of thoughts, even more reluctant to be made to look more like a child.
Geoff stood up and nodded. But as he reached the door, he turned once more to Jessica, and he patted the left-hand side of his chest. “Heart,” he said. “Until you learn heart, you’ll never be worth a damn as a reporter or an interviewer.” Luckily for the luckless Jessica, that part was off-camera. And with that he left the room and headed back to the news desk to urge his boys to (a) identify the SEAL officer he believed to be a towering hero and (b) provide him with backup evidence of the inferno of death, hard by the bridge over the Euphrates River. At least that’s how he phrased it. Geoff, after all, was a master of his craft.
A round of applause from the newsroom greeted him when he returned, delivered by colleagues who had watched the Fox telecast. His deputy said, “Tell you one thing, Geoff. Right now we got e-mails flooding in, and half of them are saying this SEAL commander should be given the Congressional Medal of Honor, never mind a court-martial.”
“Trouble is,” replied the boss, “I don’t really know what the hell’s going on, except that they are about to court-martial him on murder charges and that a lot of guys at the SEAL base are very seriously pissed off. And that’s got to be the thrust of our story tonight—the outrage. Because we’re on the side of the guys who do the fighting, because we’re a very pro-navy operation, not like those comedians in Washington and their lightweight puppet reporters.” Geoff ended his little pep talk with the words, “C’mon, guys, let’s round up some real hard quotes from named sources, people railing against charging our combat troops with serious civilian-type charges. Let’s round ’em up, and then stick it to these assholes, right here in the Telegraph. Right now, while we got national attention.”
Three thousand miles away, in the White House, the president of the United States was in a major quandary. Yes, he had approved the court-martial of Lt. Cdr. Mack Bedford, mainly because of the upcoming Middle East peace talks, and also to head off accusations from Iraq that U.S. troops could do anything they damn well pleased in the land between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers. In his own mind, as commander in chief, the president had approved the court-martial “for the greater good.” Greater good, that is, unless you happened to be Mack Bedford.
However, this story in the San Diego Telegraph, and this interview with the goddamned news editor, had painted the entire issue a very different color. The Middle East peace talks could go to hell in the face of a domestic uproar, currently being ignited and fanned and publicly blazing on California’s coast.
There are only a few true copper-bottomed taboos that all presidents must observe, and one of them is, Don’t Pick Fights with Your Frontline Troops. There are several billion reasons for this, the main one being you will receive zero sympathy from the public, who do not trust any politicians but are apt to worship the ground upon which America’s Special Forces walk.
The president was, inadvertently, on the dark side of this one, and in his deep, and somewhat cunning, soul, he knew he was not in control. He and his advisers had a tiger by the tail, and it was just a matter of time before that tiger not only roared but started showing very snarly teeth.
As C-in-C, he could, of course, step in and cancel the court-martial. But if that news ever leaked, the liberal press would tear him up. Right now the president found himself working out how to placate the liberals, appease the towelheads, and save the peace talks—all of which involved a wide and varied group of politicians and media execs. Unlike him, however, none of them was about to be bitten hard in the ass by the U.S. Navy SEAL tiger.
Rarely had a navy court-martial, to be heard behind locked doors on a secure naval base, aroused such consternation in the corridors of power. Whichever way it went, there would be big trouble for many people, aside from Mack Bedford and his family.
“Jesus Christ,” said the president. He understood precisely how the San Diego Telegraph had brought the matter right into the public eye with the seemingly simple story that the unnamed officer, who had lurked behind so many headlines, was now to be formally court-martialed. That much was plain. What he did not fully comprehend was why the pendulum had swung the wrong way. For the past month, ever since al-Jazeera revealed the uproar at the bridge, the liberal media had held sway. As far as he and his advisers could tell, the mood in the United States had been one of anger and disappointment at the behavior of the SEAL. But right now things were completely different. The liberal media were, as ever, still angry and disappointed, but the public, and members of the armed forces, were in the opposite corner, angry that a brave and patriotic officer was somehow to face trial, right here in the USA, like a common criminal.
And now the entire matter was threatening to dominate the domestic news. The Department of the Navy in Washington was under siege from the media. The switchboard at the San Diego base was log-jammed by phone calls from newspapers and television networks. Outside lines to the command bases at both Coronado and Virginia Beach were entirely occupied by journalists. Reporters, photographers, and cameramen camped variously at the gates of SPECWARCOM, on the West Coast and the East. And they were growing more and more irritated at the total lack of cooperation they were receiving from the United States Navy. Up on the fourth floor of the Pentagon, Adm. Mark Bradfield had issued clear instructions that no one in the press office was to utter one word about the forthcoming court-martial.
Within hours, the massed ranks of the U.S. press corps would switch its attack to the White House, specifically requesting whether there was approval from the commander in chief to court-martial the SEAL officer. Magnanimously, they informed the White House Press Office they did not much care whether they received an answer from the president, the national security adviser, the secretary of defense, or the chief of naval operations. Any one of them would be fine. But there had to be an answer from someone.
As it happened, there was no answer from anyone. The days passed acrimoniously until, on a bright California Tuesday morning in late June, the court-martial was convened in the sunlit, heavily air-conditioned headquarters of the Navy Trial Service in the heart of the Coronado base.
Capt. Cale “Boomer” Dunning gathered his panel in an anteroom at the back of the courtroom before the proceeding
s began. The force judge advocate general, Capt. Paul Birmingham, had a private observation desk to the left of the great curved mahogany table at which the five officers would sit in judgment. Behind the central chair that would be occupied by Captain Dunning were large twin flags of the United States of America, hung at an angle. Between them was placed the imposing emblem of the United States Navy. Four captain’s chairs, carved from mahogany, were set next to Boomer Dunning, two on either side.
Two navy guards were already on duty at the entrance to the courtroom. Two more were stationed inside, on either side of the door. Before the panel there were two large tables. The one on the left was, appropriately perhaps, for the prosecutor and his assistant. The one on the right was for Cdr. Al Surprenant and Lt. Cdr. Mack Bedford.
Also sitting in on the trial was the SEAL commander Rear Adm. Andy Carlow, plus the commander in chief of the Pacific Fleet, Adm. Bob Gilchrist. The two regular court stenographers would take down the official record, and witnesses would not be permitted to confer. They would be accompanied into the courtroom, sworn in, and then accompanied out without further contact.
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