T
taekwondave"The Rolling Stone article describes in lurid detail how American troops allegedly killed an Afghan boy before mutilating his corpse. Soldiers Jeremy Morlock and Andrew Holmes had spotted a young farmer working by himself. Gul Mudin, 15 - only four years younger than Holmes - was the only Afghan in sight, had no weapons on him and had a âwelcomingâ face. Nobody else was around. Gul walked towards them when called and stopped when asked. Morlock tossed a grenade at him, using the wall as cover, then both soldiers opened fire. Gul fell face down into the ground and there was soon a pool of blood coming out from his head. Morlock screamed over the radio that he had come under attack, but Adam Winfield told his fellow soldier Ashton Moore that it was more likely a staged killing.
Morlock and Holmes told a sergeant that Gul had been about to attack them with a grenade and they therefore had to shoot him, reported the magazine.The story of a lone Taliban fighter, with one grenade attempting to ambush a platoon in broad daylight, seemed unlikely to top officer Captain Patrick Mitchell.But he told Staff Sergeant Kris Sprague to âmake sureâ Gul was dead. Sprague fired his rifle twice at the boy.
A local elder working nearby in the poppy fields came over and accused Morlock and Holmes of murder, but he was ignored by the soldiers. This elder was asked to identify the boy, but it tragically turned out that he was his dad. âThe father was very upset,â an official Army report noted. The soldiers followed Army protocol of cutting off the dead boyâs clothes and stripping him naked to check for tattoos, before scanning his iris and fingerprints. But then they began taking photographs of them celebrating the kill, with Holmes posing for the camera by grabbing Gulâs head by the hair as if he was a deer.
Staff Sergeant Calvin Gibbs then started âmessing around with the kidâ, moving his arms and mouth like a puppet, before slicing off the dead boy's finger and giving it to Holmes.
Holmes took the finger around with him in a zip-lock bag. 'He wanted to keep the finger forever and wanted to dry it out,' one of his friends said. 'He was proud of his finger.'
A few hours after the killing, Holmes and Morlock were playing cards and said they would bet a finger in a game of spades, before tossing Gulâs onto the pile.Medic Alyssa Reilly told investigators: âIt was grossâ.