Ft Hood; A Tragedy That Was Avoidable

(6:00PM EST – promoted by Nightprowlkitty)

Yes, the Ft. Hood shooting was a tragedy.  Yes, it was an avoidable tragedy.  

It is a story, still emerging, of a man that was harassed for his religious beliefs, that saw a war he would be deployed to a war he didn’t believe in, a war that was characterized by the military in their proselytism of Catholicism, who got to hear one bad story after another, and had nowhere to turn himself.  

The story isn’t so much as one about the man as the system that failed him, making him feel forced to do what he did.  It is a system that has existed for a long time before him and will for a long time after him.

I detailed a similar system in my Daily Kos diary, “Mess Up, Move Up,” written two and a half years ago.

But, there was more to that story.  For the first time, I will document the time I spent in that unit, and, how like at Ft. Hood, I saw a system totally fail…

When I got my orders to Incirlik AB, Turkey, I had no idea of the power that the Superintendent held in it.  His name was SMSgt David Brown.  If you didn’t play by his rules, he would, literally, work to ruin your career.

When I arrived at Incirlik AB in April 1991, I had just finished being deployed to Saudi Arabia from August to December 1990.  Within three weeks of my arrival, our unit deployed into northern Iraq for Operation Provide Comfort, our mission; to locate and destroy all ordnance found.

From April thru July 1991, our unit was the largest EOD contingent inside of Iraq.  We destroyed over 1,000 tons of high explosives in a mere three months.  Even though I was Air Force, I received an Army Achievement Medal for my time spent with the 18th Brigade, 325 C Company for support of their unit in Iraqi minefields.  Those accomplishments, both unit and singular, however, didn’t tell the whole story of our time in Iraq.  Our unit had not only a Captain that was an idiot, but, SMSgt Brown, and both were hell-bent to get us killed.

When we found one cache of landmines, the Captain decided he was going to try an “impress” some Navy Seabee’s that had volunteered to drive vehicles for our unit.  He grabbed up a Chinese anti-personnel landmine and called the two Seabee’s over to him.  We warned him that our intel on that item was incomplete, but, he refused to listen.  He proceeded to try and show the two Seabee’s how to take apart the mine, right in the middle of the cache.  He should have listened to us.  The primer inside the landmine detonated and blew a hole through his hand.  As the unit’s self-aid/buddy-care instructor, I got to bandage up the Captain while the two shaken Seabee’s sat off to the side.  That was just the first of bad situations these two individuals put our unit into while inside of Iraq.

While doing a sweepline of cluster bomblets in Sirsenk, Iraq, the Captain tried to carry too many, again being warned, and he wound up dropped some to the ground, right in the middle of our sweepline.  That one or more didn’t detonate was a miracle.

Both the Captain and SMSgt were known for bringing ordnance back into our camp, sitting outside of their tents with a hammer and screwdriver, trying to demil the ordnance, an act specifically forbidden to anyone but Marine Corp EOD.  The would sit there, literally hammering on the ordnance to break it apart, right in the middle of camp.

It was that time in Iraq, spent under both of these individuals, that prompted what was to become a very long two year assignment of mine to Incirlik AB, Turkey.  By the time our unit returned to Incirlik AB, it was well known that I thought, rightfully,  both of them incompetent and dangerous.  I was just willing to say it.

The next situation to present itself was the fireworks display incident that I detailed in the DK diary.  SMSgt Brown, against all advice, ordered the display to continue, and because he did, four EOD techs went to the emergency room trauma that night.  I was the only EOD tech to refuse to participate in the operation, and, I did so to SMSgt Brown’s face in his office.

I was assigned to the technical data section of our unit.  My supervisor, SSgt Williams, knew little of the section and let me basically run the day-to-day operations of it.  Even though the section was operating at high efficiency, when it came time for my evaluation, I found out a very interesting fact — SMSgt Brown had told my supervisor to write me an average evaluation.  It was, in fact, a threat; write me an average eval, or, my supervisor would be punished on his.  To his credit, my supervisor refused to comply and I received the highest of evaluations.

The remainder of my time at the unit would get worse, however.

