And who is to blame for this, Santa Claus? U.S. "mainstream media" propaganda mill continues to paint Bales as "lone wolf" in cover-up as real story disappears from Internet
U-T San Diego News
By Gretel C. Kovatch
03/24/2012
Army Staff Sgt. Robert Bales, the American soldier accused of slaughtering 17 Afghan civilians on March 11, has a complicated background.
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| Army "superman" SSgt. Robert Bales: A real, live Audie Murphy |
He has faced financial and legal problems, including a home in danger of foreclosure and a court judgment of more than a million dollars.
But when he goes to trial on 17 counts of murder, his lawyers are likely to focus on his four combat tours in Iraq and Afghanistan and the trauma of seeing his friend’s leg ripped off in an explosion.
That defense will cast renewed attention on a problem felt keenly in San Diego’s military community: combat stress caused by repeated deployments to the war zone.
Military mental health professionals say that there is no evidence that psychological strain from Bales’ combat service prompted his actions. None of the other stresses he faced explain or condone them, either.
“Numerous people have deployed four or five or seven times” without committing mass murder, said Navy Cmdr. Charles Benson, psychiatrist and surgeon for the 1st Marine Division based at Camp Pendleton. “Psychologically, that doesn’t add up at all.”
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| Bales supposedly took time out from killing, raping and bombing structures to also burn bodies of children, Bales will most likely be courts-martialed, convicted and executed to shut him up, cover-up real story |
But repeat combat tours, financial problems and career disappointments as the military downsizes are commonplace pressures squeezing many.
“Military life in general has always been a stressful existence,” Benson said. Deploying to war zones, losing friends killed in combat, “There is a toll taken by doing this over and over again. ... It bleeds over to many different areas of people’s lives.”
Stresses
The prolonged strain on the armed forces has been increasingly evident in recent years.
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| Indeed, Bales must have been a busy killing machine, alternating blowing up buildings, raping women, killing children and adults and burning bodies, a tough days' work for any Army platoon but a snap for this former Wall Street fraudster super warrior |
Since 2001, more than 2 million troops have deployed in support of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. A recent health report by the Army states that “such a high operational tempo over such a long period is unprecedented for the U.S. military.”
During the Vietnam War, most troops served one tour. In World War II, while some deployed and stayed deployed for the duration, the average spent just 40 days in combat over four years, according to one estimate.
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| Vietnam war: Only one combat tour required, 365 days |
The tempo in Iraq and Afghanistan over the last decade, however, “has remained persistently high, providing very few opportunities for individuals to rest, either physically or mentally,” the Army says.
About 20 percent of active-duty soldiers have deployed three or more times to Iraq or Afghanistan, usually on yearlong tours.
The Marine Corps has a much smaller and younger force, with about 75 percent leaving the service after one term. Among career Marines, half a dozen combat tours is not unheard of, but only about 5 percent of active-duty Marines have served three or more.
U.S. special operations forces have been in particularly high demand. They spend an average of about six months at home for every seven months deployed.
Most studies show a cumulative psychological effect to war zone deployments, with higher rates of post-traumatic stress disorder diagnosed after second and third tours, particularly when service members are repeatedly exposed to trauma such as intense combat or front-line medical care.
The result has been an epidemic of PTSD affecting the military. Over 85 percent of troops experience some form of combat stress after deployment. Most readjust, but researchers expect roughly 20 percent of returning troops to eventually develop full-blown PTSD, or upward of 400,000 Iraq and Afghanistan veterans.
Among other measures of distress, the proportion of male service members evacuated from Iraq because of mental disorders climbed steadily from 2004 to 2010, when it topped 20 percent.
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| Obama and his criminal regime responsible for THIS |
The suicide rate among soldiers nearly doubled between 2004 to 2008 and the rate for Marines spiked in 2009 to the highest in the military, well above the adjusted civilian rate. The number of Marine suicides has since dropped significantly, but attempts remained at record highs.
