KBR--You are Suspect!!!

I want everybody to take themselves away from their nice air conditioned home or office and imagine, if possible, that you are sitting in your barracks in Iraq. The date is January 2, 2008.

You are sitting back after a long day training Iraqi forces to protect their country. You are not an average soldier deployed to Iraq. You are a weapons expert in the 5th Special Forces group of the United States Army. It took you almost two years of your life to earn the coveted green beret and to become a master of all NATO and foreign weapons. Your job is to make sure that all of the weapons on your team function perfectly and the weapons of the Iraqis have bullets and are capable of firing. On top of that you are a master of counter insurgency warfare and can speak multiple languages. You are just as comfortable in battle as you are instructing a town on the proper way to build a water well or sewage drain.

Up to this point in your career, your time in SF has been exemplary. You have a plan and a fall back plan. First, you want to try out for the elite counter terrorist group known as the Special Forces Operational Detachment--Delta, aka Delta Force. The Unit selection process is one of the most grueling in the world and lasts for another year or more of your life. The Unit's training process is so secret that the government does not even acknowledge that it exists. But it is well known that it is based upon the famed British Special Air Services' selection process. If that fails you plan on applying to the Army Warrant Officer flight program to become a helicopter pilot.

You are currently fighting a war, but that does not stop your ambition. You are one of America's finest soldiers and hope to become a member of the best of the best. Your commanders revere your abilities and award you for your service. Only one year into your time as a Green Beret, you feel content, but anxious for a new challenge.

Back at your barracks you are given the chance to take a shower and get rid of the Iraqi sand that seems to penetrate every inch of your body. When you eat, you feel the grit of sand in your mouth. Your eyes, ears, nose, and any other imaginable place are caked with sand. You are ready to go scrub yourself in the base shower, even if the water is polluted and you are likely to catch some god forsaken disease from the water. You don't care. If you only had a muddy puddle of water to scrub in you would do it.

You grab your bathroom kit and head off for a few minutes of comfort. You hop into the shower and immediately feel something grab you. That is the last memory you will ever have. Your friends find you dead on the shower floor suffering from cardiac arrest. All that you have been through and it is not a bullet that takes your life, it isn't a road side bomb, it isn't a mortar that fell on your bed. It is the electrical wiring in the bathroom that was improperly installed!

Your name is Staff Sgt. Ryan D. Maseth and you have died of a heart attack at the age of twenty four because the contractor in charge of wiring your bathroom did not meet proper industry standards. Your parents at home will learn of your death and be shocked. Your brother serving in the 82nd Airborne will learn that you have fallen, not from the enemy, but from taking a shower. Special Forces lost one of their best and America lost a cherished son who ran head first into the most dangerous of professions in the world. There will be no Delta Force. There will be no flight school. All of your dreams lost because of poor wiring in a room where water is going to hit the floor.

The Army investigates and determines that your death is the result of negligent homicide. But today the President and CEO of KBR defends the work that they perform in Iraq. The reason why? Iraq is a difficult place to work. Why is he speaking now? The army hired an electrician to inspect their buildings in Iraq. His findings--90% or 70,000 buildings are not up to code. What does KBR say? Well we were expected to meet British codes not American codes.

All of his excuses do not matter. We lost one of our finest soldiers due to incompetent wiring. Sgt. Maseth was willing to give 100% in the worlds worst conditions. I guess it is too much to ask that those making millions of dollars off of military contracts to give a little extra effort for our men and women fighting a nasty war. Maseth was one of three electrocuted because of this work and there are many more wounded because of the wiring.

Well KBR, you let our service men and women down, their families, and the United States people who depend upon our soldiers for our safety and freedom. Your excuse that the environment was "extraordinary" and that you did your best simply does not cut it! Your excuse is suspect!

This weekend remember Staff Sgt. Ryan Maseth and all of those who have fallen in that mess we call Iraq.