Hjemmesiden wired.com, har netop interviewet Ethan McCord.  Han var en af de personer der kom til den position hvis det meget omtalte videoklip med Apache helikoptere, fra irak juli 2007.
Websitet Wikileaks offentliggjorde videoen i starten af april, der viser, hvordan amerikanske apache-helikoptere i 2007 angreb og dræbte mindst 12 mennesker i en forstad til Iraks hovedstad, Bagdad. USA’s militær har holdt fast på, at de dræbte var oprørere, mens kritikere har hævdet, at de dræbte var civile.

Ethan var én af de infanterister der ankom til stedet, og fandt den 10-årige Sajad Mutashar og hans fem-årige søster Doaha smurt ind i blod, i en varevogn.  Deres 43-årige far, Saleh, var i færd med at bringe hans børn i skole, da han opdagede en af de sårede mænd, bevæge sig i den gade hvor han kørte. Da han kørte over for at hjælpe manden, blev han offer for en  30mm Apache.
Ethan McCord var manden der bar den lille pige, over den åbne plads, som kunne ses i videoen.

Herunder er et lille udrag af interviewet med Ethan McCord :

Wired.com: At the time you arrived on the scene, you didn’t know what had happened, is that right?
Ethan McCord: Right. We were engaged in our own conflict roughly about three or four blocks away. We heard the gunships open up. [Then] we were just told … to move to this [other] location. It was pretty much a shock when we got there to see what had happened, the carnage and everything else.

Wired.com: But you had been in combat before. It shouldn’t have surprised you what you saw.
McCord: I have never seen anybody being shot by a 30-millimeter round before. It didn’t seem real, in the sense that it didn’t look like human beings. They were destroyed.

Wired.com: Was anyone moving when you got there other than the two children?
McCord: There were approximately two to three other people who were moving who were still somewhat alive, and the medics were attending to them.

Wired.com: The first thing you saw was the little girl in the van. She had a stomach wound?
McCord: She had a stomach wound and she had glass in her eyes and in her hair. She was crying. In fact, that’s one of the reasons I went to the van immediately, because I could hear her crying. It wasn’t like a cry of pain really. It was more of a child who was frightened out of her mind. And the next thing I saw was the boy…. He was kind of sitting on the floorboard of the van, but with his head laying on the bench seat in the front. And then the father, who I’m assuming was the father, in the driver’s seat slumped over on his side. Just from looking into the van, and the amount of blood that was on the boy and the father, I immediately figured they were dead.
So, the first thing I did was grab the girl. I grabbed the medic and we went into the back. There’s houses behind where the van was. We took her in there and we’re checking to see if there were any other wounds. You can hear the medic saying on the video, “There’s nothing I can do here, she needs to be evac’d.” He runs the girl to the Bradley. I went back outside to the van, and that’s when the boy took, like, a labored, breath. That’s when I started screaming, “The boy’s alive! The boy’s alive!” And I picked him up and started running with him over to the Bradley. He opened his eyes when I was carrying him. I just kept telling him, “Don’t die; don’t die.” He looked at me, then his eyes rolled back into this head.
Then I got yelled at by my platoon leader that I needed to stop trying to save these mf’n kids and go pull security…. I was told to go pull security on a rooftop. When we were on that roof, we were still taking fire. There were some people taking pot shots, sniper shots, at us on the rooftop. We were probably there on the roof for another four to five hours.

Læs hele interviewet på  http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2010/04/2007-iraq-apache-attack-as-seen-from-the-ground/#ixzz0lp6oDhB5

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