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The War Profiteers - War Crimes,
Kidnappings & Torture |
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July 24th,
2009 - Casualties of War, Part II: Warning Signs Feature article from the Colorado
Springs Gazette Summary
of the Fort Carson 2nd/4th Brigade Combat Team Killings |
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Casualties of War, Part II:
Warning Signs By Dave Philipps Colorado Springs Gazette July 24, 2009 After coming home from Iraq,
21-year-old medic Bruce Bastien was driving with his Army buddy Louis
Bressler, 24, when they spotted a woman walking to work on a Colorado Springs
street. Bressler swerved and hit the
woman with the car, according to police, then Bastien jumped out and stabbed
her over and over. It was October 2007. A
fellow soldier, Kenneth Eastridge, 24, watched it all from the passenger
seat. At that moment, he said, it
was clear that however messed up some of the soldiers in the unit had been
after their first Iraq deployment, it was about to get much worse. “I have no problem with
killing,” said Eastridge, a two-tour infantryman with almost 80 confirmed
kills. “But I won’t just murder someone for no reason. He had gone crazy.” All three soldiers belonged
to the 2nd Battalion, 12th Infantry Regiment, part of Fort Carson’s 4th
Brigade Combat Team. The 500-soldier infantry battalion nicknamed itself the
“Lethal Warriors.” They fought in the deadliest
places in the war twice - first in the Sunni Triangle, then in downtown
Baghdad. Since their return late in 2007, eight infantry soldiers have been
arrested and accused of murder, attempted murder or manslaughter. Another two
soldiers from the brigade were arrested and accused of murder and attempted
murder after the first tour. Others have committed other violent crimes.
Others have committed suicide. Many of the soldiers behind
bars and their family members say the violence at home is a consequence of
the violence in Iraq. They came home angry, confused, paranoid and depressed.
They had trouble getting effective mental heath care. Most buried their
symptoms in drugs and alcohol until they exploded. The Army is seeking new ways
to care for returning soldiers and keep the violence from returning - crucial
now, because the unit shipped out in May to Afghanistan, where the monthly
coalition casualty rate has doubled since the beginning of the year. Soldiers
are scheduled to return to Colorado Springs in spring 2010. The first step toward
solving the problem, the post’s most recent commander said, is to understand
it. Maj. Gen. Mark Graham took
command of Fort Carson in September 2007, just before the worst of the violence.
He said that after studying the murders, he saw that soldiers rarely snap
without warning. Guys who get in big trouble often get in little trouble
first, and the problem grows until it explodes. Graham calls this pattern
“the crescendo.” It may start with a soldier
showing up to work reeking of booze, getting arrested for domestic violence,
or mouthing off to an officer. “When a guy who had it
together starts showing little problems, it could be a sign of something much
bigger,” he said. Most of the soldiers now
behind bars back up Graham’s theory of the crescendo. Before Bastien stabbed a
woman in 2007, he was arrested three times on suspicion of beating his wife
and burning her with cigarettes. Before Bressler shot two
soldiers in Colorado Springs in 2007, Eastridge said, he assaulted his
commanding officer and tried to kill himself. Before Jomar Falu-Vives, 23,
allegedly gunned down three people in Colorado Springs in two drive-by
shootings in 2008, his wife said she called his sergeants to warn he was
liable to “take someone’s life.” Before John Needham, 25,
allegedly beat a woman to death in 2008, his father said, he tried repeatedly
to get treatment for post-traumatic stress disorder. The pattern of trouble is
clear in hindsight, Graham said, but hard to spot when it is developing. “Our challenge is to catch
it early, so we can help these soldiers,” he said. “We are educating young
commanders on taking care of their soldiers. But it’s a very tough problem.” Graham, who had one son killed
by a roadside bomb in Iraq a year after his other son committed suicide while
training to be an officer, made mental health a focus after taking command of
Fort Carson. He said suicide and homicide
are “different reactions to the same or similar problem. You treat both in
the same way.” Under his watch, Fort Carson
more than doubled the number of mental health counselors. A new Army program
will soon give each brigade a “master resiliency trainer” to strengthen
troops’ psychological fitness the way drill sergeants strengthen their
muscles. A special unit has been created to track soldiers who are too
physically or psychologically wounded to stay with their battalions. Soldiers
visiting a doctor at Fort Carson for even a sprained ankle are now screened for
symptoms of PTSD and depression. And perhaps most important, Graham said, in
the Army, where mental illness has long been taboo, commanders at Fort Carson
are being trained to tell soldiers it is OK to seek treatment. “There is a culture and a stigma
that need to change,” Graham said. It is unclear if the new
measures can counter the entrenched Army culture or the effects of repeated
deployments. Though some of the new programs have been in place for two
years, the violence has not stopped. Colorado Springs police
arrested a Fort Carson soldier from the Lethal Warriors in May in the killing
of a 19-year-old woman. Another soldier shot himself in the head this year.
