Damn That Greatest Generation Pt. 2

My old Army buddy Mike is still in Afghanistan, and it looks likes he's in some terrible trouble. They want to send him to Leavenworth.
After the sorriness of Abu Ghraib and the "Girls Gone Wild" shenanigans of Camp Bucca, what could be so awful?

Beer.

He got his guys, ten in all, who had not even been out on a pass for a year, two beers each to celebrate their final patrol.

Not a good decision, but I do believe our troops drank their way through the wine country of France during WWII without a mark being placed on their honor.

The punishment hardly fits the crime. Unless, of course, it's OK to punish the guys harder because of our enemy's religion.

You know, because it's so much holier than ours.

You could practically start a new drinking game with the number of times they say the word "holy" on the news these days.

UPDATE:
Below, I've decided to include the letter he sent to the Washington Post. He's pretty upset:

I am a soldier currently serving with 3-116th Infantry on Bagram Air Field, Afghanistan. I am currently under investigation for violating one of our general orders and one of our specific, yet unspoken, orders. I will explain why I am writing this and why this would be of interest to you and anyone else with a conscience in the following paragraphs.

My entire squad went out on an “anti-rocket” patrol and were supposed to look for possible sites from which an individual could fire a rocket. We were told to do this at night when such sites were not evident to the naked eye. We were also told to do this in an area which is historically heavily mined with both anti-tank and anti-personnel mines, so the ability to go off road is there, but is suicidal. So, we drove from the start point to the end point several times and stopped several times as we normally do. This was supposedly our last patrol, however, and as the command had not left us with enough manpower at Bagram to do our mission to the fullest of our capabilities, none of my soldiers had been allowed to go on pass for the entire year, although we were authorized by the theater command to go two times per person. Our troops regularly work twelve hours on the perimeter towers and are required to show up 45 minutes before their shift starts and sometimes don’t get back from the towers until half an hour after their shifts.

Regularly working 13-14 hour days without a day off is grueling. We routinely work 65-70 hours per week. The days that we are not actually standing towers are called amber days and we are subject to half an hour recall at any time, so it is not really a day off. We must be ready to go at any time, whether asleep or awake, on these amber days and not making it to our appointed place of duty within 30 minutes with all of our mission essential gear ready for three days in the field is a punishable offense.

Because of this and because of reasons that I shall explain later, I made the decision to break the first general order that we were given in theater (which was the prohibition of alcohol due to our location in a Muslim country) and give my guys two beers each. Our Muslim, local national interpreter not only told us where we could purchase said items (there were several sites around Bagram), but told us he had purchased it before with and for the Military Police. He also handled the transaction for us and consumed several bottles himself. After sitting in one place, consuming the beer, and waiting several hours before we drove we returned to Bagram without incident. The command somehow found out about the incident and called everyone in for questioning two days later. I have been informed that all members on the patrol will be severely punished and my fate hangs in the air but is probably destined for something very, very bad. From what I understand, I and another sergeant stand to face court martial.

But here’s why I am writing you. I wish to inform you of blatant inequality with regard to punishment, reward, and treatment in general. The first case I would like to bring up concerns how the command handled, or should I say failed to handle, a similar but more egregious case. A First Lieutenant in our Battalion did the same thing with his troops, but instead of ten people like I had, he had an entire platoon with him. And instead of being two kilometers outside of base, he was in Kabul which is three hours away from his Forward Operating Base (FOB). And instead of just allowing his troops to drink beer, he was having sex (another violation of general order number one) with a foreign national woman who was not his wife (which is adultery and punishable under both the Uniform Code of Military Justice and the Islamic law that governs this country). And while my squad was based out of that FOB we took contact from the enemy and got into a fire fight. Our back up took three hours to arrive… and his platoon was our back up. His sector was adjacent to our sector, and he left his sector on several occasions to go to Kabul (which was adjacent to his sector opposite our sector) to see this woman. I can’t say for certain that he was in Kabul at the time of our fire fight, but the long wait and the pattern of behavior do seem to fit. When the command found out what he was doing, he was transferred from that FOB and his platoon to a staff job at our battalion headquarters. He was then PROMOTED to captain. No charges were filed. That being the case, why shouldn’t I take the chance to do the same, (but to a lesser degree) with my troops? According to the officer paradigm, the worst thing I had to risk was nothing.

