Aberration in the Heartland of the Real: The Secret Lives of Timothy McVeigh

by Wendy S. Painting

On January 30, 1991, eleven U.S. Marines died after an American Maverick missile hit their personnel carrier. The Marines had been part of a forward reconnaissance patrol engaged in combat with Iraqi troops west of Khafji. Such events, said CENTCOM Chief of Staff, Major General Robert Johnston, were unfortunate, but normal, occurrences in war. A growing number of journalists alleged that, during the daily Pentagon press briefings (the only sanctioned source of information for them), inaccurate or wholly falsified information was being given to them. One example of this were the initial claims of military spokespeople that U.S. Marines had not played significant roles in the Khafji attacks. As journalists were not allowed there by the Pentagon, it was left to maverick reporters and photographers who had breached the Pentagons’ policy and gone there independently. On February 2, another U.S. Marine was killed by bombs dropped by American planes, who had confused the U.S. convoy with an Iraqi one. On February 4, 1991, that ‘mechanical failures’ caused an American B-52 to crash over the Indian Ocean. One AH-1 Cobra and one UH-1 Marine Corp helicopters accidently crashed over Saudi Arabia, killing the six passengers inside them.