posted by Jennifer Hlad on Jan 30
Those who followed the court of inquiry from the beginning will remember testimony about Marines throwing rocks at vehicles on Highway 1. I’ve gotten a few comments and questions about that, so I wanted to go back over what the Marines said and what was said about rock throwing later in the inquiry.
The first day of testimony, Staff Sgt. Travers told the panel that unlike in Iraq, where motorists generally pull off the road when they see a convoy coming, drivers in Afghanistan tend to stay in their lane, maintain their speed and continue driving toward the convoy. The morning of March 4, he said drivers were even ”less courteous” on the way back toward Jalalabad than they had been on the way out.
On the way back, before the explosion, Travers said he saw the gunner in vehicle two making “throwing motions” and saw an oncoming taxi swerve off the road. Travers said he later saw a hole in that vehicle’s windshield he believed was from the gunner throwing a rock. He also said he told the Marines in the Humvee — including the interpreter and Capt. Noble — “that’s the kind of stuff that’s going to get us blown up around here.”
Other Marines testified that the gunners did throw rocks at oncoming vehicles when they did not respond to hand and arm signals, and that the Marines used rocks instead of flares, which they used in Iraq but did not have in Afghanistan.
That same day, Staff Sgt. Jose Queiro, the gunner in vehicle 3, testified that ”the rocks were working.” The interpreter and the driver of vehicle 3 both testified they did not remember hearing Travers say anything about the rock throwing.
At least two Marines — Staff Sgt. Queiro and Staff Sgt. Sheik — testified they would have fired warning shots at some of the vehicles the gunners only threw rocks at, because of the drivers’ aggressive behavior.
And later in the inquiry, Sheik said the taxi Travers was referring to would have had to have a “boulder” thrown at it to cause the damage it sustained. An Army EOD specialist testified the damage to that windshield was consistent with IED blast damage.
Sheik also testified that he had heard about the rock throwing from soldiers, who said it was standard operating procedure. Retired Master Sgt. Elder said the rock throwing idea came from Army special operations soldiers.
“The rocks came from the ODA,” Elder said. “I went out on patrol with them and asked them how they kept the vehicles at bay,” since the drivers reacted differently than in Iraq. They said they threw rocks at the road and the hood of the vehicles, Elder told the Marines.
“I told them, ‘Here’s the method the ODA’s using — you may want to use it,” Elder said. “It worked.”