Bellesiles writes again ... and gets pounded again

The name of the Marine Lance Cpl. killed is Tyler Owen Griffin, 19 years old.

Bellisiles has already been demoted to Adjunct Professor and seems to be aiming even lower. He's determined to end up teaching English as a Second Language in some obscure South American hamlet where nobody has guns or the Internet but the Narco trafficantes.

Injured personnel don't get left in Iraq, no matter how badly injured they are: The place is simply too dirty (from a microbiological point) for that. The injured are evacuated with the bareset minimum of life-sustaining surgery to Germany, where definitive or additional stabilizing surgery can be performed in aseptic conditions.

Bellesilies is full of shit (again). He's got issues with reality.

Aparently, Bellesiles is listed on the University's web site, contrary to some reports. The rest of the story seems just as fishy, however.

Here you go (according to iCasualties.org):

4/1/2010
Griffin, Tyler O.
Lance Corporal
19
Hostile - hostile fire - IED attack
Helmand Marjah
U.S. Marine
Connecticut
Voluntown
1st Battalion, 2nd Marine Regiment, 2nd Marine Division, II Marine Expeditionary Force
Camp Lejeune, NC

This Tyler Owen Griffin doesn't fit the profile.

Bellesiles said Ernesto's brother Javier (names changed to protect the family) was in the Army, sent to Iraq and died by sniper fire.

Griffin was in the Marines, died in Afghanistan, from an IED.

I don't think Tyler Owen Griffin is the person Bellesiles is referring to.

In fact, no one from Connecticut has died in Iraq since May 30, 2008.

This is all very strange coming from a "historian".

Not so strange for THIS 'historian'...he's got a 'history' of making stuff up.

If you check the actual article you will find this sentence about this student.

"He made striking parallels between the resistance to allowing women to serve and our "don't ask, don't tell" policy."

I would find it more surprising that this student would just happen to bring up DADT. One should note however that people making up stories tend to add things into them that should automatically catch people's attention.

Come on people! We gun rights supporters have to be a whole lot more precise in our thinking and in putting our arguments forward than what I see here.

One of my sisters went to school in the middle of Virginia, another in Minnesota. I on the other was born, raised, educated and currently live in California. If I had died fighting in Afghanistan or Iraq, where would you all assume I was from? Virginia? Minnesota?

I didn't see anywhere in the articles where Connecticut was established as Javier's state of residency. Nor did I see where Ernesto's residency was established. Neither brother could be from Connecticut as far as I know.

I know that Clayton Cramer and others have established Mr. Bellesilles to be a tremendous liar, but I don't see anything in this article that necessarily proves he's lying this time.

Although, FLIGHTERDOC gives some good ammunition that I'd hang my hat on in this particular case.

I agree.

I think everyone is jumping the gun, in assuming that Bellesilles is lying. Bellesilles' own history doesn't suggest he has any great respect for the truth, but...

Perhaps the assumptions about Connecticut residency are wrong. Or maybe Bellesilles was lied to? Could not "Javier" have made up the story about his brother, to get some bothersome instructor off his back?

Well, Bellesilles might not be lying ... but you can't "jump the gun" calling him a liar given his history.

If Bellesiles was told this fantastic story, he should have confirmed it. Especially considering his checkered history of confabulation.

His story about a wounded service member not being able to be evac'd because of wounds is total fantasy.

"I think everyone is jumping the gun, in assuming that Bellesilles is lying."

Bellesiles has earned that level of respect. The best you can say about him is that his "honest" errors always serve his personal bias.

Bellesiles is from the "fake but accurate" school of truth telling. If you jump through enough intellectual hoops (of his choosing) you have to admit that the story could possibly be true, and possibly true is as good as true. If it serves the agenda. Once you get to that place, arguments about facts only serve to distract.

Yes, agreed. One should not "jump the gun", and initial scholarly claims by Lindgren were rather mild.

However, much further analysis, including of all DOD "casualty report[s] from last fall for both Iraq and Afghanistan and [reviewing] news obituaries for most of them" has only weakened the case that Bellesiles is recounting truth.

So law professor Jim Lindgren has just posted an update here: http://volokh.com/2010/07/09/serious-questions-about-the-veracity-of-michael-bellesiles%E2%80%99s-latest-tale/

In my view, this ADDITIONAL research on the story by Lindgren warrants an update to the original post by Mr. Hardy.

The only wounded who stay in Iraq are those who will be returned to duty shortly.

I was seriously injured in Iraq in 2004. Severe head injury, for several weeks it was unknown if I would survive (fine now). I was sent to Baghdad, then Landstuhl, then Walter Reed. I was at Walter Reed in THREE DAYS. The medical evacuation aircraft are essentially flying hospitals.

Evacuation is sometimes delayed to allow the wounded to stabilize, but we're talking a matter of days, not weeks. As noted above, nobody wants seriously wounded troops hanging around in Iraq because of the infection risk. Google "acinetobacter".