Nine children among 16 dead after US serviceman attacks villagers

[jmm99]

From Free Republic, Afghanistan massacre suspect named as Sgt Robert Bales.

I'm posting the entirety of the posts by the 31-year old CPT posting as Future Snake Eater. If he is who he says he is (a photo of Bales and him is posted by him !), he will undoubtedly end up as a character witness called by the defense. He is not a res gestae witness of the events in Astan. The value of character witnesses is subject to some argument. The Chicago Jury Study of long ago proved that character witnesses are more sentence determinative than outcome determinative; although, in any event, character witnesses are better than no defense witnesses. The posts below are not quite as dramatic as 1st Lt. Ollie North's character testimony for Herrod in his 1970 Son Thang GCM, which found Herrod not guilty of 16 charged murders. The members of that panel thought well of North, but did not feel that his testimony swayed them.

All,
I served with Bales for three years as his Platoon Leader. He is an absolutely outstanding Soldier, and what has transpired here is so out of character, I don't even know where to start. Please keep his wife and two young kids in your thoughts and prayers. He needs help. Hopefully he'll get it.
1 posted on Friday, March 16, 2012 6:54:03 PM by Future Snake Eater

To: darkwing104 [I sure hope the Army does everything to protect his family]
To my knowledge they are. Part of the delay in releasing his name was getting his family relocated to a secure area so as to protect them from possible repercussions from ROP types or even would-be liberal “do-gooders” (you know, teach us baby-killers a lesson, right?).
5 posted on Friday, March 16, 2012 7:03:05 PM by Future Snake Eater (Don't stop. Keep moving!)

To: All
RE: Bales' three Iraq deployments--
They were all with the 3d Stryker Brigade Combat Team. That's the Army's first ever Stryker Brigade. He went with them on their first deployment to Mosul in Northern Iraq. That one BDE relieved the entire 101st Airborne Division. Not only that, but Strykers had never been used in combat, so they had to figure that all out on the fly as well.

I got to the company right as they came back from Iraq. I can tell you for certain, Bales stood out immediately as a go-to guy. He was an E-4 (Specialist) at the time but quickly got promoted to Sergeant and took over my 1st Squad, Alpha Team. He is VERY smart, very intense, and was just everything you could want in a Team Leader. He knew when to be relaxed, and he knew when to be hard. He could joke around with guys during down-time, then be 100% business on a mission.

He saved my Stryker during one particular engagement. We had been in Mosul for months (this was his second deployment, my first). When you're in an area for that long, you can easily let your guard down when you NEVER take contact. Bales, however, was always on his game. We were checking out an area in a fairly tight alleyway, and he pulled security directly to the rear of the vehicle from his hatch. I was talking to my commander over the radio when I heard Bales yell "RPG!" and then immediately open fire. By the time I had even dropped into my hatch, he had shot the RPG shooter, causing the RPG to fly high and miss my vehicle. They caught the guy later that day getting treated for a GSW in an Iraqi hospital.

That second deployment was hell. It was Jul 2006-Sept 2007, 15 months, during the height of the insanity in that country. We got bounced around all over the country after we left Mosul. Constant stress, always waiting to be blown up or ambushed--AQI, Iraqi Army, Iraqi Police, who knew? In our last three months, we were in a neighborhood called Dora. Just in the first week we had six Strykers destroyed and over 40 people wounded. Bales was rock-solid the entire time.

Bales was frequently the lead guy in the door whenever we conducted a raid (we did about 50 of them). He never complained, he wanted to be there for his guys. A tremendous NCO.

I honestly don't care what comes out of this, b/c I know who he is. I just hope that you all will keep this in mind when you see the inevitable character assassination on TV news.
10 posted on Friday, March 16, 2012 7:14:37 PM by Future Snake Eater (Don't stop. Keep moving!)

My favorite pic of Bales. My Stryker vehicle commander had a feeling we were going to get hit with an IED on that particular patrol. Bales and I both bet him $0.50 we'd get through just fine. When we reached the next FOB without any issue, my VC tore a $1 bill in half and gave us each one. This was our celebratory photo.



23 posted on Friday, March 16, 2012 7:36:29 PM by Future Snake Eater (Don't stop. Keep moving!)

To: killermedic
Too many clowns who’ve “deployed” but never even seen a combat patrol, let alone combat, think they can moralize via long distance. I’ve seen it before (in my Career Course class). The constant mental strain of waiting to get hit, knowing that it could come at any time, knowing that you’ll likely never even see direct enemy contact since they know better than to engage you like that...it takes a major toll after a few months.

I don’t like to play the “I was there, you weren’t” card, but it’s really something you just can’t know unless you experience it. He did it three times and was well under way for a fourth. We had guys killed and limbs blown off in our deployment. We had guys up and quit on the spot b/c they couldn’t take the stress. We saw the charred corpses of other Soldiers, dead kids, the looks of sheer hatred from the populace we were supposedly there to help.

He took every bit of it. Everyone has their breaking point.
41 posted on Friday, March 16, 2012 7:54:14 PM by Future Snake Eater (Don't stop. Keep moving!)

To: LittleSpotBlog [Interesting...the NBC nightly news just showed photos of Bales, and he looks nothing like the Bales in this pic.]

I just looked it up on the NBC World News site. That’s definitely him.
47 posted on Friday, March 16, 2012 8:00:06 PM by Future Snake Eater (Don't stop. Keep moving!)

To: PapaBear3625 [You think it’s a good idea to put a pic of him on a public forum? Unless his pic is already plastered throughout the media?]

It is. I purposely withheld any/all info I had about him until the press did their thing. Now, it’s up to us, his comrades-in-arms, to make sure the word gets out that this man is NOT a psychopath, that if he did indeed do this, then he needs help, NOT a prison cell or a death sentence.
60 posted on Friday, March 16, 2012 8:09:48 PM by Future Snake Eater (Don't stop. Keep moving!)

To: jesseam [PTSD is a horrible thing. My last combat exposure was five years ago and I still drop whenever a sudden noise occurs; God help the Sargeant. OIF vet]

Thankfully it only took me a few months to shake the “jumps” though I was quite a piece of work during my R&R leave!

Stay safe, brother.
132 posted on Friday, March 16, 2012 10:12:24 PM by Future Snake Eater (Don't stop. Keep moving!)

To: Toespi
Yeah, that’s him.
137 posted on Friday, March 16, 2012 10:27:39 PM by Future Snake Eater (Don't stop. Keep moving!)

To: MinuteGal
Bales on the right, I’m on the left.
138 posted on Friday, March 16, 2012 10:29:43 PM by Future Snake Eater (Don't stop. Keep moving!)

There will be much, much more to this case - evidence favorable for the prosecution; evidence favorable for the defense.

Regards

Mike