"All I Know How to do Is Kill People"

[sabra]

Source: CBS News/AP

Troubled Soldiers From Colorado-Based Army Unit Describe Iraq Horrors

(AP) Soldiers from an Army unit that had 10 infantrymen accused of murder, attempted murder or manslaughter after returning to civilian life described a breakdown in discipline during their Iraq deployment in which troops murdered civilians, a newspaper reported Sunday.

Some Fort Carson, Colo.-based soldiers have had trouble adjusting to life back in the United States, saying they refused to seek help, or were belittled or punished for seeking help. Others say they were ignored by their commanders, or coped through drug and alcohol abuse before they allegedly committed crimes, The Gazette of Colorado Springs said.

The Gazette based its report on months of interviews with soldiers and their families, medical and military records, court documents and photographs.

Several soldiers said unit discipline deteriorated while in Iraq.

"Toward the end, we were so mad and tired and frustrated," said Daniel Freeman. "You came too close, we lit you up. You didn't stop, we ran your car over with the Bradley," an armored fighting vehicle.

Read more: http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2009/07/27/national/main5190594.shtml?tag=cbsContent;cbsCarousel

[Soylent Brice]

1. "WAR, what is it good for? absolutely NOTHING."

[cactusfractal]

5. Say it again. n/t

[Cronopio]

6. "or were belittled or punished for seeking help." Macho, who is it good for?

Absolutely no one.

[Downwinder]

2. So where do they get jobs? Law Enforcement --- Scary n/t

[saigon68]

27. Yes and then they Bust the Heads of Black Men and other minorities

The old "Night Stick" or in my day, "The Nigger Knocker" is back in fashion.

[Lorien]

3. Bring them home NOW! nt

[Steerpike]

4. Hey,

I thought we were going to bring our troops home asap? What happened to all those campaign promises?

[HopeHoops]

7. AND ALIVE!

We've brought way too many home in body bags.

[captain jack]

16. AND SANE!

[HopeHoops]

23. One would hope that is possible.

I doubt anyone can come back from that zone without lasting mental scars.

[Lance_Boyle]

8. see post #2 - I'm not so sure I want them home, unsupervised.

Certainly not wearing a badge with their itchy trigger fingers on the taser, or worse.

[bertman]

9. If we bring them home now, and I hope we do, unlikely as it seems, we'll still have to

keep them in the military. There are no civilian jobs for them.

The key here is counseling and some type of psychological help to deal with having reverted to total survival mode in combat. Yet, our military seems oblivious to this concept.

Very tragic.

[Downwinder]

11. The Key is a NEW GI Bill.

[PSzymeczek]

15. A new GI Bill was passed last year

and goes into effect Saturday.

[Blue_Tires]

10. these are the types who end up working for blackwater after their discharge...

i imagine the mercenary firms will be flooded with applications soon...

[Iowa]

21. Yep... mercenaries and cops. n/t

[Amonester]

12. No wonder the Iraqi army DON'T WANNA CALL these...

criminals?

Who'd wanna?

[FirstLight]

13. WTF? ..."more study is needed"

How about some fucking ACTION aand results? these guys are trained in urban warfare, shooting an Iraqi child on a bike for no reason can just as easily become shooting their neighbor's kid for something equally as harmless...

This is a whole can of worms that the military and the VA and society at large is NOT equipped to deal with.

We (Bush's war cronies, et-al) created monsters, unleashed them on foreign soil .....and now they are coming home...trained to kill in city streets with NO provocation...taken off their "wartime" meds (meth, antidepressants, god knows what else)...and what do we expect?


:scared: :cry:

[dixiegrrrrl]

14. And we did this to a Middle East culture that demands revenge on abuses of relatives.

That should keep the pot boiling nicely for several decades.


Picture it:
You bring a band of heavily armed thugs into my city, randomly kidnap, torture, disappear or kill in plain sight my neighbors, smash homes, cut off my water, power and food sources, destroy my hospitals, pollute the air and ground with DU and other chemicals, force me to live indoors in desert heat conditions, in fear, for YEARS, then walk away to fortified forts and tell me that that soon a new gang of vultures will be coming to control my oil, gas, water, which they expect me to buy from them while offering me slave labor wages.
Now throw in the religion and race issues....

Yeah....boiling pot.

[gratuitous]

17. But, but, but

3,000 people died on September 11, 2001! Okay, granted, nobody in Iraq had a damn thing to do with that, but when the High Church of Redemptive Violence demands sacrifice, it's not up to the victims to decide whether they're the right ones. If we do it wrong, well, c'est la vie (in a manner of speaking). We'll just have to kill some other folks until we find the right ones to atone for the horrific deaths on 9/11.