Another was arrested on suspicion of breaking a civilian’s jaw in March.
Another is awaiting trial in the shooting of a pregnant woman. Graham, who handed over
command of the post last week, said Fort Carson is doing everything it can to
help its soldiers. “I wish I could predict how all this is going to go,” he
said. “I can’t say it is not going to happen again.” “All I know how to do is kill people” For Bastien, the Army medic,
the crescendo started to peak just after midnight on Aug. 4, 2007, when he
was driving his silver Audi to get cigarettes after a night of drinking at
Bressler’s apartment. The rest of their battalion
was still fighting in Iraq. Bastien was in Colorado
Springs because he had been arrested and accused of beating his wife while on
leave in May 2007. Bressler was in town because
the Army had sent him back from Iraq early, in July, with PTSD, according to
his wife. He was awaiting a medical discharge because, Eastridge said, he
attacked an officer in Iraq. Bastien and Bressler
declined requests for interviews. According to court
documents, that night the pair spotted a drunk 23-year-old Fort Carson
private they didn’t know named Robert James, who was walking home from a bar,
and pulled the Audi over to give him a ride. Bastien later told police
that he and Bressler decided to rob James. They drove to a dark parking lot. Bressler pointed a .38
revolver at James and demanded his money. James pulled a few rumpled bills
from his pockets - about $25. Bressler shot him twice and gathered the
scattered bills. The random crime left cops
with no leads. A little over a month later,
in late September, Eastridge landed under Army escort at the Colorado Springs
Airport. The once-decorated soldier
had been court-martialed in August 2007 on suspicion of possession of drugs,
disobeying orders and threatening an officer. Medical records show that,
after two bloody deployments, the Army diagnosed him with paranoia,
depression, insomnia, antisocial personality disorder, PTSD, homicidal
thoughts and hearing loss caused by constant shooting and explosions. His Army escorts were taking
him to Fort Carson - not for treatment, he said, but to get kicked out of the
Army. From there, he was going to
jail. In Colorado Springs, there was a warrant waiting from a year before,
when he skipped a court date on charges of putting a gun to his girlfriend’s
head. At the baggage claim,
Eastridge said, while his escorts waded into the crowd to grab their bags, he
ran. He said he hopped in a cab, took it to a cheap hotel and called the only
people in town he knew: Bastien and Bressler. “When I met up with those
guys, they were weird,” he said. They were paranoid and aggressive, he said. “They kept saying, ‘Do you
want to go rob someone? Do you want to go kill someone? I just thought they
were kidding, but they had gone a little crazy.” Eastridge did have plans to
rob someone. Compared with Iraq, it would be easy. He wanted to do it alone,
but he had no car and no gun. Bressler and Bastien had both, Eastridge said,
and they insisted on coming along. On Oct. 29, 2007, wearing
all black, they attempted to rob a nightclub manager as she emerged from a
club. When they botched that, they drove off and spotted a young woman named
Erica Ham walking down the street. Bressler hit her with the car and she
crashed onto the hood. Then Bastien jumped out to grab her bag and started
stabbing her. When she tried to fight back, Eastridge pulled out a pistol and
yelled for her to get on the ground. Ham was unable to identify
her attackers, and police had no leads. The stabbing sobered
Eastridge up, he said. He turned himself in for his year-old domestic
violence charge and spent most of November in the El Paso County jail. He
bonded out on Nov. 27. A few days later, he returned to Fort Carson, where he
received an “other than honorable” discharge for possession of drugs in Iraq. After two tours in Iraq,
Eastridge was depressed, paranoid, violent, abusing drugs and haunted by
nightmares. But because he was other-than-honorably discharged, he said, he
was ineligible for benefits or health care. He was no longer Uncle Sam’s
problem. He was on his own. “I had no job training,” he
said. “All I know how to do is kill people.” A few days later, on Nov.
