The Traffic Control Point

Geoffrey Millard, a soldier with the New York National Guard, was a general’s assistant in Iraq. He related a story he attended a briefing his boss about: a soldier at a traffic control point, faced with a speeding, oncoming car, “made a split-second decision” to fire “more than 200 rounds into the vehicle,” killing its inhabitants. “He then watched as the mother, father and two children were carried from that car.

“That evening, as it was briefed to the general — and I flipped the slides for that briefing — Col. [William] Rochelle, from the 42nd Infantry Division, DISCOM [Division Support Command] commander — and I have to apologize for a little vulgarity here, but I feel it’s intricate for my testimony — he turned in his chair to an entire division-level staff, and he said, and I quote, ‘If these fucking Hajjis learned to drive, this shit wouldn’t happen.’”

In January, Millard told me that story from the living room of his house in Petworth, which serves double duty as IVAW’s D.C. headquarters. “I was set back by that,” he told the Congressional Progressive Caucus today. “I expected for from high-ranking officers in a line unit. I expected a lot more.”