Hospital stays for acute alcohol diagnoses increased more than threefold between 2001 and 2010, the Armed Forces Health Surveillance Center reported.
Army rates of homicide, aggravated assault and robbery have remained below national averages for the general population. But the rate of rape by soldiers is much higher and has climbed sharply since 2006.
Substantiated incidents of domestic violence by soldiers increased 85 percent since 2001. Child abuse rose 44 percent, the Army reported.
Screening
Service members are often reluctant to inform their bosses of psychological strain, because of the stigma against mental illness and appearing weak, a fear of career repercussions and the desire to stay with their team.
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| These men and women will never be the same |
Bill Rider, a Vietnam War veteran from Oceanside and cofounder of American Combat Veterans of War, mentors troops struggling with combat stress through the organization’s anonymous Safe Warrior Outreach Program.
He met a Navy SEAL recently who had deployed to war 14 times. His body may have been home, but his mind was still in Afghanistan with his buddies.
“He didn’t even know his wife was there,” Rider said, describing the shellshocked look on his face. “But he’s not going to tell people about it. If he gets a bad proficiency report, he’s not going to be able to go back.”
After years of pushing hotline numbers and counseling services, the military is increasingly framing combat and operational stress as a leadership issue. Now the onus falls more to Marines and sailors to spot signs of mental wear and tear on their peers.
The Navy, which provides medical care for sailors and Marines, opened the Center for Combat & Operational Stress Control in 2008 at San Diego Naval Medical Center in Balboa Park.
There is usually a slow build before a service member lashes out in violence against himself or others, said Navy Capt. Scott Johnston, a clinical psychologist and director of the center.
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| Scumbag "doctors" at Veterans Administration hospitals now using illegal Ecstasy on soldiers to shut them up, make condition worse so they can be committed to mental hospitals indefinitely, silencing them |
“There are usually signs that something is happening. That’s why we are trying to raise awareness,” he said. “People might have inappropriately written them off as something else, saying ‘Oh he was just having a bad day,’ or ‘we’re going through a stressful time.’ As opposed to actually doing something about it.”
Last fall the Corps mandated that five percent of each battalion or squadron, or at least 20 Marines, receive an all-day course in combat and operational stress control. Julian Garibay, a retired Marine chief warrant officer 5, helps train the stress control teams for the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force headquartered at Camp Pendleton.
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| Marine cracks from stress of multiple combat tours, occupation duty |
Early detection is key, he said, and the most effective method is for Marines to look for signs of overwhelming stress in each other: “They’re the ones who are hands on with their Marines, observing them, living with them, counseling and mentoring.”
When someone is on the verge of a breakdown, “before we might have suspected it and might not have had the proper tools” to intervene, he said.
Mass Murder
One of the few examples of a service member accused of coldblooded mass murder in recent history involves Maj. Nidal Hasan, the Army psychiatrist charged with killing 13 people at Fort Hood in 2009. In the run-up to his court-martial, it remains unclear whether insanity or terrorism helped spur the American-born Muslim’s rampage, which allegedly included cries in Arabic of “God is great!” as he opened fire on fellow soldiers.
Bales, who has been charged with murder, is accused of going house to house between two villages, shooting his victims asleep in their beds. Nine of them were children.
Whatever impulses may have surged through Bales’ brain that night, whether it was undiagnosed PTSD or a psychotic break or something else, will probably never be fully explained.
If he is found guilty as charged, then something clearly snapped inside this man known to many of his neighbors and colleagues as an exemplary soldier with a strong marriage.
After an intense battle in Zarqa, Iraq, Bales told the Fort Lewis Northwest Guardian in 2007 that what sets Americans apart is the care they take to protect civilians on the battlefield.
“I’ve never been more proud to be a part of this unit than that day for the simple fact that we discriminated between the bad guys and the noncombatants,” he said.
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