30, 2007, Eastridge went drinking with Bastien and Bressler. According to court
documents the three ran into a fellow soldier, Kevin Shields, who was
celebrating his 24th birthday. They downed shots at the
downtown bars until closing, then drove around, smoking a joint, until they
were lost on the west side. In the first, dark hours of
Dec. 1, 2007, Bressler and Shields got in a fight when Shields teased the
tough gunner for throwing up in the car. Bressler told Bastien to pull over
because he needed to puke again. Bressler leaned against a pole like he was
sick, then turned around and shot Shields in the head. The soldier fell to
the ground, and Bressler shot him four more times. Bressler fished a few things
out of Shields’ pockets to make the shooting look like a robbery, and they
sped away. Soldiers who saw the trio
drinking with Shields at Rum Bay helped police tie them to the crime, court
documents said. Bressler was convicted of
conspiracy to commit murder and sentenced to 60 years. Bastien pleaded guilty to
the same charge and also got 60 years. Eastridge pleaded guilty to
accessory to murder and got 10 years. None used their experiences
in Iraq as a defense. “When I was sentenced, the
judge told me ‘Look at how many people go to Iraq, and how few come back and
commit crimes,” Eastridge said, “But that’s not fair. A lot of the soldiers
who go to Iraq just drive trucks or check IDs or sit in the Green Zone. Look
at combat troops. And look at what kind of combat they did. My unit was in
the worst neighborhood in the bloodiest part of the war. Even in my platoon,
there were guys that stayed in the truck and guys that did most of the
fighting. Look at that tiny number. It’s not the hundreds of thousands that
go, it’s the few hundred that see heavy, heavy combat. It changes lives.” “Give me the gun” The rest of the Lethal
Warriors returned home from Iraq in December 2007. Some went wild in the bars,
overflowing with the same pent-up jubilation troops experienced after the
first tour. Then the crescendo started. Jose Barco, who was burned so
badly in the first tour that, soldiers said, he had to beg commanders to
allow him back for the second tour, was arrested on suspicion of domestic
violence. Then drunken driving. Then burglary with a deadly weapon. Then he
got divorced. Finally, he was arrested and accused of taking a pistol to a
house party. On April 25, 2008, he was
with a crowd in the basement of a friend of a friend’s house, police say,
when he got in an argument, pulled out the gun and shot a round through the
ceiling. There was a fight. He was thrown out. A few minutes later, when the
party crowd was still standing on the front lawn, he drove by, spraying
bullets. Police say one hit 19-year-old Ginny Stefanic, who was six months
pregnant, in the thigh. Stefanic suffered minor injuries. Barco, who declined to be
interviewed, was arrested Jan. 7. He posted $25,000 bail and is awaiting
trial for attempted murder. It was a classic case of the
pattern that Graham said most soldiers follow when they spiral out of
control. Before the big stuff, there is little stuff. Catching it in time can
save lives. Fort Carson has trained key
leaders to spot the warning signs. When a soldier is drinking
too much or acting out, instead of punishment, they are supposed to get help. “But it’s a very tough
problem,” said Graham, who ordered the new programs. “If a soldier is showing
all the risk factors, what can you do? You can’t lock them up. They haven’t
done anything. But what we can do is provide them every opportunity to get
the care they need and try to break down the stigma against seeking help.” Like Barco, Jomar Falu-Vives
started hitting his wife. Soldiers say the lifelong
Army brat seemed to handle Baghdad OK. Back home, Falu-Vives would go out to
sing karaoke with other soldiers and go shooting at the firing range off
Rampart Range Road, according to fellow soldiers. But his ex-wife, Jolhea
Vives, said he had turned mean. He always liked to party and
had a short temper, she said. But when he got back from Iraq, it was worse.
