.(AFP/Getty Images/HO)
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The recently discharged soldier, Steven Green, 21, accused of masterminding the heinous rape and murder in Mahmoudiya, Iraq has an "anti-social" personality disorder. What the hell is that? A delusional loner who can't take criticism, blames others, hates authority, and takes orders from God? This could be Donald Rumsfeld.
Knowing the high ranking military's penchant for covering their posterior, I think Green is probably guilty, along with the other five soldiers charged. Like Green, four of the soldiers are charged with rape and murder and one is charged with failure to report the crime. All are members 0f the 101st Airborne Division.
As an ex-soldier, I am heartsick about the crime and its supposed premeditation. I like to put our troops on a pedestal, but am smart enough to know there are bad apples throughout our society. Without a doubt, Green, was a trainwreck waiting to happen.
How do those like Green get into the military? Most are youngsters who have messed up, but deserve another chance and they find it often in the military. I have long been an advocate that the military should be a rehabilitative society for kids on the fringe. Why not? We have doctors, lawyers, chaplains, social workers--a system that works. Potential soldiers get waivers for all sorts of things: pot busts, misdemeanors of different sorts, and an occasional felony. We can take the Steven Greens who are social misfits and make them into contributing soldiers. Success happens more often than not.
REUTERS/Slahaldeen Rasheed (IRAQ)
| It is easy to condemn the entire process, just as we think we might have spared ourselves 9-11 if we had simply been more on top of it. No way!
If there is a culprit, outside of the guilty parties in this rape and murder case, it is a breakdown of the military's chain of command. The reason we are better than our civilian counterparts at policing the Steven Greens of the world is that we have a system designed to prevent soldiers from being stupid or criminal. It is broadly called leadership, and specifically, the chain of command. In this case, the chain of command "broke down."
It is true that the Army needs recruits and the Greens make up a small part, maybe five to fifteen percent. Green is one of those cases that fit well with psychobabble. Combat stressed with at least seventeen members of his battalion killed, two of them mutilated after being kidnapped( U.S. Army, PFC. Thomas Tucker and Army PFC. Kristian Menchaca). Eight of the total were part of Green's company (a hundred men or so).
Green, from news reports, didn't exactly come from a paragon of high family values. Mom was in jail on occasion and he was shuffled back and forth, often not even with relatives. Somehow he managed to get a GED (general equivalency diploma). Up until that time, his brushes with the law were not earth shattering; one minor incident was for the possession of tobacco.
(AFP/Marwan Ibrahim)
| How did Green make it? Basic training and advanced individual training should have been enough to weed him out. Even though "Basic" is probably not as hard as the "old days", still, it is no cakewalk. The guy, after all, if it is to be believed, had a significant disabling and dangerous condition--maybe paranoia, beset by anxieties, and delusional fears.
If he committed the crime, he has a reckless and habitual lying pattern totally ignoring the suffering of others. Did Green's disorder help him masquerade as a bold, effective 11 bravo (infantryman)? A soldier like Green may have some charisma, exhibiting traits, that on the surface, would make him a good soldier.
And, to be honest, it sounds like, as a ringleader, he manipulated those who actually should have stopped the crime cold. Two sergeants are among two out of the five soldiers charged. These men are leaders, it is why they are sergeants; they should have known better.
Assuming Green was crazy as a bat, the Army got him out, but way too late. In reality, there's no way to stop those like Green who slip through the cracks. This great chance to be rehabilitated doesn't happen as they're sick maybe beyond cure which is all the more reason that we need vigilant leaders. In this case, there was no one on top of things; everyone was "asleep at the wheel."
There is such tragedy in this story in all directions, not the least of which is the poor Iraqi girl and her family(an iraqi girl was raped and she and her family were murdered). They are not the cost of war, but rather the victims of insanity. God bless them and us.
KT
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