When MPs’ Push Becomes a Charge

Last year at this time, the four Army reservists were civilians, leading middle-class lives in the coal-laced hills of Pennsylvania they had always called home. Two were preparing for college, one was a state trooper who spent the summer running a camp for kids, a fourth had served in Bosnia-Herzegovina and was a prison corrections officer.

Today, 6,000 miles away and on active duty, the four are at the center of a controversy that has shaken this old mining town, where their 320th Reserve Military Police Battalion is based: They have been charged with mistreating and beating Iraqi prisoners of war -- charges that could lead to courts-martial and prison.

They have been transferred from Iraq to a U.S. base in Kuwait, where instead of guarding Iraqi POWs their duties consist of cleaning toilets and collecting trash while awaiting the outcome of a military investigation, their families say.

The reservists say they used only the force necessary to defend themselves against violent prisoners at a POW facility near Umm al Qasr in southern Iraq.

“My daughter’s reaction has been disbelief,” said Carol Graff, the mother of Master Sgt. Lisa Girman. “She told me on the phone, ‘I can’t believe this happened. It’s like a nightmare.’ ”

News of the charges jarred the 2,800 residents of Ashley, where patriotism is a code of life and Main Street is festooned with banners proclaiming, “Ashley Honors Our Armed Forces.” Most were quick to absolve the four soldiers -- all of whom are from northeastern Pennsylvania -- of blame. Many, including Luzerne County Sheriff Barry Stankos, who called Girman a “quality, levelheaded” law enforcement officer, said they would attend a rally scheduled for Saturday at the courthouse in Wilkes-Barre to support the soldiers.

“Except for maybe some lady in a sewing circle, you’re not going to find much sympathy for Iraqis around here when it comes to this issue,” said Jim Merrill, 42, who sat drinking a beer at the American Legion. From the jukebox boomed the Vietnam War-era song “Ballad of the Green Berets.”

“I don’t believe the charges -- American soldiers don’t beat up on prisoners for entertainment,” said Tommy Schwartz, 61, the local legion commander. His post has 700 members, begins every meeting with a tribute to America’s POWs and MIAs and each year holds a ceremony to honor Ashley’s lone resident killed more than a generation ago in Vietnam.

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Reservists Identified

The U.S. military has not released the names of the soldiers or given details about the incident that led to the charges. But the soldiers’ families, who have contacted their congressmen for help and are organizing public support, identified the reservists as:

* Girman, 35, a Pennsylvania state trooper for 14 years who last summer ran a police-sponsored camp for kids. She is a veteran of the 1991 Persian Gulf War and was injured in that war by Iraqi POWs in a prison riot. She is part of a family drawn closer together when her brother died of a brain tumor at age 21 in 1987.

* Staff Sgt. Scott McKenzie, 38, a lieutenant in a “boot-camp” prison run by the Pennsylvania Corrections Department. He volunteered for and served in Bosnia, receiving the Army Commendation and the NATO medals. He is active with the Boy Scouts and, said his mother, Caroline Lachemayer of Fort Myers, Fla., never had a black mark in 18 years of active and reserve military duty.

* Sgt. Shawna Edmondson, 24, a public safety officer at the University of Scranton, where she was also studying criminal justice for a bachelor’s degree. She joined the reserves in 1999, her mother, Linda Edmondson, said, because she wanted to serve her country and thought the experience would help her pursue a career in law enforcement. She has taken antidepressant prescription drugs as a result of the abuse charges, her mother said.

* Spec. Tim Canjar, 21, a 2000 graduate of a Catholic high school near Wilkes-Barre. He joined the reserves after his father talked him out of enlisting in the Army. He enrolled in college courses at Pennsylvania State University just before his unit was mobilized for duty in Iraq in February. “I know my son and he’s not capable of doing something like this,” said his father, Jim.

On May 12, the four Pennsylvania MPs were on duty when 44 POWs, some of them wounded and on crutches, arrived at Camp Bucca under U.S. guard. They included nine Syrians, two Iraqi policemen, a Baath Party general and an Iraqi who had been interrogated in connection with the execution of an American POW.

“When the convoy got to Bucca and unloaded the prisoners from the bus, some started to resist,” McKenzie wrote in an e-mail to his congressman May 17. He went on to say that “some of my MPs” were assaulted: One POW kicked Girman; another grabbed Canjar, a former high school wrestler, by the wrist. It was necessary, he wrote, to use “foot sweeps” and tackles to bring some of the POWs to the ground.

“The commander asked if the prisoners were resisting and said: ‘You have to be careful. There are a lot of brass around,’ ” McKenzie recalled in the e-mail. “I said, ‘We’re only doing our job.’ ”

The force they are accused of inflicting included kicking and punching POWs in the face, dragging prisoners through the sand and breaking one man’s nose and wrist, relatives said. McKenzie told superiors that he had used force, but he said it was the minimum necessary to regain control. Investigators who checked his hands and knuckles for bruises or blood found none, relatives said.

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‘Dangerous Situation’

As a result of contacts with the MPs and their families, Rep. Donald Sherwood (R-Pa.) talked with the Army and the Pentagon. “No one has shown me any convincing evidence the soldiers were particularly out of line,” he said in a phone interview.

“They were put in a dangerous situation, handling prisoners who are violently anti-American. I don’t know what the basis of the claims against them are, but I feel it is very unfortunate we are dragging unsung, patriotic Americans through this mess.”

A Pentagon official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the charges against the soldiers are dereliction of duty, maltreatment of Iraqi prisoners under their control, making false statements (charged against three of the four) and assaulting an Iraqi prisoner while escorting him to a U.S. internment facility.

The inquiry was started the night of the alleged assaults, after soldiers from another unit observed inappropriate treatment, the official said.

“It’s not the way we do business, and it’s not indicative of the way our soldiers are trained to handle detainees,” he said. “Since the beginning of the conflict, our soldiers have handled thousands of detainees and enemy combatants with dignity and respect. Just the fact that fellow U.S. soldiers turned these guys in is much more indicative of how we do business.”

U.S. and coalition forces, the official said, are holding 230 detainees classified as enemy prisoners of war and an additional 3,300 common criminals at facilities in Iraq; 700 others of undetermined status are also being held. He declined to detail the number of detention facilities, their conditions or where they are located, citing security concerns.

One month before the incident, on April 13, two of the Pennsylvania reservists helped quell a riot that broke out among prisoners at Camp Bucca, the soldiers told family members in e-mails and telephone conversations. Girman and McKenzie rescued four of their colleagues who had been surrounded by prisoners protesting living conditions, and were to be recommended for the Bronze Star medal for valor, relatives said.

Girman and McKenzie criticized the commanders’ conduct during the alleged April 13 riot, and in an e-mail to his family, McKenzie said: “While we fought for our lives, one of our majors hid like a coward.” Families said that commanders lost control of their troops, and that the troops increasingly looked to the two senior enlisted MPs for leadership.

Military officials have not confirmed the reservists’ reports of a riot at Camp Bucca on April 13.

Relatives said the four reservists have been separated from one another at the base in Kuwait and told not to talk to the media. They are not detained, but they are not permitted to perform MP duties and are generally shunned by fellow soldiers, relatives said.

“My daughter’s spirits are up and down,” said Linda Edmondson. “Last week, she called in tears, but now that this is out in the open, she’s better. With the attention in the media and Congress, she feels maybe someone may support her after all.”

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Times staff writer Esther Schrader in Washington contributed to this report.