Soon after, they filed for divorce. Falu-Vives’ lawyer did not
respond to a request for an interview. His ex-wife said he had
episodes where he “went into combat mode.” At one point, she said, he stuck a
loaded .45 in her mouth. She said she called his sergeant,
saying that he was violent and was going to kill somebody, but the Army did
nothing. An Army spokesman said,
“There is no specific Army policy that provides guidance on these types of
situations. It is up to the soldier’s chain of command.” The soldier’s commanders
declined to be interviewed. On May 26, 2007, Falu-Vives
was riding in the back seat of his friend and fellow soldier Rodolfo
Torres-Gandarilla’ Chrysler sedan on the way back from a bar, according to
his arrest affidavit. Near South Circle Drive, he allegedly saw two men
standing in front of a house on the corner of Flintshire Street and Monterey
Road, lifted an AK-47 and started shooting. One of the men in front of the
house, Army Capt. Zachary Szody, collapsed with a bullet in his knee and
another in his hip. Ten days later, Falu-Vives
was cruising in his black Chevy Tahoe with Torres-Gandarilla and two other
Army buddies, according to the affidavit. Near midnight, he pulled up
to an intersection five blocks from the first shooting. Amairany Cervantes,
18, and her boyfriend, Cesar Ramirez-Ibanez, 21, were setting up signs for a
yard sale the next morning, the affidavit said. “Give me the gun,” police
said he told a friend sitting in the back seat. He shot the woman in the back
five times, police said, her boyfriend, four times. Both died almost
instantly. Falu-Vives sped back to his apartment, where he stood on the
balcony watching the red and blue lights converge on the spot. He listened to sirens
wailing in the night and, according to what witnesses told police, held up
his hands and said, “I love that sound.” Falu-Vives’ mother, Lt. Col.
Marta Vives, is an Army nurse in a Combat Stress Team. She helps soldiers in
war zones who are starting to lose it. It is one of a number of programs the
Army has created since the war began. When her son was patrolling
Baghdad, she was stationed just a few miles away. Reached at Fort Hood, Texas,
she said the Army has many programs to help troops, but soldiers often avoid
the counseling and medication offered, and leaders sometimes don’t give GIs
time or permission to visit. “There is still a stigma
behind getting help,” she said. “That is the hardest part. It is still seen
as a sign of weakness.” She said she has talked to
the battalion commander of the Lethal Warriors and the commander of Fort
Carson to tell them that many efforts to treat troops’ mental problems are
not trickling down to privates like her son. Falu-Vives was arrested July
30, 2008. Torres-Gandarilla pleaded guilty
to accessory to murder in April and is expected to testify against Falu-Vives
in August. Falu-Vives’ mother said she
never saw evidence of her son having problems. “He isn’t a criminal,” she
said. “He never killed a fly - except when it was his job.” Before Falu-Vives could be
charged with first-degree murder, another Lethal Warrior was arrested for the
same thing. “Pushed them until they broke” John Needham struggled to
find normalcy after trying to kill himself in Iraq in September 2007. The tall California surfer
had been hit by six roadside bombs before getting drunk one night in Baghdad
and putting a gun to his head, his father, Michael Needham, said. The soldier was diagnosed
with PTSD, flown to Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, D.C. and
put on antipsychotics, an antidepressant, an antiseizure drug used to calm
PTSD soldiers and a potent blood-pressure drug used to silence nightmares.
