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Infantrymen deliver terror suspects to court, not to death

Jun-10-2005 » Filed Under: 1/25 SBCT

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MATT MISTEREK; The News Tribune

MOSUL, Iraq – It would have been so easy for Staff Sgt. Olene Togiailua to pull the trigger again and kill Abdullah Al Jabouri after the firefight was over.

Togiailua and his Stryker brigade buddy, Staff Sgt. Wilson Langford, spoke together that day in their native Samoan, adrenaline racing, both men struggling with the impulse to finish off the enemy fighter who lay on the ground with a bullet in his upper leg.

But the Fort Lewis soldiers not only resisted killing the man who’d shot at them, they also made sure his wounds were treated, took him into custody and ultimately saw justice done.

Abdullah is the first, and so far only, detainee of the 1st Brigade, 25th Infantry Division to be convicted by the Central Criminal Court of Iraq. He was sentenced to 10 years in prison for terrorism activities.

He also was the poster boy of a coalition information campaign in his hometown of Hammam al Alil and in southern Mosul.

Soldiers from the 361st Psychological Operations Company, an Army Reserve unit from Bothell, created handbills and leaflets trumpeting his fate. They dropped them from a helicopter and had soldiers hand them out in the streets.


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