In the Bedford County community of Hyndman, it's understandable that much support remains for Spc. Jeremy C. Sivits, who pleaded guilty and was sentenced Wednesday for his role in prisoner abuse at Abu Ghraib Prison in Iraq. Rightly or wrongly, the opinion persists that higher-ups in the military share in the responsibility for what happened at the prison but probably will escape the punishment that they deserve.

Hyndman's former mayor, Thomas V. Cunningham, expressed that sentiment after hearing Wednesday that a special court-martial had sentenced Sivits to a maximum penalty of one year in prison, a reduction in rank and a bad-conduct discharge. "Everybody on the street knows he's the sacrificial lamb," Cunningham said.

Bud Evans, 70, a neighbor of Sivits, said, "I want to see a sentence above the seven soldiers (accused in the prisoner-abuse scandal). Don't tell me it stops there with the seven soldiers."

While people in Hyndman are no different from other Americans in their unwillingness to condone what happened with the Iraqi prisoners, they are right in their firm belief that if adequate supervision had been in place at the prison, the abuse never would have occurred.

The military chain of command should have provided the protection from abuse of which it was capable. That it didn't raises serious questions about the command structure that was in place at the time the abuse occurred.

Although soldiers in a prisoner-supervision role should have by instinct known the difference between right and wrong - Hyndman residents and others know and acknowledge that - others above the troops at the prison were responsible for ensuring that correct procedures were followed at all times by all with direct contact with the prisoners.

The people of Hyndman shouldn't be looked upon with scorn for expressing support for their hometown soldier Sivits, who took pictures of naked Iraqi prisoners being humiliated by other troops and then opted to plead guilty. Millions of Americans, while not condoning the Vietnam War's infamous My Lai massacre, strongly believed that Lt. William L. Calley Jr. was the scapegoat for what happened in that abhorrent episode in which as many as 500 unarmed men, women and children were slaughtered. Calley was convicted of the murder of at least 22 civilians in a 4½-month-long court-martial in 1970 and 1971.

Of the two dozen charged in the massacre and subsequent coverup, including Calley's commanding officers, only Calley was found guilty - a longstanding basis for suspicion about how that investigation was handled.

How the Abu Ghraib situation will be brought to a conclusion won't be known for some time, but it must be a conclusion built upon a full investigation of the total range of culpability, implicating all who deserve to be implicated, no matter how high in the chain of command that goes. No one who deserves punishment should be spared.

The people of Hyndman deserve that in their continuing loyalty toward their hometown soldier, as much as the people of Iraq.

- J.R.K.