Side effects of the cocktail can include hangover-like symptoms, short-term
memory loss, irritability, aggression, hallucinations, sleepwalking, paranoia
and panic attacks. So many of the side effects were like the symptoms of his
PTSD that his father said it was hard to know if they were making him better
or worse. For a month, Needham stayed
at the hospital. On Nov. 9, 2007, according to orders provided by his father,
Needham’s battalion commander had him transferred to Fort Carson so he could
be sent back to Iraq. “It’s just bizarre, we
couldn’t figure out why they were doing this to him,” his father said. Needham’s father and Andrew
Pogany, a veterans’ advocate and former Fort Carson sergeant, persuaded
commanders to keep Needham from going back to Iraq so he could continue
psychiatric treatment. But, his father said, his
son didn’t get it. Laws prevent the Army from
discussing medical treatment of soldiers. Needham’s father said his son was
kept on the drugs but never received counseling. Instead, he said, his son
was berated by sergeants. “They would write things on the
chalkboard in his barracks like ‘John Needham is a shit bag cry baby PTSD
boohoo,’” his father said. It was so bad that when
Needham went home for Thanksgiving in 2007, his father refused to let him
return to the Army. “We basically kidnapped
him,” his father said. He took his son to Balboa Naval Hospital in San Diego,
and argued with Fort Carson until the soldier was reassigned to Balboa. Needham was honorably
discharged from the Army on July 18, 2008, with chronic PTSD and moved back
to his father’s house in San Clemente, Calif. But, his father said, he was
not better. “He was severely different,”
his father said. John Needham was groggy and
vacant from the pills. He had lost much of his hearing from bomb blasts. He
often drank himself to oblivion. He was paranoid and afraid of crowds. He begged his father to buy
him an assault rifle like the one he carried in Iraq. Eventually, they
compromised on a toy pistol that shot rubber BBs. Needham carried it almost
everywhere, his father said. The former soldier was going
to regular counseling at a local Veterans Affairs hospital, but, his father
said, it wasn’t enough. His son had frightening
flashbacks. Late one night, he rummaged through the bathroom naked, smearing
his face and body with cosmetics as if they were camouflage paint. He
sharpened one end of a broom handle to make a weapon. His father said he
found him crouching silently behind the couch. His father said his son always
took off his clothes when he had a flashback. “He needed to be committed,”
his father said. “He needed serious psychiatric help. I tried to put him in
the hospital, but the VA said they could only treat him as an outpatient ...
I could see the train wreck coming.” On the night of Sept. 1,
2008, Needham was at home hanging out with a girlfriend in his bedroom on the
ground floor. His father was two floors above, taking a shower. A 19-year-old woman named
Jacqwelyn Villagomez, whom the soldier had recently broken up with, came in.
The women fought,his father said. Needham’s girlfriend called the police.
They arrived a few minutes later, and Needham answered the door naked and
bleeding, his father said. Villagomez’s body lay in his
bedroom, he said. His father said he heard a ruckus,
went downstairs and watched the police tackle his son. The soldier fought
back as they put him in cuffs. Michael Needham said he stared, weeping, as
his naked son lay bleeding and struggling, incoherent on the driveway as the
police tasered him again and again. John Needham is awaiting
trial on suspicion of murder. In May, family members mortgaged their houses
to bail him out. He is now getting inpatient treatment at a VA hospital,
Michael Needham said. “I know the Army would like
to say it is not responsible for this, that it didn’t train them to do this.
