Also see:     
Seven Returning Troops: "The War As We Saw It"    [

Also see below:     
2 GI's, Skeptical but Loyal, Die in a Truck Crash in Iraq    [

    Two of Seven Soldiers Who Wrote "NYT" Op-Ed Die in Iraq
    By Greg Mitchell
    Editor and Publisher

    Wednesday 12 September 2007

    New York - The Op-Ed by seven active duty U.S. soldiers in Iraq questioning the war drew international attention just three weeks ago. Now two of the seven are dead.

    Sgt. Omar Mora and Sgt. Yance T. Gray died Monday in a vehicle accident in western Baghdad, two of seven U.S. troops killed in the incident which was reported just as Gen. David Petraeus was about to report to Congress on progress in the "surge." The names have just been released.

    Gen. Petraeus was questioned about the message of the op-ed in testimony before a Senate committee yesterday.

    The controversial Times column on Aug. 19 was called "The War As We Saw It," and expressed skepticism about American gains in Iraq. "To believe that Americans, with an occupying force that long ago outlived its reluctant welcome, can win over a recalcitrant local population and win this counterinsurgency is far-fetched," the group wrote.

    It closed: "We need not talk about our morale. As committed soldiers, we will see this mission through."

    Mora, 28, hailed from Texas City, Texas, and was a native of Ecuador, who had just become a U.S. citizen. He was due to leave Iraq in November and leaves behind a wife and daughter. Gray, 26, had lived in Ismay, Montana, and is also survived by a wife and infant daughter.

    The accident in Iraq occurred when a cargo truck the men were riding in overturned.

    The Daily News in Galveston interviewed Mora's mother, who confirmed his death and that he was one of the co-authors of the Times piece. The article today relates: "Olga Capetillo said that by the time Mora submitted the editorial, he had grown increasingly depressed. 'I told him God is going to take care of him and take him home,' she said. 'But yesterday is the darkest day for me.'"

    One of the other five authors of the Times piece, Staff Sergeant Jeremy Murphy, an Army Ranger and reconnaissance team leader, was shot in the head while the article was being written. He was expected to survive after being flown to a military hospital in the United States.

    During the grilling of Gen. Petraeus on Tuesday, Sen. Barbara Boxer read from the Op-Ed and Sen. Chuck Hagel said, "By the way, I assume you read The New York Times piece two weeks ago - seven NCOs in Iraq, today, finishing up 15-month commitments. Are we going to dismiss those seven NCOs? Are they ignorant? They laid out a pretty different scenario, general, ambassador, from what you're laying out today."

    Joe Strupp of E&P spoke with the fathers of the two deceased soldiers today and filed the following report.

    Robert Capetillo never read the controversial column his son, Omar Mora, co-wrote with six other Iraq-based soldiers for The New York Times. But when he heard about it, he had only high praise.

    "Everybody has a right to speak out," Capetillo told E&P Wednesday, just two days after Mora, an Army sergeant, and fellow column-writer Yance Gray, were killed in Baghdad. "We all have a right to speak out what we feel. There are personal feelings, that is a right here we all have."

    Richard Gray, father of Yance Gray, offered similar views on his son's part in the column. "I thought it was well-written and there wasn't anything in it I disagreed with, with that situation over there," he said via phone from his Montana home. "He said once that they need to divide the country up into three different countries to make things work."

    Capetillo, of Texas City, Tex., said Mora was one of three sons who he taught to speak their minds. He said he joined the Army in 2004 knowing he might be sent to Iraq to fight in the war.

    "He was very supportive, that is why he went in," Capetillo said, adding that he was based at Fort Bragg, N.C. "He didn't know for sure, but these days, you know when you join you will probably go over."

    Gray was not surprised when he heard about his son's involvement in the column. "He thought for himself. He wouldn't just go along. The military was something he wanted to do, but he would not follow something blindly. He was taught to think for himself."

    He said his wife had last spoken to their son a week ago, and had also recently received an e-mail. "He didn't agree with all of the politics, but he would do his job and do his best," the elder Gray said. "He wasn't against what they were doing, but against some of the policies. You get a lot of people trying to do politics. If you are going to use the military, let the military do their jobs."

    An Army veteran since he joined in 2000, Gray had also served in Afghanistan, his father said, noting he had re-enlisted for the second time just three months ago

    "He was not in any way anti-military," Gray said. "But he wasn't somebody to follow along blindly."

    Go to Original

    2 GI's, Skeptical but Loyal, Die in a Truck Crash in Iraq
    By David Stout
    The New York Times

    Thursday 13 September 2007

    Washingtion - "Engaging in the banalities of life has become a death-defying act," the seven soldiers wrote of the war they had seen in Iraq.

    They were referring to the ordeals of Iraqi citizens, trying to go about their lives with death and suffering all around them. But sadly, although they did not know it at the time, they might almost have been referring to themselves.

    Two of the soldiers who wrote of their pessimism about the war in an Op-Ed article that appeared in The New York Times on Aug. 19 were killed in Baghdad on Monday. They were not killed in combat, nor on a daring mission. They died when the five-ton cargo truck in which they were riding overturned.

    The victims, Staff Sgt. Yance T. Gray, 26, and Sgt. Omar Mora, 28, were among the authors of "The War as We Saw It," in which they expressed doubts about reports of progress.

    "As responsible infantrymen and noncommissioned officers with the 82nd Airborne Division soon heading back home, we are skeptical of recent press coverage portraying the conflict as increasingly manageable and feel it has neglected the mounting civil, political and social unrest we see every day," the soldiers wrote.

    Sergeant Gray's mother, Karen Gray, said by telephone on Wednesday from Ismay, Mont., where Yance grew up, "My son was a soldier in his heart from the age of 5," and she added, "He loved what he was doing."

    The sergeant's father, Richard, said of his son, "But he wasn't any mindless robot."

    Sergeant Gray leaves a wife, Jessica, and a daughter, Ava, born in April. He is also survived by a brother and a sister.

    Sergeant Mora's mother, Olga Capetillo of Texas City, Tex., told The Daily News in Galveston that her son had grown increasingly gloomy about Iraq. "I told him God is going to take care of him and take him home," she said.

    A native of Ecuador, Sergeant Mora had recently become an American citizen. "He was proud of this country, and he wanted to go over and help," his stepfather, Robert Capetillo, told The Houston Chronicle. Sergeant Mora leaves a wife, Christa, and a daughter, Jordan, who is 5. Survivors also include a brother and a sister.

    While the seven soldiers were composing their article, one of them, Staff Sgt. Jeremy A. Murphy, was shot in the head. He was flown to a military hospital in the United States and is expected to survive. The other authors were Buddhika Jayamaha, an Army specialist, and Sgts. Wesley D. Smith, Jeremy Roebuck and Edward Sandmeier.

    "We need not talk about our morale," they wrote in closing. "As committed soldiers, we will see this mission through."