How can eight U.S. troops be charged for negligent homicide and involuntary manslaughter, in relation to another troop member's suicide?

If their actions resulted in his suicide, then they are liable.

I guess it would depend on what they knew. I haven’t seen the article. Needless to say some troop members are unbalanced. If the people doing the teasing knew or suspected this person to be unbalanced than they are responsible for the final out come (suicide). However, proving that is another thing. Also if his superiors where aware of what was going on than they have a responsiblility to put a stop to his tormentors. Their job is to create a cohesive unit and so bulling is not tolorated. Yes they are suppose to be tough, but they are suppose to be a brotherhood that works together and has each others back for the sake of the unit. The tough part is suppose to be against the enemy. Not each other.
But one can argue that a person who would commit suicide (which naturally, self preservation is a deep seated desire) is unbalanced and so anything could have been the catalyst.
link – You may find this article interesting. I haven’t found the article you are speaking about but I learned something knew about suicide in the military. According to the article suicde among the military accounts for 20% in the US. total and yet only 1 percent of the population ever go in the military.

DISCLAIMER: Everything I say below is strictly my opinion.
Here is one article on the subject

The charges largely relate to “hazing”. Hazing used to be another tool used to strengthen soldiers, make them tougher emotionally and physically.

The Navy uses Wog day
You’ve often, probably, heard of “blood rank” too.

These things (even though they seem cruel) are used to strengthen soldiers. Nowadays, the military is like a celebrity. All of its actions are documented, recorded, broadcast, and discussed. Each action it takes is dissected and analyzed by the public so it is in their own best interest that they portray what the public wants. What the public wants these days is for everyone to be coddled, for kids to fall onto soft rubber bits in the playground, and for everyone to feel no pain.. ever. This is a huge mistake. Pain and adversity strengthen people. Now, don’t spin this comment too far. I don’t believe that people should be tortured or ridiculed to the point of suicide.. but an acceptable level of hazing is ok in my book. What is that acceptable level? Well, let’s just say that level is declining too much.

Therefore, nowadays, the military doesn’t have the liberty to train and strengthen soldiers the way they once did. That is why, imho, soldiers back in the Vietnam, WWI & WWII days were much stronger emotionally and physically. They needed to be. Veterans of those wars don’t complain about the measly hazing they endured because it paled in comparison to the war they endured.

Perhaps I’m getting too far off topic here. It is very regrettable that this soldier committed suicide. It is also regrettable that other soldiers who “hazed” him are also being taken out of the fight.

Great question Deelon. Sometimes, it is best not to get too overworked too early about things like this. We don’t have all the facts. So, how can we know. It does seem that it would need to be an extreme situation for someone that engages in tormenting to rise to having committed manslaughter or homicide. However, that might just be the case. But, I understand your skepticism and questioning.

@digitalimpression Thanks for the article. In this case, some of what they did was extreme. Yes they are suppose to be tough but how tough can a 19 year old be. No doubt this was his first time away from home and he should’ve had someone watching his back and helping him adapt to an extreme life changing experience. They don’t even allow that kind of stuff in boot camp any more. He was in a strange country, in dangerous territory and he had to rely on his fellow soldiers to have his back and they did everything else but that. Who knows maybe he wasn’t a team player and that is what got him all this ill will but they should’ve realized he was young and needed time to get with the program. What he needed was a friend, not enemies all around him. Also the young ones rarely know what to do to get help within their chain of command. With a lt. letting things go this far he probably didn’t have many options to find a way out. it is certainly a shame. I feel so sorry for him and his parents.

@digitalimpression You are making a number of HUGE claims for the value of hazing. Is there any evidence to support the hypothesis that hazing develops better soldiers than other methods? You say that hazing “toughens” soldiers. Is there any way of measuring “toughness” proposed here? Are these measure related to good soldiering?

Are there any objective measures we can use to compare older generation soldiers to current soldiers?

Is there even any theoretical reason to think that hurting people as a part of their training will help them fight better? Do folks get hazed out there on the battle field? Does learning that one’s fellows are untrustworthy help you trust them on the battle field, when, presumably, you really need to? Does hurting others in your squad develop cohesiveness?

You got to help me out here. What am I missing? How does showing someone they are foolish and worthless help make them feel competent and confident? What is the theory you are operating on here?

@Pandora I didn’t actually read the whole article. Some of what they did was probably inappropriate. I just sort of.. went off on a tangent there.

My point is that there needs to be a balance between “haze until they want to kill themselves” and “coddle them until they cry when they break a nail”.

@wundayatta That’s an awful lot of questions. Have you ever been in the military? If not, I don’t suppose I could explain it without a lot of Barney-style explanation.

All the “toughening up” tactics employed in all military are nothing but thinly veiled abuse.
All of these practices suck and this situation is just a sad manifestation of this fact.
Tragic but here to stay. The sad part is there is no telling what poor souls will reach their breaking point, until they do.

Big dif. between discipline and abuse.

While I don’t mentally convict everyone who is accused of a crime the moment that I hear a crime is charged, in such a case, and especially when it’s charged against a group of men, then I’m not inclined to dismiss it out of hand, either.

What makes you so certain that a crime was not committed?

This story is huge news, because two of the guys are local, but I can’t quite understand it, myself. I don’t think that abusing, bullying, or harassment is okay by any stretch, but I’m not sure that it is murder. This story is very sad, anyhow.

I know a guy who jumped ten stories to his death downtown off a parking garage. The note in his hand said “Thanks Shawnee”. Shawnee was his loyal girlfriend. They’d had a fight that morning because he didn’t want her to leave the house while he was away at work. She had never seen him act this way before. He awoke that morning and suddenly became insanely jealous, demanding she stay hidden until he got back. She had to go to work, and he knew that. They were happy for two years living together. He said he’d kill himself if she went to work. She went anyway, thinking he’d come to his senses. He texted her mid morning to see if she’d left. She replied yes. He replied “nice knowing you” and jumped to his death with a note in his hand.