But that is bullshit,” Michael Needham said. “They trained them to kill, then
when they didn’t have enough men for the surge, they pushed these guys until
they broke, then threw them away.” Resiliency This spring, Lethal Warriors
sprawled on the floor of a Fort Carson conference room, learning to take deep
breaths. They lazed on their backs in
full camouflage. In. Out. And relax. “The media says war will
(expletive) you up, but that stress can also make you stronger. You just have
to learn to mentally metabolize the experience,” Dan Taslitz, a former
Marine, told a group of sprawling soldiers. Taslitz was there as part of
a new “resiliency training” called “Warrior Optimization Systems,” or WAROPS,
that the 4th Brigade was testing to try to counter mental illness, violence
and suicide in the ranks. If the Army likes the
results, it may take the program Army-wide, commanders said. In the four-hour class,
soldiers learn how the brain and body react to combat stress, and talk about
healthy ways to respond, such as relaxation breathing, exercise and
visualizing a positive outcome to a mission. Sometimes, instructors said,
controlling emotions is as simple as stepping back, identifying the feeling
and saying it out loud. They call the process “name it and tame it.” The brigade plans to hold
refresher courses in Afghanistan and again when soldiers return home. Fort Carson also created a
task force late in 2008 to hunt for “common threads” in the killings
committed by Fort Carson soldiers. The investigation, conducted
by a team of 27 behavioral health and Army professionals, concluded with a
report released July 15. The findings echo what guys in the ranks said: Their
tour was bloodier than most; violence in Iraq messed them up; they started
abusing drugs and alcohol; treatment for substance abuse and mental health at
Fort Carson was inadequate; stigma kept soldiers from getting help; and when
those so-called “risk factors” came together, guys got in serious trouble. The report did not address
other issues, such as soldiers carrying guns once they return from
deployments, alleged war crimes by the unit, or the Army’s deployment of
soldiers with pending civilian felonies. The study recommended better
mental health care and training, programs to “ensure there is no humiliation
or belittling” of soldiers seeking mental health care, and more studies to
“assess a possible link between deployment, combat intensity, and aggressive
behavior.” But Graham said the report
does not offer a simple cure. “We didn’t see any one thing
that we could identify and say, yes, this is the reason these soldiers do
this,” he said. Instead, he said, Fort
Carson and the Army have instituted a wide array of changes. Evans Army Community
Hospital has increased the number of behavioral health care workers from 37
to 71. Many are assigned to mobile teams within brigades, so soldiers don’t
have to go to the hospital to seek help. Fort Carson also has added
16 “military family life consultants,” whom soldiers and their families can
visit anonymously for help with everything from relationship problems to
financial concerns. Fort Carson started
referring soldiers to private counselors in Colorado Springs in 2006. The
number seeking private counseling surged from 11 in 2006 to 2,171 in 2008,
according to Evans Army Community Hospital. “We see that as a sign of
strength, not weakness,” said Roger Meyer, Evans spokesman. “It shows we are
having success in our efforts to educate soldiers on the signs of stress.” In Colorado Springs, lawyers
and law enforcement agencies have created an experimental veteran’s court to
catch returning soldiers who get in trouble with the law and steer them
toward help instead of jail. Soldiers charged with felonies will be sentenced
to counseling and substance abuse treatment. The court is expected to take
its first cases in August. The Army has created Warrior
Transition Units to manage the care of soldiers, like Needham, who are too
mentally or physically disabled to stay with their units. Colorado’s senators urged
the Army last week to include Fort Carson in a pilot alcohol abuse program. Graham said the Army is also
trying to change the culture. All low-level leaders, he
said, are now taught to treat mental illness like any battlefield injury. “If a soldier is shot or
injured, other soldiers know how to give him care,” Graham said. “We need to
get soldiers to understand the signs of combat stress so they can do the same
thing - get their buddy the care he needs.” Staff Sgt. James Combs, with
the Lethal Warriors, said in June that the combat stress education is more
comprehensive than when he was a private in the late 1990s. Now, he said, sergeants
teach soldiers that “You may be able to pull the trigger on our M4 or M16,
but you have to understand what it is doing to you mentally, and you need to
be prepared for that.” “We don’t just throw them to
the wolves like we used to,” he said. It is not clear how
effective the changes will be. The current commanders of
the Lethal Warriors, who would implement many of the changes, declined
repeated requests for interviews. And Fort Carson’s new
programs have not prevented more occurrences of destructive behavior. On May 10, Thomas Woolly,
the soldier Needham replaced in a blown-out Humvee turret in Baghdad in 2007,
was drinking with friends after midnight at an apartment just a few blocks
from Fort Carson. Woolly had done two tours
with the Lethal Warriors and was in the new Warrior Transition Unit, about to
be medically discharged because, his grandmother, Gladys Woolly said, “He was
blowed up so many times until it damaged his brain.” Woolly, 24, had a drink in
one hand and a loaded .45 Long Colt revolver in the other, according to his
arrest affidavit, when a friend’s husband, who had been arguing with the
group, banged on the door. Police say Woolly cocked the
gun’s hammer. After the husband left and Woolly went to uncock the gun, the
hammer slipped. The bullet killed 19-year-old Lisa Baumann, who was standing
on the other side of the room. Woolly was charged with
manslaughter. He is out on bail and is scheduled for arraignment in August.
