VALDOSTA — A group of politicians representing a broad spectrum of Americans took up the fight of a few last week.

On July 23, five United States senators sent a letter to Secretary of the Army John McHugh requesting he meet with them to discuss the Army’s justification for overriding findings regarding an investigation into the 2008 Battle of Wanat.

The Wanat attack left nine soldiers dead and 27 wounded from Chosen Company, 173rd Airborne, 2nd Battalion, 503rd Infantry, based out of Italy.

The request by the senators comes weeks after the parents of those nine soldiers were briefed at Fort McPherson in Atlanta by Lt. Gen. Richard Natonski, commander of Marine Corps Forces Command.

Natonski was appointed to lead the investigation by the former head of Central Command and the current leader of the military forces in Afghanistan, Gen. David Petraeus.

During the meeting Natonski provided evidence detailing the failings of the mission, many of which compounded the danger for the soldiers on July 13, 2008.

Following Natonski’s briefing and proposed reprimands for the commanding officers, which were signed off on by Petraeus, retired Gen. Charles C. Campbell spoke with the parents and ruled not to reprimand any of the commanding officers in question.

Until July 1 of this year, Campbell served as the commanding general of United States Army Forces Command at Fort McPherson.

On July 23, U.S. Senators Jim Webb (D-Va.), Daniel Akaka (D-Hawaii), Saxby Chambliss (R-Ga.), Patty Murray (D-Wash.) and Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.) sent a letter to McHugh requesting clearer answers regarding the Army’s decision.

“General Campbell’s decision to exonerate the officers identified by General Natonski as being derelict in their duties owing to inaction prior to the battle has raised a number of troubling issues,” the letter states.

The letter requests that McHugh meet with the senators to discuss the Army’s justification in “overriding the findings of an independent investigation that was specifically tasked to assess the circumstances surrounding the combat action and to make finding of fact and opinions regarding the accountability of staff and commanders.”

The briefing at Fort McPherson left the parents in tatters, said Frankie Gay, the father of Cpl. Pruitt Allen Rainey, 22, who was killed at Wanat.

“We were just in tears, we were in shock, completely dismayed. We were lost,” he said.

They contacted Webb who first pushed for the second investigation and received little comfort as to where to go from there.

“He really said there is nothing else possible that you can do at this point. The only option you have is to go through the Senate Armed Services Committee,” Gay said.

The parents went back home, to Georgia, Hawaii, Washington and Missouri, and began contacting their senators. Which worked.

Within the letter, the senators state that Campbell justified his decision to exonerate the officers as they exercised “... a degree of care that a reasonably prudent person would have exercised under the same or similar circumstances.”

The senators state that Natonski and Petraeus are familiar with Campbell’s review and rationale but both stated they stood by their re-investigation and findings.

“We as parents have done everything we can do,” Gay said. “It’s good to know that we have a voice and not only in our government. It’s good to know that our voice matters and we do have senators that will listen and take our thoughts and concerns and apply them and have an objective view to make a decision and move forward.”

On July 26, Gay sent a letter to Chambliss, written with the help of all the parents, that details Campbell’s statements and counters them using information the parents learned through the Army’s initial investigation, the Douglas Cubbison report and Natonski’s findings.

The hope is the senators will use those questions and concerns as a starting point when they sit down with McHugh and, hopefully, Petraeus.

“From a common sense standpoint, how would a retired general, four-star general, head of Army, head of ForceCom, have the guts and the marbles to go against the Department of Defense,” Gay said. “I don’t understand it.”

In a written statement from Chambliss, the Georgia senator said he got involved after hearing from the families of the fallen soldiers who called his office expressing concern about the Army’s handling of the matter.

“I believe the Army should further explain its findings to provide more information regarding its decisions related to the Battle of Wanat,” he wrote. “These soldiers honorably served their country, and we believe the families’ concerns need to be fully addressed.”

The parents got even more help when thousands of documents detailing military maneuvers in Afghanistan were posted on the Web site Wikileaks over the weekend.

The documents, which number in the thousands, detail various battles, outposts and insurgent movements.

Gay said one document released discusses a report that a predator drone documented 60-plus insurgents carrying AK-47s and rocket-propelled grenades in 12 trucks headed toward Wanat in the days leading up to the company’s move to the village.