I learned, during one of our shop-sponsored trips to the Mediterranean Sea resort of Mercin, that SMSgt Brown and his wife were into “swinging”.  Worse, he had singled out my wife (first wife, at the time), as someone he was “interested” in.  We were out in the water, swimming, when Brown and his wife would swim over to us and make suggestive comments.  Of course, this made us both very uncomfortable, but, no matter how many times we just moved away, they came back.  We finally just called it a night and went back to the hotel.

Our unit, like many EOD units at the time, had our own bar inside of the shop stocked with beer.  After duty hours, we would open up the bar and drink, at times, late into the night.  Most of our shop parties were held at the shop.  And, that we had alcohol in the shop was known to the base commanders, some of whom would come to our shop to drink free beer.  But, to keep the stock of beer replenished, there were “rules” of the bar.  Violate a rule and you were penalized to buy beer for the shop.

At that time, I wore a cowboy hat and cowboy boots while off-duty.  One of the rules of the bar was that you couldn’t wear a “cover”, the military term for uniform cap, while inside of the bar.  During one of the late-night family parties, I arrived wearing my cowboy hat.  I was immediately hit with the bar violation of wearing a “cover” inside of the bar.  Of course, I wasn’t, but, that never stood in the way of EOD guys trying to get free beer.  For me, however, the line in the sand was drawn — I refused.  In doing so, I had now gone against the entire shop and made my already tenuous existence even worse.

In response to my act, the shop started a “bounty” on my cowboy hat.  People would put money into the “bounty jar” and, as the amount grew, more people thought to collect it.  This, of course, was a situation destined for violence.  At its height, there was hundreds of dollars in that jar.

As the problem in the unit grew, I found little relief at home.  My wife had decided that it was all my fault.  Increasingly, I was left fighting the unit at work and then my wife at home.  This went on for the remainder of my time at the unit.  But, there was a bright spot.

During my assignment, the EOD unit, Disaster Preparedness unit, were consolidated under the 39th Civil Engineering Squadron in 1991.  Being the EOD Unit Security Monitor, I was elevated to 39th CE Squadron Security Manager working directly under the Squadron Commander.  For the two years I ran the squadron security program, my program was rated as “best on base” by the Base Security Manager.  It was, I found out, the saving grace to my career.

By the time my assignment was over, the situation inside of the unit was one of open hostility towards me.  There was an EOD “tradition” were, on the last day, the individual leaving would be “hazed” as a “going away”.  Given the hostility, I feared that this hazing would turn ugly.  By this time, the Captain had left and we had a new OIC.  SMSgt Brown was there, but, we had an NCIOC under him.  

On the last day of work, there were several individuals in the unit that made comments to me about “what was coming” at the end of day to me.  I went to the NCOIC and asked him to intervene — he scoffed.  I went to the OIC — he scoffed.  I was, literally, left to my own defenses.  So, I told the individuals that I simply wanted to leave.  It was my last day.  They made it clear I wouldn’t be allowed to leave without my “up commence”.

What was I to do?  Where in the system was I to find protection?  The end of the day came.

I moved towards the door to leave and these individuals blocked the door.  Six of them.  They said I wasn’t leaving.  I again told them, it’s my last day, just let me leave.  They laughed.  

So, here we are… at least six on one.

The OIC and NCOIC mute and disinterested.

In order to leave, I now have to go through six people, all bigger than I am.

So, I issued my last warning.

The FIRST one to lay hands would go to the hospital.

They laughed.  It WAS six on one.

Well, that first wasn’t laughing when he did, in fact, get taken to the emergency room.  I wasn’t laughing, either, when I got a rib broken during the fight, which was then five on one.

They got theirs… and I got mine.  Both sides lost.

It was after I had left, after I had, in fact, left the military, that I learned that after I had left the unit that SMSgt Brown had initiated courtmartial proceedings against me.  The fact that I had worked directly for the squadron commander for two years, however, saved me.  He didn’t buy the claims made against me.  He didn’t buy the paperwork suddenly presented, without my signature.

SMSgt Brown was promoted to CMSgt and moved to HQ USAFE EOD after the “investigation” into the fireworks display finalized.  I was never contacted by that investigation panel.  I was never contacted concerning any courtmartial proceeding against me.

I had faced a system that failed to curtail harassment.  I had lived through the same thought processes and environment in Incirlik AB, Turkey, that generated my response of violence that generated the situation at Ft. Hood.

The difference was, I didn’t grab a gun and just kill people.  He did.  Neither of us had a system in place to turn to.