The Second instance occurred a year ago. While we were at Ft Bragg training for this mission, we were under orders to not leave our immediate battalion area and were also restricted from alcohol. Another platoon in another company within our battalion not only left their respective company areas without permission, but left the base and consumed alcohol in masse. Letters of reprimand were given to the senior leaders, but other than that no charges were filed, nor was any other action taken. I know this because one of those involved is a friend of mine.

The third instance is very similar. We did a rotation at the Joint Readiness Training Center (JRTC) at Ft. Polk, LA. The same rules of lock-down and alcohol intolerance were in effect as they were at Ft. Bragg. The medic platoon leader not only allowed his troops to go off post, meet with family, and drink alcohol… but he allowed it to happen in an Army ambulance. Again, nothing happened to him.

Another interesting incident that happened is a pair of fights that happened at FOB Ghazni. One fight involved a pair of officers (captains) and one involved two enlisted soldiers. Both were similar in damage and violence, but the captains received letters of reprimand while the enlisted soldiers received non-judicial punishment. Again, the battalion chose to go light on the officers and burn the soldiers. Yet another officer (a 2nd Lieutenant) was relieved of command and sent to a remote FOB to serve as a liaison officer. When he went on leave he was asked not to return to that FOB by its command. I’m not certain if he was asked not to return because he was incapable of handling the job or because of the allegations that he had been having some sort of affair with a junior enlisted female. Again, nothing has happened to the officer.

We have complaints of racism that have not been dealt with but go on unchecked. We have drinking which is rampant in our camp and on Bagram in general that is unchecked. There are more instances of sex happening on this base than on most college campuses, and all of it goes unchecked. The Base Defensive Operations Sergeant Major toured several of the camps (before our incident) and said that there was too much drinking and sex going on, but if it is against the first general order, isn’t one case too much? And if that is the case, how did he find out and what is being done about that? Our camp is almost entirely male, so it would be pretty difficult to make a charge like that stick against us as the comings and goings of a few lone females would be noticed rather quickly. The mistakes I made, I made at the end of our tour. We have less than two months left here and we have been in country for ten months. It took me ten months to screw up… it only took four months in country before the misconduct started for the officer corps. As a matter of fact, it only took a few months into the training before the bad conduct started. All of this was swept under the rug at the higher levels yet the lower enlisted were summarily and regularly crucified for infractions that ranged from showing up late to formation, to not wearing their body armor on the towers (the towers are bullet-proof, by the way). Runners are allowed to run by the towers in shorts and t-shirts, in full view of the locals (who regularly assemble by the fence to ogle the women), but if the tower guards take off the body armor that they have been wearing for ten hours they are subject to UCMJ action.

Where is the parity? Where is the equality? Where is the justice here? I know for a fact that congress writes the Army regulations and that it is based on the Constitution. If that is truly the case, why are some treated like royalty and others like peasants? Why are some automatically guilty and others automatically innocent? Why is there a social caste system instead of a rank structure as there should be? Since we have been in country, I have seen punishment after punishment after punishment handed out to the enlisted, yet I have never seen them rewarded. The only medal that I have seen awarded since we have been in country is a Purple Heart and that was to an officer. Awards that were submitted in November for soldiers have yet to appear and I often wonder if they ever will. The only tool used to influence enlisted soldiers here is punishment and fear of reprisal. I have no problem being punished for mistakes I have made. I DO have a very big problem with being punished for something that is going on rampantly around us when very few others are being punished. I have a HUGE problem when an officer commits the same misconduct and is, not only not punished, but PROMOTED. Officers are supposed to be held to a higher standard, not shielded from reproach by their station. I have no issue with military justice as long as it is just. What I have seen here is not justice or good military order, but a travesty. If a child is a delinquent, we regularly blame the parents. Here, the parents blame the siblings, punish the children, and pay the babysitter extra for their lack of supervision so that they don’t have to admit that they are bad parents.

Sincerely,
SSG Michael St. Jacques

Posted by floridacracker at May 27, 2005 09:50 AM