Army News, news from Iraq, - Army Times

Accused soldier says he is not a murderer

ATLANTA — A soldier charged with premeditated murder in the June 23 death of an Iraqi says he did nothing wrong.

Army Spc. Christopher Phillip Shore, 25, said in an e-mail to The Atlanta Journal-Constitution that he is being punished for being honest with his superiors about a mission he felt was morally wrong.

“I’m not a murderer,” the Winder native wrote. “This isn’t fair to me or my family.”

Army officials have declined to discuss the details of the case.

While on a mission in al Saheed, a village near Kirkuk in northern Iraq, Shore says he and his fellow soldiers were ordered by their patrol leader, Sgt. 1st Class Trey Corrales, to “kill all the males” in a house where the 2-35 Infantry’s Alpha Company was allegedly trapped by insurgents. During the mission, Shore said he heard shots pierce the night air.

He ran toward the sound and found Corrales standing over a badly injured man on the ground at the backdoor of the house.

Corrales, 34, ordered Shore to “finish him,” but Shore said he purposely missed the man when he fired his M-4 Carbine.

“It was an intense, complicated mission,” Shore said. “We had to be switched on. Everything was split-second decisions.”

The wounded suspect was treated by medics and evacuated to a combat hospital, where he died two days later from gunshot wounds.

Shore’s attorney, Michael Waddington, says bullets fired from his client’s weapon did not hit the man. An autopsy showed the five gunshots that killed the man were fired from a distance rather than at close range, Waddington said.

Hours after the incident, Shore and four other soldiers agreed to tell their supervising sergeants about the shooting. They felt what happened was wrong and morally compromising.

In the end, battalion commander Lt. Col. Michael Browder was relieved of his command and Corrales, who is from San Antonio, and Shore were charged with premeditated murder.

Now shore is half prisoner, barred from carrying his weapon or riding out in a Humvee onto Iraq’s battlefields. If he’s found guilty, he could get the death penalty.

The Army is scheduled to hold a hearing on the case in the fall. By then, Shore’s unit will be back at Schoefield Barracks in Hawaii.

He is hopeful the Army will let him come home to Georgia to see his family — especially his two daughters — before the trial begins.