It's all so elementary, a five-year-old could have thought up these wars!

[Aviation Pro]

19. A post-pubescent adolescent with the mental capacity of a five-year-old....

....did think up these wars.

Thank you Two Shoes, Fuckhead, Poseur, Bullshit-Asshole Fuckwit. The figurative noose inches closer everyday for you and your asshat, assclown of VP.

[Thothmes]

25. Just like LBJ deemed it necessary to launch a major

war in Vietnam.

[dixiegrrrrl]

22. ok...that was good.

HIgh up there, as snark goes. I am smiling in appreciation. ruefully.

[bertman]

20. That's about as succinct and as accurate as it gets, dixiegrrrrl.

[Fumesucker]

28. Decades? ... These people are still fighting over something that happened in the seventh century..

You think they'll forget this in mere decades?

[lisa58]

18. that just makes me so sad

[BreweryYardRat]

24. Interrogate the entire brigade, find out who murdered civilians, then execute them post-haste.

I don't care if we wind up having to hang half the brigade! My philosophy regarding respect for soldiers is the same as respect for for cops: We give them authority and responsibility, and when they act in an honorable manner, preserving that authority and responsibility, they deserve all the praise and help we can give them. But when they act dishonorably, abusing that authority, then we need to crack down on them HARD.

Why the FUCK are people feeling sympathy for these scum?

I considered joining the Army, and decided against it precisely because I feared losing control and killing civilians during the stress of a combat situation. I don't particularly give a shit whether I live or die, and I'd cheerfully take a blowtorch and pliers to an actual terrorist like Osama bin Laden, but I'd sooner kill myself than murder some poor schmuck who just wants to live a peaceful life.

And hell, take a look at this quote:

At Fort Carson, Eastridge and other soldiers said they lied during an army screening about their deployment that was designed to detect potential behavioral problems.

I'm going to do my part for my country, but it'll have to be in the Peace Corps or AmeriCorps or something.

I don't pretend to know a lot about the UCMJ, but isn't there something in there that says it's a soldier's duty to check himself into a psychiatrist's if he feels that he's about to do something that's considered a war crime?
And deliberately killing civilians -- especially out of sheer laziness as seen in the following quotes-- is a war crime:

Toward the end, we were so mad and tired and frustrated," said Daniel Freeman. "You came too close, we lit you up. You didn't stop, we ran your car over with the Bradley," an armored fighting vehicle.

With each roadside bombing, soldiers would fire in all directions "and just light the whole area up," said Anthony Marquez, a friend of Freeman in the 1st Battalion, 9th Infantry Regiment. "If anyone was around, that was their fault. We smoked 'em."

***

However, I will also address this issue:

Sergeants sometimes refused to let soldiers get PTSD help or taunted them...

Execute those sergeants as accessories to war crimes. Some of this might have been prevented if they hadn't acted like that.

***

This issue also needs to be addressed:

The Army trains soldiers to be that way, said Kenneth Eastridge, at left, an infantry specialist serving 10 years for accessory to murder.

"The Army pounds it into your head until it is instinct: Kill everybody, kill everybody," he said. "And you do. Then they just think you can just come home and turn it off."

He also said: "I had no job training. All I know how to do is kill people."

It looks like we need to overhaul the Army's training system to deal with modern situations. The "kill everyone" approach may have worked during World War II when the enemy were in uniforms, clearly defined and distinguishable from civilians (and if we're ever in a situation like WWII again, I'll sign up), but it didn't work during Vietnam and it isn't working now.

Providing job training for the guys who are pure infantry is apparently important too -- the GI Bill doesn't help much if they're not suited for college once they're out.

[Thothmes]

26. executing them post haste, hang half the brigade

is murder, just as the same as those soldiers are accused of. The persons carrying your wishes should be tried and they themselves swing from the same gallows, as probably you should for recommending mass murder.

[sarcasmo]

29. Having been in the Army, it is the train to kill brainwashing that is hard to turn off .

[tomreedtoon]

30. That's all? They have a job in Republican health care!

That's the only health care Republicans want for us non-rich people, and these guys are proven to provide it! And it isn't as if employing psychotic killers is bad; Joan Rivers approved of it in her movie "The Girl Most Likely To...." and the movies "Heathers" and all those slasher films. And anything involving Schwartzenegger.