Cilla McCain - Murder in Baker Company. How Four American Soldiers Killed One of Their Own

A Father and Son

What could I do but go with them, or work for them and my country? The patriot blood of my father was warm in my veins.

Clara Barton, founder of the American Red Cross

Its strange, Lanny began, when something horrible happens in your life and you are able to look back and see that little signs were popping up the whole way, providing clues that you should brace yourself. I suppose some people would call it ESP or something like that. But at the time, you just barely pay attention, and file it away somewhere in the back of your mind. Im bringing it up now because I keep remembering this one particular night that would have been during the days when Richard came back from Iraq in the summer of 2003. Of course, at the time we did not know yet that his platoon had already returned to the States. We also did not know that he had disappeared almost as fast as his plane landed.

Anyway, like usual, I was sitting in the living room watching late-night television and trying to glean out any bit of news I could on my sons platoon. Except for the light coming from the television screen, the house was dark and quiet, almost to the point of being serene. My wife was already asleep in bed, and I was alone. Well, somehow this black moth made its way into the house and landed on the lamp table next to my chair. I dont know how it got in, either, because it was hot outside and we were running the air-conditioning, so the windows and doors were shut up tight. Ill tell ya, this was the biggest, most unusual moth I had ever seenvery black and shiny, like satin. In fact, it was so healthy lookingyeah, healthy, thats the way Id describe itthat instead of killing it with the newspaper, I studied it for a little bit before I waved it out the front door.

You see, that night stands out in my mind because in the Filipino culturemy wifes Filipinothere is what I guess you would call an old wives tale which claims if a black moth flies into your house, that means somebody you know has just died. Id heard tales like that before, hell, we all have. However, Ive never put too much stock in em. Then the next day the telephone rang around 9:00 or 10:00 a.m. and my wife answered. We had been receiving many calls from telemarketers, up to twenty a day sometimes. So when she answered, she was irritated at having to deal with yet another one. There was a womans voice on the other end of the line and she asked, Is this Remidios Davis?

Yes it is, my wife told her.

Its about Richard. Are you his mother? the woman asked.

Yes, what do you want? my wife asked.

The caller stammered around, and then it sounded as though the line went deadso she hung up the receiver.

Looking back, we have often wondered if that was really someone trying to tell us what had happened to our Richard. It was during the same period of time Richard was murdered, when the black moth showed up and that woman called us. But it is just one more question that we will probably never have the answer to. You see, all I want are answers, no matter what those answers happen to be. Why was my son tortured as he begged for his life, begged to come home and see his family? Why on earth did members of his own platoon do that?

These boys were trained to be willing to put their lives on the line for each other. Richard was willing, that I know. He was so full of life, our son; he had the world in front of him. Because of those bastards, we will never get to see his face again. We will never see him get married and have children. We will never see him come home from that damned war. The thing is, I started screaming inside the minute I found out Richard was dead. And I have not stopped yet. We just want to feel the relief of knowing why.

* * *

The answer to his question is that many different sets of circumstances all collided at once.

On May 20, 2003, Army Specialist Richard Thomas Davis, a member of the historically revered 1-15th Third Infantry Division of Fort Bennings Baker Company, waited in line for more than two hours to call his parents, Lanny and Remy, from Iraq. As soon as Richard heard his fathers voice on the line, he began to beg frantically for help in getting out of here. There were tears in his voice.

The incident perplexed his father, but, being retired career military himself, he considered the episode part of the inevitable stress that every wartime soldier confronts at some point. Knowing how patriotic Richard was, he knew he would have never forgiven himself for giving in during a moment of weakness, so Lanny told his son he could not do that. The conversation went on for more than an hour, as Richard relayed to his dad the hardships his platoon was enduring.

Dad, Richard cried, I cant trust anybody here. I dont have a safe place to lay my head, and we dont even have enough to eat or drink! Richards frustrations and fears came tumbling desperately out. Lanny learned that Richards boots had caught on fire, burning the laces away and melting the soles. He walked around with the boots falling off his feet until he managed to get a pair of laces from the boots of a dead Iraqi. Those laces were in bad shape and too short, but he tied them in a knot and kept going. He lost other essential supplies when a nearby explosion caused his rucksack to fall off the back of a truck, leaving him with nothing.

Dad, were not getting needed supplies, theres some kind of holdup with the government contracts or something. The water is nasty, and something is wrong with my insidesI keep bleeding when I piss and blood is coming from my rectum. They cant figure out whats wrong with me.

Lanny was disturbed by his sons circumstances, especially the unexplained bleeding. Richard also told him that his platoon sergeant wasnt checking on the unit, a duty taken very seriously in the army. Troops are placed strategically in the battle zones, and it is the platoon sergeants responsibility to continually monitor their situation.

I calmly listened, and tried to convince my son to mentally work through it, but inside I was panicking, because the situation sounded out of control, Lanny says.

Richards platoon had experienced the bloodiest fighting imaginable. In fact, during the invasion, Richard and the rest of Baker Company, nowadays referred to as Bravo Company, had taken part in what eventually became known as the Midtown Massacre in April 2003, informally named so by some of the troops after a famous gangland killing in New York City.

They were under orders to annihilate. That means if it moves, you kill it. The situation was very different from the propaganda on the nightly news, in which the government tried to convince the American people that missions in Iraq were being carried out with great precision, control, and the fewest number of civilian casualties possible.

Indeed, Richards unit did not suffer any losses, but many soldiers have stated that hundreds of burned and mutilated Iraqi bodies piled the streets of Baghdad. However, it would be months, in some cases years, before the brutal effects the Midtown Massacre had on American troops revealed themselves. Some wounds are simply too deep to see with the naked eye.

Before Richard was deployed, Lanny relates, I told him I wanted to use the old Sullivan Law to keep him out of combat situations. As our familys only son, we could have done that. But Richard steadfastly refused.

* * *

After Richards phone call, Lanny decided to contact the Red Cross about his sons circumstances. He was told Richards unit was due to come back to the United States within a week or two. I should have gotten him out of there, Lanny says dejectedly. I had no idea what he was really up against.

Today, Lanny overlooks the fact that even had he tried to get Richard out of battle by using the so-called Sullivan Act, it would not have been possible. This law has long been misunderstood as a method to keep only sons out of battlefield situations, thus protecting a familys ability to carry on their name and lineage. Although the law was proposed after the deaths of the five Sullivan brothers in World War II, it was never passed by Congress. But even with the discovery of this misunderstanding, Lanny has been left with the permanent question in his mind What if? and painful, undeserved feelings of guilt.