Why did this American soldier kill these Afghani's?

I just heard this on the news & they were saying he’d had six tours over there, or something close & that he’d been drinking all day before he went on the rampage.
All pretty poor excuses for his brutal, cowardly assault on innocents.

His wife was interviewed saying it couldn’t have been him because it was totally against everything she knew and loved about him, and he’s saying he was kind of blacked out during some of it, but felt he was guilty regardless because of what he did remember.

Did the government drug him to do this job or something? I’m not normally much on conspiracy theories, but this one seems odd.

Oh my God….

I heard his lawyer on the radio this morning. He said that the U.S. Army was partly to blame, because of his six deployments, and that the deal to allow him to escape the death penalty was an admission of the military’s partial responsibility.

@KNOWITALL : Why must it be a conspiracy on the part of the military? We think we have free will and complete control over our ‘selves,’ but our motives are so often a mystery to us. I don’t find it that incredible that this soldier would have lost it and gone on a rampage, especially if he has been deployed six times and had a traumatic brain injury.

@bookish1 I don’t know much about his brain injury, but I do know it can cause a lot of problems and mood changes, etc… I had one myself.

It doesn’t have to be a conspiracy, I just find it odd that a man with children could kill other people’s children, and frankly the military are supposed to do thorough evaluations before re-deployment from what I understand. His lack of memory of some things, coupled with his admitting remembering a few of them remind me of the effect of drugs like the date rape pills.

He just went nuts @KNOWITALL.

@Dutchess_III Maybe add nutz to alcohol in a big glass of another country filled with people who want to kill you, I can see that.

@KNOWITALL : Thanks for explaining your thinking. I guess I find it less incredible that an experienced and overextended soldier could kill children even though he is a father himself. Dehumanizing the enemy is an important part of the mindset needed to even enter combat. And in Afghanistan, just like in Iraq and Vietnam and other counterinsurgency theaters, the enemy can be anyone. The ‘friendlies’ of today might be feeding and arming the Taliban tonight.
And on your second point, it’s quite possible he could have been on drugs too.

Soldiers who go thru warfare rarely are ever “normal” again when they get out of the military. Too many of these soldiers are damaged mentally & emotionally. Many of these soldiers live with the memories of trying to stay alive when it seems like everyone they come across wants to kill them. They lose the ability for tolerance & patience, & too many of them seethe with anger just below the surface, but they really have no clue as to what they are angry about. Far too many of these soldiers end up divorced & far too many of them end up committing suicide. Many of these young soldiers go into the Military looking for a sense of belonging & a desire to serve their country. But the Military is in the pockets of the Military Industrial Complex & so these young volunteers are lied to on a regular basis. And the VA is doing very little to help these soldiers. It is a long-standing tragedy for the United States & for the countries that the Military has invaded.

@bookish1 A lot of my family was military and I know quite a few ex-military, and although I couldn’t describe them all as ‘normal’ (two have PTSD), they don’t seem like psychopaths, even though I know they’re capable of violence. I’m trying to imagine any of them killing children and it’s difficult to imagine snapping to that degree, it’s a pretty disciplined job.

@Linda_Owl My uncle is fairly high up in a VA hospital and he said it’s horrible red tape, so I believe that.

He says he doesn’t know why he did it. So I doubt that we can explain it.

@Jeruba Yep, just asking for theories, it’s inexplicable to me.

Back in the 60s, the boomer generation seemed so split from their parents, of the World War II “greatest generation”. Simon and Garfunkel, the Beatles, other bands, had hits about kids unable to communicate or understand their silent, emotionally dead parents. Carly Simon sang “My father sits at night with no lights on
His cigarette glows in the dark.
The living room is still;
I walk by, no remark.”

It is my theory that a huge number of men that had been through WWII were suffering from PTSD but no one had figured out that was what was going on. In the 40s, 50s, and 60s, you had a drink or five and were stoic about it.

Now we are finding out that PTSD is actually rampant in combat veterans. And listening to the plea and attempt at explanation of Sgt. Bales, I think he just snapped and was way beyond his ability to handle the situation. But soldiers won’t admit that, even in this situation, because it is considered a sign of weakness and cowardice. so they stuff their feelings deep inside until they snap.

@Linda_Owl – I agree that many are damaged by what they see while in the military, but I know quite a good many who were messed up before going in, yet they blame the military for the benefits. I wish there was good psychological testing prior to entering & after getting out to weed these people out.

@zenvelo: GA! Very, very good answer. I recently read a book about Korean War veterans, about how they were brought up with the patriotic values of the World War II homefront, and so felt they just had to reintegrate silently and uncomplainingly, but they had very high levels of PTSD as well, more comparable to Vietnam than to WW2.

6 tours, heavy drinking, brain damage and PTSD. He snapped.
How much could any of us take before we snap?
We asked too much of this man. He didn’t let us down, we let him down.

Funny how he snapped & yet still had the forethought to massacre women & kids, not his comrades…who were armed to the teeth & could’ve defended themselves.

Brutal wars have the capability to turn human beings into beasts. Soldiers deployed in Afghanistan have seen too much brutality including killed comrades. This breeds hatred and turns off normal human inhibitions.

Woops, I heard on the radio this morning that he had served 4 tours, not 6.
Also, he had been taking steroids and they made him “irritable.” Pore thang. Absolutely his own damn fault, in the opinion of someone who has a prescription for them.

Exactly @bookish1, maybe if he’d done a Rambo & went batshit crazy killing bad guys, guess he didn’t read the script.

This has been happening in wars since the beginning of time.
All his life he has been conditioned that killing is evil. So to override this conditioning you need a powerful reason like defending your country or family. The army trains you to kill but does that mean that you wont suffer psychological damage if you do and that some soldiers are damaged more than others? Even with the best will in the world the army can’t watch every soldier carefully for signs of a breakdown and because of the super machismo present in the army you would probably feel seeking help or counselling a sign of weakness whereas drinking heavily to blot it out temporarily is acceptable. Women weep and men drink. I’m so sorry for the soldier and hope his family will stand by him and that he gets the help he needs and that the army will do right by the Afghani victims relatives. Is there still chivalry in the modern army? I’d like to think so.

@WMFlight Thank you for your thoughtful and apt response.

My grandfather spoke exactly once about liberating concentration camps, and two of my uncles were never the same after the Marines (Korean War) so I am very sympathetic to those who serve their country.