Angus:

Your third point doesn't help Bellesiles because the person you refer to died on the same day he was attacked. I have read scores of accounts from fall 2009 and so far I don't think there are any Iraqi or Afghan deaths that are even remotely close matches to Bellesiles's story.

James Lindgren

In my review of several sites, but chiefly ICasualties, I find no Connecticut military killed in Iraq in 2009 or 2010 (and only one in 2008, a Marine who died from a non-hostile cause). If one expands the search to all US military deaths in Iraq from all US states and territories from the beginning of the Fall 2009 semester through the end of classes in the May 2010 semester, I could find no deaths from any state that fit Bellesiles's account (Iraq War, recent Army enlistee, hostile fire from a rifle or similar weapon, lingering death). Nor did my quick review of all US military deaths in Afghanistan during the last two CCSU semesters turn up any likely prospects (though I would need a closer review to be certain), if one changed the theater from Iraq to Afghanistan.

Thus it appears that Bellesiles's account is false in at least some trivial respect--probably in the term he taught the course and in the circumstances of "Javier's" service or death.

Further, without personal knowledge of Army procedures, I found it strange that a critically injured US soldier would not be brought to Germany for treatment over a period of several weeks. Further, while not suspicious in itself, at this stage of the Iraqi War almost all US deaths occur on the same day as the attack or on the following day. Indeed, this detail alone can be used to exclude most deaths in Iraq and Afghanistan in the last year.

If I had to guess, I would suspect that the story Bellesiles told in the Chronicle is mostly true; after all, it would be too easy for the Chronicle or Bellesiles's department chair to check the facts with "Ernesto" and with Joe, Bellesiles's teaching assistant. Yet some things reported by Bellesiles in the Chronicle appear to be false: the term he says he taught Military History is inconsistent with CCSU's website, and the facts of "Javier's" Army service and death in Iraq do not match any deaths reported by the Department of Defense for soldiers from any US state or territory.

And note that Bellesiles opens his Chronicle article with a warning that many military stories can't be trusted, even eyewitness ones. Is this his sly way of warning us that he doesn't fully trust "Ernesto's" account himself or that Bellesiles is telling us a tall tale? For his sake, I hope not.

[more at VOLOKH.COM]

James Lindgren, JD, Ph.D.
Professor of Law
Northwestern University