Should she be held responsible? He even accused her of being respnsible.

@Coloma

“All the “toughening up” tactics employed in all military are nothing but thinly veiled abuse.
All of these practices suck and this situation is just a sad manifestation of this fact.”

Based on these statements I can tell that you have never served (and therefore have no real perspective on the issue). If by some miracle you have served, I can tell you aren’t the type of person that could handle “hazing”. By extension, I wouldn’t want you in my unit.

If you can’t handle a little hazing, how can you be expected to handle war?

I don’t think elite adults are in the military. I think barely out of high school kids make up its bulk and they’re pretty vulnerable as it is to even be sold on this idea.

@Simone_De_Beauvoir They are more elite than you will ever know. Being young and vulnerable does not preclude them from being elite. I am actually quite insulted by your opinion.

@digitalimpression Dying doesn’t make you elite. Perhaps, in your opinion, being young and vulnerable doesn’t preclude one from being elite but it doesn’t make them any less young and vulnerable, which means they’re quite traumatized, some of them, by the army’s ‘toughening antics’ and all that other bs meant to ‘inspire strength’. Also, I don’t consider young and vulnerable to have a negative connotation whatsoever so you have nothing to feel offended by but sure, go ahead, show me more pictures of things you haven’t yet done.

@Simone_De_Beauvoir I haven’t died yet? Is that what you’re saying? Wow. I refuse to respond further to you. Cold-hearted and ungrateful…..

@digitalimpression You don’t need to explain it to me. There’s really no point. All I care about is whether it works or not. I want to know if there is any objective measurement of this practice—and hell, I let you find evidence for any kind of hazing, anywhere—it doesn’t just have to be military. All you need to do is give me one tiny little study that shows that hazing is training and team-building technique that works better than doing nothing at all.

The problem with issues of not understanding is that I can’t understand. And you are in no better position to be objective, either. The Stockholm syndrome is a name for a syndrome where the abused come to identify with the abuse and with their captors. They start to bend over backward to justify the behavior of their abusers. It’s a coping technique and it works, but just because you cope with your abuse by justifying it doesn’t mean it is good for you by any objective standard.

@digitalimpression Um, no. Obviously you haven’t died yet, you’re here talking. Oh brother. I meant being a veteran.

It all depends on how you define “elite”, @Simone_De_Beauvoir. I agree that many draftees during the Vietnam War were not elite in any sense of the word. At that point in our history enlistment standards were low, we were drafting every young man who couldn’t avoid it, and “military service” was often a sentencing option in criminal cases that some convicts could elect over prison. That’s no way to build an “elite” force, and many of the results showed that.

Even so, a lot of young men (and women, in their services) still volunteered. I’d say that those volunteers were elite in every way, in terms of dedication to the nation and personal standards of courage and loyalty. We’re graced with some of them here in this forum, as you know. And officers in all branches of the military have always been volunteers, of course. They have been, far more often than not, ‘the elite of the elite’ in the terms I noted above, and also in intelligence, as well. I’ve worked with veteran (retired) officers of most branches of the service, and I can attest to that at first hand.

Since Vietnam we’ve moved to an entirely volunteer military, and the standards for entry have only gotten higher. No longer are high school dropouts solicited or accepted, and many of those in the military have personal ambitions to attend college, and do that. Military service is in no way a punishment option, not that the services would even accept convicts in their ranks.

As the son and nephew of WW II Army and Navy veterans and officers, and the father of a current serviceman, I could “take offense” at your bland assertion that those who serve in the US military are less than the best. But I really just shake my head in wonder at such an unwarranted slander.

Maybe we just need to understand your definition of “elite”. If by “elite” you mean “the entitled”, “the children of wealth and privilege”, “the indolent classes” and so forth, then I’d only have to question your definitions. But I do that pretty often, anyway.

@CWOTUS I know there are people with integrity in the military. I am sorry they’re being used by the government in wars we shouldn’t have started. I have my own feelings on the Vietnam war which I will not go into here. This is not a black and white issue. And I don’t have a definition of elite but I will repeat again, from what I see now, in terms of recruitment efforts and after conducting content analysis of military materials and advertisement, I can tell you their target is young, poor, black and hispanic men with few options – dispensable people, since we live in a racist country. Anyway, being in the military doesn’t make one elite. Nothing makes one elite.

The military used to be considered to be an “honorable” profession & in the era of WWII it was. However, from Vietnam till today it has deteriorated quite a lot. Recruiters tell potential enlistees that they are protecting our freedom, that they are building democracy in the various wars in which we are engaged…....... and the military is always hiring. With jobs being scarce, people keep enlisting (for various reasons, & money for college is a big reason). They find once they are in the military, that they have been lied to & this generates anger. It is not unreasonable to think that this anger found an outlet in tormenting this young soldier. Proving it will be difficult, but if it can be shown that these individuals did what has been said that they did – then I sincerely hope that pay for this crime.

@digitalimpression

I won’t argue with that. I also won’t excuse abusive practices regardless.
I’m of the Vietnam era and am no stranger to what goes down under the guise of toughening up soldiers.

@digitalimpression First, your disclaimer is nonsense. Opinions can be false, and we all know that everything any one of us says is our opinion. What does telling us that achieve, then, other than that you are afraid of contradiction?

Second, as a combat veteran, I disagree with most of what you’ve said here. Now, you claim that you can explain yourself to fellow military people (but not to people who haven’t served, for some reason). Well, go ahead. Explain it to me.