US: A Presbyterian minister, who was an embedded reporter with his son's US Marine company which is accused of killing 24 Iraqi civilians in Haditha, said soldiers in private moments gave no indication that anything horrible had happened in the town.
Rather, the young men in Kilo company, 3rd battalion, 1st marine regiment talked about earlier intense fighting in Falluja and other wartime ordeals.
"I would think that if it was as bad as everybody is making it out to be, I'd have heard something about it when I was there," said the Rev Ben Mathes (53) whose son, First Lieut Adam Mathes, is Kilo company's executive officer.
The military is investigating whether some soldiers from Kilo company went on a deadly rampage in November after an explosive device killed one of the most popular members of the unit, Lance Cpl Miguel Terrazas.
The father spent 12 days with the unit in January in Haditha as a reporter with the Sacramento, California-based K-Love Christian Radio Network.
"It was freezing cold and everybody gathered around this kind of metal fireplace . . . Not once did anything come up that something horrible had happened.
"They talked about the first battle of Falluja and things that haunt them. They'd talk about how they had mortars land right beside them that were duds and three landed right beside them and a third one went off and it injured the buddy next to them and they didn't get hit."
He said he also did not feel animosity from Iraqis he encountered while on patrol with Kilo company in Haditha.
"You would think that if something horrible had happened they would just disappear or just have nothing to do with these folks," he said.
"They came out on the streets and brought us bread and tea and invited us into their homes. The businessmen would have them come into their shops."
With the US senate planning hearings into the Haditha incident, which has further soured global perceptions of the US intervention in Iraq, the Rev Mathes said the marines were being unfairly maligned.
"How do you think it makes these kids feel, to come in exhausted . . . turn on the TV set and be told they are just full of crap and they snapped and are just not worth a damn?" he asked.
"Why in the world would any young person want to continue to defend our county if that is what they are hearing?"