Missing US troops found dead

And it appears that they were tortured before they died. BAGHDAD, July 20 -- Two U.S. soldiers missing since an attack on a checkpoint last week have been found dead near a power plant in Yusifiyah, south of Baghdad, according to U.S. officials, and Iraqi officials say the soldiers had been tortured. Maj. Gen. Abdul Aziz Muhammed-Jassim, head of operations at the Iraqi Ministry of Defense, said the soldiers had been "barbarically" killed. U.S. officials would not confirm or deny that the men, who were identified Monday as Pfc. Kristian Menchaca, 23, of Houston and Pfc. Thomas L. Tucker, 25, of Madras, Ore., had been tortured by their captors. First off, our thoughts and prayers to the families of the two soldiers. These men were in Iraq, honorably fighting evil for the freedom and security of Iraqis. May you find some refuge in the greater good that they fought for. As far as the retreival of the bodies, our forces were extremely cautious and cordoned off the area to bring in bomb squads in to check for explosives in the area. It's truly disgusting that we need to be concerned about things like bombs around the tortured, dead bodies of our fine soldiers or even that the bodies themselves may have been booby-trapped. The WaPo article then goes on in an apparent attempt to compare the torture and murder of these two soldiers to the deaths of three Iraqi detainees while in US custody. Three soldiers have been charged in the deaths; they're alleged to have shot the detainees while in custody and are charged with premeditated murder, attempted murder, conspiracy, communicating a threat, and obstructing justice. They contend that the detainees were trying to escape. Why defile the memory of two brave soldiers with the dispicable actions of, what on the surface appears to be, three bad apples that make up a tenth of one percent on the entirity of our armed forces? I'm confident these three will be given a fair trial and justice will be done, but to link them and the detainees that they killed to the terrorists and the US soldiers they abducted, tortured, and "barbarically" killed is shameful.