Joe Anan; BS story in The Guardian

There is this guy who calls himself Joe Anan. Clearly, looking at the name tag in the picture above, that wasn’t his real name. I’ve seen his BS floating around social media for several months in several of the groups that I monitor – one is the group of the Infantry Battalion that I served with in Desert Storm – 1st Battalion 41st Infantry of the 2nd Armored Division (Forward). This fellow (whatever his name is) claims that we left him out in the desert to fend for himself for three months after Desert Storm. He took his fantasy to The Guardian that was more than happy to print his BS. His claim is that he was assigned to our Support Battalion. After Desert Storm, we ran a screen between the Iraqi Army and the fleeing Shi’ites. Some of our companies built refugee camps for the Shi’ites. ANyway, here are snippets of “Joe’s” story;

Then word reached us that a soldier in the Rafha refugee camp run by the US army, in northern Saudi Arabia, needed help: he’d been operating a fork lift for weeks and was desperate for a break. It was only for three days, so I offered to cover.

We flew there in a helicopter and, as I climbed out, the guy I was replacing ran past me and jumped in, saying, “See you, buddy!” Three days later, there was no sign of him. I couldn’t check where he was with my superiors, because I had no walkie-talkie or mobile. Everything in the military is on a need-to-know basis, so I didn’t question it – I was 22 at the time.

Who calls them “walkie-talkies”? Anyway, he claims that he had a few months of MREs, a forklift and a tanker full of fuel. Initially, he was a few hundred yards from a two thousand man unit (yeah, that’s about the size of an infantry battalion) led by a single lieutenant. One morning “Joe” woke up and they were all gone – he hadn’t heard two thousand people leaving in the middle of the night.

So, Joe, where did the refugees go? That was the reason that we were in Rafha – to house Iraqi refugees. By the way, Joe, Rafha is in Saudi Arabia, not Kuwait, no wonder you were lost.

Anyway, he claims that he had enough fuel that for three months he went out driving his forklift looking for American units. Until one fateful day;

One morning, I was out driving and thought I saw a sandstorm coming, but knew that it was far too early. I swerved to the left of it and drove as fast as I could.

Then I realised [sic] it was a convoy of trucks with two tanks. One fired a warning shot at me, but I kept going. As they got closer, a man shouted, “Man, where the hell did you come from?” I said, “I’ll tell you, just get me out of here first!”

Tanks just drive around the desert firing warning shots at anything that moves, I guess. I didn’t know that tanks had “warning shot” rounds. And what’s that BS about being “too early” for a sandstorm? I didn’t know they only happened at certain times of day.

It turned out I’d lost track of time: they told me it was May; I’d been alone for three months.

Eventually, I rejoined my unit in northern Germany. When I stepped through the door, one of the guys fell to the floor in amazement – he thought he’d seen a ghost. Most of them thought I had died.

I was still in Saudi Arabia in May, too – I’d stayed behind to ship our Bradleys back to Germany when our humanitarian mission had ended, but I’d never heard anything about Joe Lost Boy being found.

No one has taken responsibility for abandoning me, and there was no investigation. So much for the army adage, “We never leave a soldier behind.” I originally joined the army because I had been abused as a child, and I wanted to prove to myself no one could hurt me again, and that I could protect people. I now know no one can break me, but I will never get over feeling utterly abandoned.

On his Facebook page, he claims that he’s finding proof that his Lieutenant left him behind on purpose as “an act of revenge” for something. Sounds plausible – the Army doesn’t have layers of records to track personnel. They can just drive off and leave them.

Even if they did want to leave him to die, some clerk would have gotten antsy about a forklift and a tanker truck that was with him, wouldn’t they? That’s accountable property that someone would have to pay for.

Of course, now he’s saying that he was only missing for three weeks, not three months, you know because our group is calling BS on him in contradiction to what he told The Guardian. I saw a lot of stupid BS go on in 1/41, the 498th Support Battalion and 2d AD, but I would never accuse them of leaving a private in the desert to fend for himself. I have no proof that it didn’t happen, but he doesn’t any proof that it did happen either.

So, now he’s claiming that he went back to Garlstedt with 1/41 Infantry rear detachment that shipped their Bradley fighting vehicles back to Germany after the war. i was the NCOIC of that detail and he wasn’t attached to us. After that lie was exposed, he said he was attached to a Marine Corps unit guarding their swimming pool. The Marines wouldn’t let the Army use their swimming pool because we wouldn’t give them a detail to clean up after them – and we weren’t there to swim.

Category: Dumbass Bullshit