Who ya gonna call? A Scud-buster?
Let’s say for the sake of discourse that you are a drug kingpin and you have someone you just absolutely need someone dead overnight. Money is not a huge obstacle, but you need someone with a proven track record who can get the job done. Someone who can be discreet. Now, on a continuum from Marine Sniper with numerous kills in A-stan to the Chaplain, where exactly would a PFC in an Air Defense Artillery Brigade fall?
Pfc. Michael Jackson Apodaca, 18 who was arrested Monday, is accused of working as a paid hit man, and assassinating a member of the Juarez Cartel who had become an informant for U.S. authorities…
Pfc. Apodaca enlisted in the Army in September 2008. He is stationed with the 11th Air Defense Artillery Brigade at Fort Bliss.
Well, the author at least went off to wild-assed speculation-ville to round out his report:
While this is the first known instance of a U.S. soldier working as an assassin for the drug cartels, this may simply be a consequence of the evolving threat posed to this country by the cartels, as well as a result of the criminal gang activity which now exists in the U.S. military.
I wonder if Mark Potok wrote this article?
In April 2009, the FBI released a statement on the growing problem of gangs in the military, and the threat they now pose to U.S. police officers. What follows is an excerpt from that statement:
“Gang members with military training pose a unique threat to law enforcement personnel because of the distinctive military skills that they possess and their willingness to teach these skills to fellow gang members. While the number of gang members trained by the military is unknown, the threat that they pose to law enforcement is potentially significant, particularly if gang members trained in weapons, tactics, and planning pass this instruction on to other gang members.”
Obviously Potok didn’t write it, he would have changed “gangs” to right-wing extremists, since he isn’t concerned about the Crips and Bloods getting into the military, as evidenced by the fact that he has twice now (that I have seen) conflated “Gangs” with “Right Wing Extremists”…
Oh, and Pfc. Michael Jackson Apodaca…thanks a lot, Dick.
Category: Politics
This is nothing new. I, Loktar, have been an assassin for the Shattered Hand Clan for quite some time, yet I still consider my overall service to Thrall to be the primary allegiance of value.
You would know this, oh Dwarven one, had you paid the least bit of attention to me in the mighty battles of Arathi Basin.
I am sure drug cartels are always on the lookout for glorified HEMMET drivers who can perform a missile reload in MOPP IV.
You guys really need to watch back episodes from the Unit! Seriously they take these things right from the show…although Scott Foley was never arrested, unless it was on purpose during and assignment from…the unit!!!
Now if you want massive death and carnage, you get a mess cook.
Apparently this loser was gang affiliated before joining the Army. He is a local assigned to Bliss and it appears that he kept running with the same bangers after enlistment. The story in the local papers was that the victim was a cartel LT who was working with the feds. Its not unusual for cartels to contract out work to American bangers but they typically keep the violence south of the border since its bad for business. Despite Juarez staring at 2000+ murders this year, El Paso is statistically the third safest city in the States.
Wow, now that is a factoid I never would have guessed, thanks Colonel.
If you hear anything new, can you drop a link to us here?
Sadly, this crap brings out the worst in the left. But it’s not new. My dad was stationed at Biggs Air Force base back in the day. the .32 sidearms back then were disappearing from unit arms rooms due to the wars in africa. The pawn shops made lots of money from crooked armorers.
I certainly can. Here it is in all of its ugly detail. Nothing new around here but most of the cartel violence doesn’t make the national news.
http://www.elpasotimes.com/ci_13041905?IADID=Search-www.elpasotimes.com-www.elpasotimes.com
I used to joke around all the time that after 20+ years in the Infantry my career choices came down to either a shoe shine boy at the barber shop or a hit man for the Mafia. I didn’t much care for the Mafia retirement plan and I am sure these drug cartels have a similar plan. Oh yeah I sucked at shining boots too.
Oh for the folks trolling for comments to post on liberal sites don’t forget to edit out the part where I said I was joking and for the record I work in an IT related job for a Fortune 50 company, so I guess you could say I had a few more career opportunities…. or in liberal talk, I am one of the lucky ones. Going to school, evaluating the job market before getting out, and getting the job skills necessary had nothing to do with it.
Hey wasn’t Markos of DailyKos infamy also an Air Defense Artillery soldier? Birds of a feather and all that.
Well, as always, Colonel Tim brings in the heavy information. What has drawn me to milblogs, other than being with the brotherhood/sisterhood (had to get that in there or face the wrath of AS and Debbie Clark :-)), is the vast amounts of information that you won’t get anywhere else.
I have been fighting the left on the front lines of this type of crap since the DHS report and the footwork I did with my congressman and talking with the higher ups in the Legion. The left is going to use this, yet again, as an example of why we need to be feared by our own citizens. This does nothing to help us, even though, in comparison to the general population, statistically the numbers of bad apples are extremely minute as a percentage of all military, active and Vets.
Thanks for the information Colonel.
No problem. Its disturbing to see the left manipulating the public’s perception of the honorable men and women who serve. Just another case of information that does not fit their paradigm is discarded. It reminds me of all the post Vietnam movies such as Apocalypse Now and the Deer Hunter that painted the picture of the drugged out wacko Vietnam Vet.
The other consequence is that by distorting stories of this sort, we fail to adequately address the true cause of this violence. The lack of support for truly effective measures to secure our border simply means that our drug and drug fueled violence will continue to grow. We may soon reach a point that any effective measures would infringe on our constitutional liberties.
The evidence clearly points to the fact that terrorists utilize pre-existing narcotics smuggling routes and modes to infiltrate our country and potentially import WMD. It is only a question of “when”, not “if.”