War touches closer to home

Petaluma native in same unit as those abducted

June 21, 2006

By DANE GOLDEN
ARGUS-COURIER STAFF

Casa Grande Class of '97 graduate Greg Scott, an infantryman in Iraq who was interviewed by the Argus-Courier when he was home on leave just two weeks ago, is in the same company that saw one soldier killed and two abducted last Friday, according to his family. Just before press time early Tuesday morning, the Associated Press reported that the two missing soldiers had been killed and their bodies had been recovered.

The story of the missing soldiers led the news nationwide for several days.

The Pentagon on Sunday identified the names of the three soldiers as being from the 1st Battalion, 502nd Infantry Regiment, 2nd Brigade, 101st Airborne Division (Air Assault) based in Fort Campbell, Ky. Killed in the fighting was Spc. David J. Babineau, 25, of Springfield, Mass. Missing were Pfc. Kristian Menchaca, 23, of Houston, Texas and Pfc. Thomas L. Tucker, 25, of Madras, Ore. The missing soldiers were originally listed by the Department of Defense as Duty Status Whereabouts Unknown, or DUSTWUN.

According to the Associated Press and the Salem News of Salem, Ore., Tucker is a member of B Company. Greg Scott is also a member of that company.

The Pentagon statement said that the soldiers were manning a checkpoint when they came under enemy small-arms fire.

Kathy Scott, Greg's mom, now of Santa Rosa, already knew about the checkpoint kidnapping late Friday afternoon, because she read about it on CNN.com. Scott knew her son was stationed in the region where the fighting had taken place.

"Seeing this story, I understood this was where he was," she said.

Early Monday morning, Kathy Scott got an e-mail from a family support group for his unit, a not-uncommon occurrence. This particular e-mail stated that all family notifications had been made regarding the killed and missing soldiers in the unit.

She then looked in the Press-Democrat and found that the names had already been listed, then double-checked the CNN Web site. Scott knew her son's name would not be among them, as the military would not release the names of casualties or killed without informing the families first, and that they would never do so via e-mail.

"Pure terror was my feeling on Friday," she said. "I was pretending not to worry and hoping for the best, hoping that it wasn't him but hating that it had to be anyone."

Now that she finds he was not among those names listed, Scott said she's relieved. But, she said, "My worry will not end or abate until Greg is back in the U.S."

In an era of instant communications, families often hear directly from their loved ones in Iraq via e-mail. But with news swirling around this latest event, the brigade has been placed on a communications blackout, which means that soldiers in that unit won't be e-mailing or phoning their relatives back home for the time being.

Now, Kathy Scott's thoughts turn to the families of the soldiers who were killed.

"I feel so much for those families," she said. "We're all in this together. My heart goes out to them, and my prayers."

Greg Scott had recently been invited by the Argus-Courier to post notes online to the Petaluma community from Iraq. You can find his postings at www.arguscourier.com/blogs under "Letters home."

(Contact Dane Golden at dgolden@arguscourier.com)

COMPANY B

The Defense Department Web site states that on May 26, the same B Company of the 1st Battalion, 502nd Infantry Regiment, 2nd Brigade, 101st Airborne Division (Air Assault), Fort Campbell, Ky. "conducted a cordon-and-search of a house suspected of harboring terrorists and concealing weapons caches south of Baghdad."

They discovered a large weapons cache, which consisted of 2,300 .50-caliber machine gun rounds, 300 30 mm mortar rounds, one 60 mm mortar round, eight 120 mm mortar rounds, one rocket, 30 disassembled .50 caliber weapons, two disassembled 30 mm weapons, nine large bags of homemade explosives, and other bomb-making materials, according to the Web site.

An explosives ordnance disposal team assessed and destroyed the cache.