Report faults trainers in soldier's death during Texas exercise

[NNN0LHI]

http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/nation/bal-te.soldier02sep02,0,2656060.story

FORT HOOD, Texas - Army Sgt. Lawrence Sprader set out under the searing Texas sun on a map-reading exercise, carrying a cell phone in case he got hopelessly lost or fell ill in the hills and ravines of Fort Hood. And still he didn't make it out alive.

For more than an hour, a lost and dehydrated Sprader used his phone to repeatedly call superiors and tell them of his plight before the 24-year-old Iraq war veteran finally collapsed in the thick underbrush, where his decomposing body was discovered four days later.

How could that have happened?

A 1,700-page Army investigative report, obtained by the Associated Press through the Freedom of Information Act, details a multitude of procedural violations, judgment errors and alleged acts of misconduct by Army trainers that not only contributed to Sprader's death but also put some 300 other soldiers in danger that day, including about two dozen who required medical attention.

Among other things:

• The exercise was poorly planned and supervised, with trainers failing to patrol the countryside as required for soldiers in distress.

• Participants were not given enough time to fill their canteens.

• Trainers did not keep a close enough watch on the mid-90s temperatures and humidity.

• And the Army made little effort to find Sprader until the training exercise was over.

[acmavm]

1. Puts a new slant on 'Be all that you can be.' In this case all the this poor

guy can be is dead.