KingHashirama
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Is the Commander in Chief (The president) doing its job? Is he even the commander in Chief?
Should military laws get more strict? Should people only join the military , if they know they can take the stress?
military judge last week found Army Sgt. John Russell guilty of gunning down five fellow soldiers at a base in Iraq.
Victims’ family members hugged and wept at the verdict. Russell stood quietly, head down.
Friends and family say he was “combat stressed” by a third tour. “Snapped,” they say. He should have been sent home.
Prosecutors argued that Russell was angry about not getting a mental disability discharge and took out revenge.
Is the respect that America holds for its military — a pride shown over the weekend in Armed Forces Day observances — being undercut by acts of mayhem, a growing sexual abuse scandal and a flurry of other misconduct cases grabbing headlines?
Jury selection is scheduled to start later this month in the court-martial of Maj. Nidal Hasan, the Army psychiatrist charged with 13 counts of premeditated murder at Fort Hood, Texas. By the time testimony begins for Hasan, the trial for WikiLeaks leaker Bradley Manning should also be underway.
There is Robert Bales. He is the Army sergeant charged with the massacre of 16 Afghan civilians, including nine children. At pretrial hearings, the military said it would seek the death penalty.
Throw in record suicides. Throw in what Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Martin Dempsey deemed last week a “crisis” of military rape and vows by Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel to make the court-martial system more accountable.
Throw in 17 Air Force officers stripped recently of nuclear missile launch duty because of repeated failings. (“Rot,” a commander called it.) And add a Marine captain charged with dereliction because of an incident last year in which his men urinated on corpses of Taliban fighters.
“Every one of these cases is different. Each has its own logic. But I do think a broader phenomenon is at work” within a military that has been fighting nonstop since 2001, said John Nagl, a retired Army lieutenant colonel and expert in counterinsurgency.
“We’re seeing a strain on an institution that’s been asked to give probably more than it should have been asked to give,” he said.
This is a unique, troubling and puzzling time for the nation’s armed forces. Never before have they seen such a perfect storm of murder cases, self-destructive behavior and cries for help.
This in a country in which citizens consistently rank the military as the nation’s most trusted institution. “Support Our Troops” stickers adorn thousands, maybe millions, of cars. Strangers pick up restaurant tabs for men and women in uniform.
So for the next few months, as high-profile cases go to court and frustrated members of Congress call for sexual assaults to be removed from the military chain of command, what are people supposed to think?
“They are supposed to think we’ve been at war a long time and that bad things are going to happen,” said Cindy Williams, a principal research scientist and defense analyst in the securities studies program at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
“If we’re at war long enough, My Lai happens,” added Williams, referring to the 1968 slaughter of a Vietnam village by a U.S. unit commanded by Lt. William Calley.
The spate of incidents is certainly raising questions about what happens to a military force in prolonged war with multiple deployments. As things play out, the reputation of the military could take a hit.
“At some point, it’s going to undermine public confidence in the military,” said Victor Hansen, a retired JAG officer and now vice president of the National Institute of Military Justice.
Eugene Fidell, a veteran teaching military justice at Yale, said, however, that we should not lose sight that the U.S. military is generally made up of well-behaved troops with a low level of criminality and few incidents of desertion and insubordination.
Nothing other than timing connects Russell, Bales, Hasan and Manning, he said. And most service personnel aren’t committing sexual abuse.
“But people should be concerned that these things are happening all at once,” Fidell said. “Red flags are obviously being missed. Even personnel matters that are staring them right in the face. Hasan clearly showed he should not have been in his job. Pvt. Manning should never have had security clearance.”
And in combat zones, field commanders don’t want to hear that a soldier is having issues.
“They don’t want to lose another soldier,” Fidell said. “So they say, ‘Hey, everybody’s a little goofy out here.’ ”
Victims’ family members hugged and wept at the verdict. Russell stood quietly, head down.
Friends and family say he was “combat stressed” by a third tour. “Snapped,” they say. He should have been sent home.
Prosecutors argued that Russell was angry about not getting a mental disability discharge and took out revenge.
Is the respect that America holds for its military — a pride shown over the weekend in Armed Forces Day observances — being undercut by acts of mayhem, a growing sexual abuse scandal and a flurry of other misconduct cases grabbing headlines?
Jury selection is scheduled to start later this month in the court-martial of Maj. Nidal Hasan, the Army psychiatrist charged with 13 counts of premeditated murder at Fort Hood, Texas. By the time testimony begins for Hasan, the trial for WikiLeaks leaker Bradley Manning should also be underway.
There is Robert Bales. He is the Army sergeant charged with the massacre of 16 Afghan civilians, including nine children. At pretrial hearings, the military said it would seek the death penalty.
Throw in record suicides. Throw in what Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Martin Dempsey deemed last week a “crisis” of military rape and vows by Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel to make the court-martial system more accountable.
Throw in 17 Air Force officers stripped recently of nuclear missile launch duty because of repeated failings. (“Rot,” a commander called it.) And add a Marine captain charged with dereliction because of an incident last year in which his men urinated on corpses of Taliban fighters.
“Every one of these cases is different. Each has its own logic. But I do think a broader phenomenon is at work” within a military that has been fighting nonstop since 2001, said John Nagl, a retired Army lieutenant colonel and expert in counterinsurgency.
“We’re seeing a strain on an institution that’s been asked to give probably more than it should have been asked to give,” he said.
This is a unique, troubling and puzzling time for the nation’s armed forces. Never before have they seen such a perfect storm of murder cases, self-destructive behavior and cries for help.
This in a country in which citizens consistently rank the military as the nation’s most trusted institution. “Support Our Troops” stickers adorn thousands, maybe millions, of cars. Strangers pick up restaurant tabs for men and women in uniform.
So for the next few months, as high-profile cases go to court and frustrated members of Congress call for sexual assaults to be removed from the military chain of command, what are people supposed to think?
“They are supposed to think we’ve been at war a long time and that bad things are going to happen,” said Cindy Williams, a principal research scientist and defense analyst in the securities studies program at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
“If we’re at war long enough, My Lai happens,” added Williams, referring to the 1968 slaughter of a Vietnam village by a U.S. unit commanded by Lt. William Calley.
The spate of incidents is certainly raising questions about what happens to a military force in prolonged war with multiple deployments. As things play out, the reputation of the military could take a hit.
“At some point, it’s going to undermine public confidence in the military,” said Victor Hansen, a retired JAG officer and now vice president of the National Institute of Military Justice.
Eugene Fidell, a veteran teaching military justice at Yale, said, however, that we should not lose sight that the U.S. military is generally made up of well-behaved troops with a low level of criminality and few incidents of desertion and insubordination.
Nothing other than timing connects Russell, Bales, Hasan and Manning, he said. And most service personnel aren’t committing sexual abuse.
“But people should be concerned that these things are happening all at once,” Fidell said. “Red flags are obviously being missed. Even personnel matters that are staring them right in the face. Hasan clearly showed he should not have been in his job. Pvt. Manning should never have had security clearance.”
And in combat zones, field commanders don’t want to hear that a soldier is having issues.
“They don’t want to lose another soldier,” Fidell said. “So they say, ‘Hey, everybody’s a little goofy out here.’ ”
Is the Commander in Chief (The president) doing its job? Is he even the commander in Chief?
Should military laws get more strict? Should people only join the military , if they know they can take the stress?
