 |
 Issue Date: October 27, 2003
Mass mailing misfires
By Ledyard King
An Army battalion commander has taken responsibility for a campaign that sent hundreds of identical letters to hometown newspapers promoting his soldiers’ rebuilding efforts in Iraq.
Lt. Col. Dominic Caraccilo, who heads the 2nd Battalion of the 503rd Airborne Infantry Regiment, said he wanted to highlight his unit’s work and “share that pride with people back home.”
But neither he, nor Army officials, by press time could explain why many of the soldiers contacted by Gannett News Service said they never saw or signed the letter.
The 2-503, a regiment of the 173rd Airborne Brigade that’s about 800 soldiers strong, has spent the past few months in the northern Iraq city of Kirkuk restoring basic services.
Amid the daily headlines of bloodshed and unrest in Iraq, Caraccilo wanted to draw attention to the work of his troops.
Army officials revealed Oct. 14 that 500 identical form letters were sent to newspapers across the country with different signatures. The mass mailing was the wrong way to get the message out, they said.
The five-paragraph, typed form letter talks about the soldiers’ efforts to re-establish police and fire departments, build water and sewer plants and improve living conditions for the locals.
“The intention was good, but the delivery system was probably not a good way to do it because of misperceptions that could be taken,” said Lt. Col. Bill MacDonald, a spokesman for the 4th Infantry Division, which is leading operations in north-central Iraq. “You don’t want anybody out there saying I never saw that letter.”
No one was forced to sign the letter although most did, MacDonald said.
But six soldiers reached by Gannett directly or through their families said they agreed with the letter’s thrust. None of the soldiers said he wrote the letter, and one said he didn’t even sign it.
“I have no information on how that could have happened,” MacDonald told Army Times. Some soldiers put an original twist on the form letter by rewriting it so it could be in their own words, he said.
A seventh soldier didn’t know about the letter until his father congratulated him for getting it published in the local newspaper in Beckley, W.Va. “When I told him he wrote such a good letter, he said: ‘What letter?’.” Timothy Deaconson said Oct. 10, recalling the phone conversation he had with his son, Pfc. Nick Deaconson. “This is just not his style.”
Timothy Deaconson spoke to his son at a hospital where he was recovering from a grenade explosion that left shrapnel in both his legs.
Sgt. Shawn Grueser of Poca, W.Va., said he spoke to a military public affairs officer whose name he couldn’t remember about his accomplishments in Iraq for what he thought was a news release to be sent to his hometown paper in Charleston, W.Va. But the 2nd Battalion soldier said he did not sign any letter.
Although Grueser said he agrees with the letter’s sentiments, he was uncomfortable that a letter with his signature did not contain his own words or spell out his own accomplishments.
“It makes it look like you cheated on a test, and everybody got the same grade,” Grueser said by phone from a base in Italy where he had just arrived from Iraq.
No regulations violated
Caraccilo, in an e-mail to the 4th Infantry Division public affairs office that was read to Gannett, said he meant no harm with the form-letter campaign.
“We thought it would be a good idea to encapsulate what we as a battalion have accomplished since arriving in Iraq, and share that pride with people back home,” he wrote.
Attempts to reach Caraccilo directly were unsuccessful.
Martha Rudd, an Army spokeswoman in Washington, said Caraccilo did not violate any regulations.
Military officials said they were unaware of any plans to discipline Caraccilo and stressed that his aims were honorable.
The letter-writing campaign resembles the military’s Hometown News Release Program, in which service members fill out forms whenever they’ve been deployed, promoted or honored for some other accomplishment. The completed forms are sent to their local newspapers.
Caraccilo did not use the Hometown News Release Program to send the letters to the editor, MacDonald said.
Administration campaign
News of the letter-writing campaign emerged as President Bush and other administration officials were conducting their own campaign to emphasize successes in Iraq.
A recent poll suggests that Americans are increasingly skeptical of America’s prolonged involvement in Iraq. A USA Today-CNN-Gallup Poll released Sept. 23 found only 50 percent believe the situation in Iraq was worth going to war over, down from 73 percent in April.
Critics have focused on the cost of the Iraq war and President Bush’s recent request for $87 billion for continued military operations and rebuilding. Bush and his top aides recently began vigorously defending operations in Iraq in speeches across the United States.
Most of the letters were published during September, before the administration’s latest push to highlight U.S. efforts to rebuild the war-torn nation.
“The fruits of all our soldiers’ efforts are clearly visible in the streets of Kirkuk today,” the letter reads. “There is very little trash in the streets, many more people in the markets and shops, and children have returned to school.”
“The majority of the city has welcomed our presence with open arms,” the letter further reads.
The letter appeared in at least a dozen papers, according to a Gannett search. At least two other papers received the letter but declined to run it.
Sgt. Christopher Shelton, who signed a letter that ran in the Snohomish, Wash., paper, said his platoon sergeant had distributed the letter and asked soldiers for the names of their hometown newspapers. Soldiers were asked to sign the letter if they agreed with it, said Shelton, whose shoulder was wounded during an ambush earlier this year.
“Everything it said is dead accurate. We’ve done a really good job,” he said by phone from Italy where he was preparing to return to Iraq.
Amy Connell, mother of Pfc. Adam Connell, said her 20-year-old son signed the letter because he wants the public to know that much is being accomplished despite media reports that focus on bombings and unrest.
“They wanted people to get the other perspective of the good that is coming out of there,” said Amy Connell, of Sharon, Mass. “He is happy helping out there.”
The elder Deaconson, a former lieutenant colonel, agrees with the letter’s message. But he worries that the tactic of a form letter might backfire on his son, Nick, and others who signed it.
“It seems to me this is a well-intended gesture to tell the other side of the story, one that the media may not be gleaning because it’s happening on a small scale every day,” he said. But “if the average person found that Nick didn’t write the letter, it might take a little something away from it.”
Army Times staff writer Jane McHugh contributed to this report.
|
|
|