Army colonel's memo foreshadowed doomed soldier's email

Army colonel's memo foreshadowed doomed soldier's email
By HOWARD ALTMAN
Tampa Tribune, Fla.
Published: October 15, 2012

Letter from doomed soldier helped change congressman's mind on Afghan withdrawal date

To Sarah Sitton, the scathing, eight-page memo written by Army Col. Harry Tunnell IV to the Secretary of the Army about problems in the area where her husband was deployed seemed eerily familiar.

The memo contained many of the same concerns her husband, Staff Sgt. Matt Sitton, 26, of Largo, raised in an email to Congressman C.W. Bill Young, as well as in emails home and in conversations via Skype.

"A gross lack of concern for subordinates," Tunnell wrote, "manifests itself in guidance that 'zero' civilian casualties are acceptable and coalition soldiers may have to be killed rather than defend themselves against a potential threat and risk being wrong and possibly resulting in injury or death of a civilian."

Reading Tunnell's memo was "kind of like hearing my husband speak all over again," said Sarah Sitton.

But for Sarah Sitton, as well as some of Sitton's friends in the 4th Brigade Combat Team of the 82nd Airborne Division, perhaps the most aggravating thing about Tunnell's memo was that it was written in August 2010. That was nearly two years before Sitton and 1st Sgt. Russell R. Bell, 37, of Tyler, Texas, were killed by an improvised explosive device in the same IED-laden field Sitton complained about being forced to walk through day after day for no reason.
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