He did not respond to interview requests. Two weeks later, Roy Mason,
28, another Lethal Warrior who had served two tours and landed in the Warrior
Transition Unit, went AWOL, drove to California, parked at the beach, called
911 from his car, asked them to clean up the mess quickly “before kids see,”
then shot himself in the head, media reports said. Civilian mental health
professionals caution that the Army programs treat the symptoms but do not
address the underlying cause. “There are some good things
going on,” said Davida Hoffman, the director of First Choice Counseling, a
private clinic that treats about 250 Carson soldiers. But counseling can do only
so much, she said. The quality of treatment is not the cause of the problem.
Combat is. The more combat soldiers
see, she said, the more problems they will have. The more problems soldiers
have, the more problems Colorado Springs has. “Soldiers simply cannot
handle repeated deployments,” she said. “If these guys keep seeing
deployments like the stuff they saw in Iraq, we could have a very dangerous
situation.” Graham agreed that repeated
deployments are tough on soldiers. But the Army has a job to do, he said, and
the rate of deployment is not expected to slow for at least 12 to 18 months. On the same day Mason put a
gun to his head at the beach, his old brigade was deploying to Afghanistan. Most of the guys from the
first deployment had left the Army, transferred to a different unit, been
kicked out, wounded or killed. But for every one gone there is a new recruit.
And while some attitudes in the Army are changing, the day-to-day reality of
the foot soldier is not. Since June, insurgent attacks have killed three in
the brigade. No one may have a better
view of the Army’s challenges than Sgt. Michael Cardenaz. In many ways, he is
the battle-worn face of today’s soldier. The solid, bald-headed
Lethal Warriors staff sergeant and father of two was the platoon commander
for Eastridge, Barco and Bastien in Baghdad. He often played Texas Hold ’em
with Bressler at the base. He went bowling with Falu-Vives just days before
Falu-Vives was arrested in the yard sale sign shootings. He has done three
tours in Iraq and two in Kosovo. He said he has had close scrapes with 35
IEDs, scores of rocket-propelled grenades and one 500-pound bomb. He has
taken shrapnel twice. He describes himself as an “old-school career soldier.”
He is 29. With every arrest of a
fellow soldier, he was shocked, he said, but he does not think it is just
coincidence that so many guys in the unit are now in jail. “These are all younger guys.
They are just kids, straight out of high school, from mom’s house to basic
training to Iraq. You throw them in a tour like this, and there is going to
be an aftermath,” he said. “Time was, before I really understood it, my
reaction would have been ‘fry ’em.’ But now I can empathize ... If they did
what they did, fine, they have to answer to the justice system, but these
guys like Eastridge who tried so hard and loved the Army ... they are a
casualty of war. Their psyches are casualties of war.” He agreed that the
deployment to Afghanistan will be different from the ones that he said
screwed up his friends. “There is much more
attention to the mental side,” he said. “I’ve been trained to do stress
debriefings and suicide prevention. I remember a time in the Army when mental
health was taboo. It was career over. That’s not the case anymore.” But, he said, the stigma is
alive and well, especially among infantrymen. “There’s still a feeling
that if you got to go see the doc, you’re a punk. There are a lot of people
who still feel that way. I’m not going to lie to you, I do,” he said. Real soldiers, he said,
“just suck it up.” “That’s what I do. I think I
was given a God-given talent to suck it up. Horrible things happen, I suck it
up. I don’t let it bother me.” In March Cardenaz was
arrested in a felony assault. He was walking with his wife
past The Thirsty Parrot on Tejon Street, in full dress uniform after the
Lethal Warriors’ annual ball, when some civilians hanging out in front of the
bar said something. Or maybe Cardenaz said something to them. Witnesses say
the sergeant dropped one with a single punch. When another guy came after him
to ask why he did it, police say, Cardenaz broke his jaw. The soldier posted bail and
did not show up for his court hearing July 15. His lawyer told the judge
that Cardenaz had deployed to Afghanistan. External link: http://www.gazette.com/articles/html-59091-http-gazette.html |