Looking at that report, among others that detail similar attacks on other outposts in the area, makes it imperative for parents and family members to speak out, he said.

“It just proves, no doubt, that everybody knew the attack was there, everybody knew the Taliban were there,” Gay said.

Gay has been informed that the senators hope to meet with McHugh before Congress recesses in two weeks. If the meeting does not happen before the recess, it will occur once Congress reconvenes.

McHugh, to Gay’s knowledge, has yet to respond to the senators’ request.

For Gay the negligence did not occur the day of the attack but over the weeks and months spent planning the move.

“There was no commander oversight, no risk mitigation. They ignored the reports from the platoon leader and the company commander didn’t get there until that Saturday afternoon, so he didn’t have enough time to do anything,” Gay said. “That’s when the decisions were made, not in the heat of battle.”

Closure has come slowly for Gay and the other parents.

“Our whole goal was to honor our sons and hopefully save a few lives,” he said. “The way the war is being handled is so derelict, so mismanaged ... as a parent, once you realize that, you’ve got to do something about it. You can’t bring back your son, you can’t change what happened, you can only look forward.”

But finding closure does not mean the parents have given up on seeing the commanding officers reprimanded.

“I don’t see how they cannot be reprimanded,” Gay said. “We are kind of waiting until the end of the movie, so to speak. We haven’t found an ending.”



Battle of Wanat

Seventy-six personnel, a mix of American soldiers and Afghan soldiers, would be the sum total of forces at Wanat when it was overrun by an estimated 120 insurgents in the pre-dawn hours of July 13, 2008.

Rocket-propelled grenades rendered the unit’s mortars ineffective and the insurgents descended on the combat outpost. The observation post was assaulted the hardest, and in just 15 minutes, all nine soldiers at the post were either killed or injured.

By the time air support arrived hours later, nine soldiers were dead.

The soldiers stationed at Wanat were members of C Company, 173rd Airborne, 2nd Battalion, 503rd Infantry, based out of Italy.

C Company, or Chosen Company, 2nd Platoon was ordered to relocate to Wanat with two weeks left in its 15-month deployment.

In a report, Douglas Cubbison of the U.S. Army Combat Studies Institute concluded that no senior commander ever visited Wanat before establishing it as an outpost and it was “highly questionable” whether these commanders exercised due diligence when they ordered a platoon to move there. He writes that the Combined Joint Task Force, which heads operations in Afghanistan, did not place adequate emphasis upon the planning, implementation and sustainment of the move to Wanat.

Cubbison also states that the lack of heavy equipment to fortify defenses and the lack of intelligence support directly contributed to the casualties suffered on July 13.

In Natonski’s executive summary of the second investigation that was sent to Petraeus on Jan. 12, the names of the commanding officers are blocked out. They are listed as the battalion commander, company commander and brigade commander.

At the time of the attack, Lt. Col. William Ostlund served as battalion commander and Col. Charles Preysler served as brigade commander.

Capt. Matthew Myer served as the commander on the ground at the time of the attack.

Earlier this year Myer, Preysler and Ostlund received letters of reprimand from Campbell from the United States Army regarding the battle of Wanat.

In a document dated Jan. 21, Petraeus states that he is “satisfied that the report of investigation accurately details the relevant facts, draws informed opinions from those facts and makes appropriate recommendations concerning the combat action in Wanat.”

He goes on to state that the brigade commander, “should have known of its (Wanat) inadequacies with respect to planning, researching and supervision.”

This “culpable inefficiency” constituted a dereliction of duty, stated Petraeus.

Natonski and his investigators interviewed 48 witnesses under oath from all levels of command, according to a July 12 memo to Petraeus regarding the findings of the second investigation.

At the end of April when Campbell was charged with implementing these charges, he was advised and recommended by the Department of Defense not to do a review and not to talk to any of the commanders in question.

 Campbell, however, met with the three commanding officers, who he said provided him with new information that caused him to reverse the letters of reprimand and exonerate the officers in question.

Since this battle and several others that have claimed numerous American lives in the Waigal Valley, where Wanat is located, the area has been closed to United States Armed Forces.

To view videos and news stories from various media outlets and to learn more about Cpl. Pruitt Allen Rainey, his fellow soldiers and the battle of Wanat, visit Playing for Pruitt on Facebook.