“Ticking Time Bomb” Has A Pi Fuse

I watched the July 15, 2012 Fox News panel discussion on the Department of Defense’ release of their “investigation” into the cause of the massacre at Ft. Hood by Dr.(Major) Hassan.  I felt like screaming -again.  I knew from personal experience how such a person could move through the military hierarchy.  I experienced the insidious pervasiveness of political correctness and moral bankruptcy almost from the beginning of my commissioned career in the U.S. army as an Infantry/Special Forces/Counterintelligence officer .  During the military reduction-in-force (RIF) of the  ’90s the “word” from the pentagon was “kick the shitbirds out so the good guys can stay in!”  I took that to heart…..and I am pleased to say that it was NOT a target rich environment.  It is a paradigm in the military that 10% of your soldiers will take 90% of your time.  In other words, properly dealing with shitbirds is an exhaustive effort and a gross waste of time.  Let me begin with SGT “Smith”.  I arrived at work at Ft. Bragg on a bright, sunny Monday morning and was immediately informed that both Fayetteville Homicide and Cumberland County Sheriff sex-crimes investigators wished to see me regarding SGT Smith at CID headquarters.  They informed me that he had implicated himself in a triple homicide that had occurred a few weeks previous by telling a female classmate (night school) that he had murdered that mother and her two young children.  He rreinforced his comment by drawing stick figures of the deceased on a piece of paper, turning her desk on its’ side and leaving the paper on top while she was on break.  The murdered boy was a classmate of my oldest son and lived a few blocks away.  Soon after he began stalking her to the point she had to move out of town.  When she reported it to the police they immediately conducte a legal search of his car and apartment.  In addition to marijuana residue on the floor of his car, they found sadistic, child porn magazines on his kitchen counter with subscription forms completed and naked baby dolls on his bed.  The investigators told me they didn’t think he was actually involved but, coincidentally,  he was from the same home town as their prime suspect.  They took him downtown and “extracted” DNA samples.  This began a very laborious investigation on my part.  I first interviewed his teammates.  The told me he bragged about frequently going to Johnson City, Tennessee (just across the NC border) picking up 14-15 year old girls, having sex with them then telling him he had AIDS.  He relished their horror.  I spoke with ten former commanders and co-workers and they ALLL said he was “crazy”.  I referred him to Womack Army Community Hospital for a psyche eval.  He refused to go.  I began Article 15 procedures against him for disobeying a direct order.  The acting battalion commander, Major Tom Rendall denied it.  After listening to the former classmate for over an hour about Smith’s weird predations I consolidated the evidence supporting a discharge from the army and took it to the same Major Rendall.  When I completed my briefing to him he looked me square in the eye and said, “I think SHE is over reacting.”  He denied my recommendation for Smith’s discharge.  I have often wondered if Major Rendall’s predations on the wives of soldiers under his command had any influence in his response.  Not to be deterred I let his First Sergeant know that my favorite aunt had gone to college with Eleanor Smeal, former president of the National Organization for Women (NOW) and that upon hearing of the inaction regarding Smith’s behavior was organizing a protest to occur at the main entrance to Ft. Bragg.  Smith was discharged within weeks (I heard).  I, of course, provided no proof that my aunt knew Ms. Smeal.    Let me add one more “Strange But True” example of political correctness in the military passing dangerous people along:  I had just reported in as a battalion intelligence officer when a new SGT signed in to my section.  I had authorized the troops to get rid of a cumbersome and unused map safe and we were in the process of moving it out of our office onto a truck when SGT “Jones” arrived.  I tasked him with helping the rest of the gang get the “white elephant” onto the truck and turned back in to the supply depot.  The next day I asked where Jones was.  I was told he had reported to sick call with a sprained back.  Fine, I told him to take the rest of the day off.  When he came back to duty I found out he had reported to the hospital complaining of “Third phase syphillis eating through his spine.”  The Doc told me he had no such illness.  A few days later a Sergeant First Class came into our office to begin the process for his security clearance.  When I returned from lunch my NCOIC told me the SFC came back to retrieve his wallet….and it was gone.  I ordered an immediate search of the office and no wallet.  I had Duty Officer that night.  My last round of the area took me up a wooden stair to a loading dock behind the company offices.  I always look in one of the doors’ windows near the stairs to see how much time until I got off.  It was 7:32am.   Shortly after returning to my office at 8am I was told the wallet had been found at the bottom of that wooden stair at exactly 0745.  One of my soldiers told me Jones uncharacteristically declined riding with the rest of the team from the barracks and walked to work that morning…..right past the wooden stair between 7:32 and 7:45.   I queried Jones about how he in-processed the SFC.  I made him physically go through the motions of how he retrieved the forms from the file cabinet and guided the SFC through completion.  As Jones did so he said he never saw the wallet ……but his head physically looked down at the desk where the wallet had been while saying he never saw it.  I confronted him with lying and stealing the wallet.  His response was an astonishing “I may have blacked-out and taken it by mistake.”   I conducted a background investigation on Jones and discovered he had been discharged from the army twice before under inauspicious circumstances.  Once for telling his platoon sergeant in the 82nd Airborner to “kiss his ass”, he was kicked out of Ranger battalion (both as an intel analyst) and finallly denied reenlistment after a year in Korea.  While overseas he had gone to sick call every month like clockwork.  On one occasion he complained of lower back pain from using a copy machine “too much”.  On another occasion he complained of sores on his knees, hands and the back of his mouth.  He was given an Article 15 there for being AWOL.  So here Jones is having enlisted for the third time stealing a wallet from another soldier.  He had been avoiding submitting his DA Form 398 (background investigation) so he could be cleared to work in the office.  I caught him smuggling a grossly inadequately completed Form as I unexpectedly returned to the office during lunch.  He was going to take it directly over my head without my quality control.  I ordered him to report back after lunch and the NCOIC and I would go over it with him.  While doing so in the vault I asked what his first character reference “SFC XXXX” was doing at Fort Leavenworth.  “Ten Years” Jones said!  “For what”” I said.  “Child molestation”!  My NCOIC jumped out of his chair and nearly grabbed Jones by the throat.  “You listed a convicted shild molester as a character reference for a Top Secret security clearance?” he shouted.  “He was the only one who knew what I was doing at the time” Jones replied.  I subsequently discovered he was receiving unreported psychiatric treatment while home on weekends and leave.  After spending beaucoup man-hours gathering this information my NCOIC and I met with the battalion commander, the operations officer/exectuve officer and the battalion sergeant major.  I wanted the dirtbag out of the army.  The sergeant major said “No way!”  This was the same sergeant major who had impregnated a female NCO in my office.  I told him that I wasn’t keeping a thief in my office.  The sergeant major moved him to the motor pool …….until he re-classified into……..counterintelligence.  The ops officer berated me for “getting down in the dirt with the enlisted”.  Shortly before I retired I found many others who had experienced similar failures to support by their chain of command.  It has been an epidemic for decades.  The Fort Hood shooting is just the beginning.  “Those who fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it”  George Santayana.