Eight soldiers charged in suicide of Army Pvt.
On the heels of my complaining about the need to hold leadership accountable for the Manning fiasco comes news that eight soldiers out of the 3rd Battalion, 21st Infantry Regiment, 1st Stryker Brigade Combat Team are being charged in a Soldier’s suicide. Six of the eight are officers or NCOs.
The reporting from the Washington Post:
Eight U.S. soldiers have been charged in the death of a fellow GI, a Chinese-American who apparently shot himself in Afghanistan after being subjected to what a community activist said were assaults and ethnic taunts from his comrades.
My RADAR goes off any time I hear about accusations from a “community activist” especially those who peddle in identity politics. Nevertheless the Post goes on to detail the hazing the Army is asserting caused Chen to kill himself:
In a statement, the Army said Wednesday that eight soldiers in his company were charged with crimes ranging from dereliction of duty to negligent homicide and manslaughter.
Military officials gave no details on exactly what role the soldiers are alleged to have played in Chen’s death. But a community activist raised the possibility that their bullying drove him to suicide.
Chen’s fellow soldiers dragged him across the floor, threw stones at the back of his head, forced him to hold liquid in his mouth while upside down as part of an apparent hazing, and called him “Jackie Chen” in a mocking accent in a reference to the action star Jackie Chan, according to Elizabeth OuYang, president of the New York chapter of the Organization of Chinese Americans.
Stories like this remind me of my own time in the barracks or overseas and all of the horrible things we did to each other, sometimes as an initiation of sorts but often times for no other reason than we were bored. I wonder if we always knew when it was in good fun and when it was going too far. Despite what the PR machine says hazing has a place in military culture and to remove it entirely will be to change that culture, for good or ill.
Category: Breaking News
I’ve said this in another forum so I will just paste it from there: Ok, so I’m going to go ahead and state some things that will probably make some people think that I’m a jerk, but whatever. I’m not excusing the behavior of the individuals involved. When I was in the Army, we deployed to Iraq in 2003 and had various jobs assigned to our unit ranging from munitions disposal to tactical operations. We had one soldier in our unit, Private Rock. Private Rock was a severe #$%^ up and couldn’t do anything right. Private Rock would lose equipment, act too familiar with senior NCOs, fall asleep on guard duty, wander off during patrols and other issues. This made Private Rock an object of ridicule and harassment. When talking to Private Rock and asking him if there was anything that we could do to help him, he would let us know how we could help and we did so. The behavior didn’t change. So, we #$%^ed with Rock in hoping that he would realize that the harassment would stop if he would just straighten up and do his frigging job. Well, Rock didn’t straighten up and actually left his rifle back on base during patrols multiple times, article 15s didn’t do anything, 550 cording the rifle to him didn’t do anything, giving him a broomstick in place of a rifle didn’t do anything. When we got back to the states Rock got his *** beaten to a pulp for screwing some NCOs wife. Went into debt from racking up too much credit card debt and not paying it back. Went AWOL twice. Finally Rock was kicked out of the Army with a dishonorable discharge. Moral of the story? There is always two sides to a story. $5 says that Pvt Danny Chen was a class A $%^& up, who after being corrected time and time again, started getting harassed by his fellow soldiers because he was such a god damn mess. The article said he was subject to hazing, well hazing is a word that can be taken several… Read more »
It can go too far, but on the other hand – we’re in a tough business. I recall reading Andy McNabb’s account of his POW time during the Gulf War. He said his own squad mates were harder on him than the Iraqis.
There was another recent case (I think it was Marines) in which leadership was being held accountable for what amounted to NJP for someone that kept falling asleep on guard duty. What so many at home/in the media fail to recognize is that being to stay awake at odd hours of the day/night is part of the job description. And, that he put other lives in danger by failing to perform his duty.
It will be interesting to hear all sides of the story.
“… to remove it entirely will be to change that culture, for good or ill.”
And if removing hazing entirely does, in fact, change military culture “for good,” wouldn’t that be, by definition, a good thing?
Maybe when troops are overwhelmingly identified by their peers and superiors as “class A $%^& ups,” they should be put out of the service instead of hazed?
@3 – You obviously haven’t tried to Chapter a fuck-up out of the Army…..
I skip over the fact that real details about this case are seemingly in short supply.
Fort Hood – Hasan – 13 dead, a symptom?
Manning – death toll unknown, a symptom?
Toss in the above case of suicide, a symptom?
And, sadly enough other cases to note a trend.
First step in problem solving is to correctly identify the problem.
Can anyone here define the problem?
re #5,
It’s a leadership deficiency. There will always be shit bags like Manning, nuts like Hassan and suicide risks. Always. The bulwark against these things is supposed to be our NCOs and officers. People knew about Hasan’s radical rhetoric and communications and did nothing. People knew about Manning’s history of dysfunction and abuse of classified materials protocol and did nothing. People (seemingly) knew about Chen and did nothing. They’re all avoidable incidents. My guess is that much of this stems from the fear of bureaucratic hurdles and political correctness destroying one’s career when trying to make decisive but controversial decisions. We’re sabotaging ourselves.
NSOM #6: We’re sabotaging ourselves.
We have a winner! Sadly the prize is being allowed to watch a continuing deterioration with your own eyes.
Bull ahit. There is no excuse for hazing ever ever ever. Got that dick. Ohhh we are in a tough business its dangerous out there in the jungle. What a lame fucking excuse for derilict behavior. It reminds me of when my wife and I discussed whether or not to spank children. I said my father spanked me all the time and I turned out to be a respsonsible not criminal taxpayer. She said, why did your father always spank you? I said because I kept on beating up my brother or not doing what he said to do. My wife said so did all those spankings (well acatually beatings with a leather belt that by today’s standards would have landed him in jail but I am not complaining because by the standards of the time he was only the strictest dad on the street but not the neighborhood) he gave you ever change your behavior? I said, you are right we will not spank our children. Does the same principle not apply to hazing? If you had any psychological sense what so ever you would understand that hazing just leads to resentment and a subconscience or even a conscience desire to retaliate in any way possible which means make the hazers unhappy. A perfect example is the dysfunctional relationship that I had with my younger brother when we were kids. I was not smart enough to understand the dynamics then myself, only being a kid, but we got in to a cycle where I would physically beat my brother for some percieved infraction then he would retaliate with words for example by calling me a dumb clutz because I would spill 2 drops of milk when pouring a glass of milk. Now I have psychoanalalyzed my childhood to help me become a different person. Some jerks would say that I am more of a jerk now than I have ever been. I can not understand how in the hell someone in a position of leadership can accept anything other than a zero tolerance policy when it comes to hazing… Read more »
Many years ago, the Army started doing “Race Relations” training. They’ve changed the titles over the years, but still some don’t get it. My last few weeks before I retired, I had to have a chat with some fellow NCOs about picking on a guy…it’s a long story, but when I was done, they understood it wasn’t cool.
The soldier they were picking on was a good troop, but had an accent that was not like the one they had.
Is there a difference between a joke and hazing?
A joke happens once. Got that ONCE.
NO replays. A joke you play on someone that you have a good relationhsip with. Once. end of story.
Hazing is the first step in desensetizing someone. AFter hazing it is easier to move on to physcial torture.
Some one should ask, if I am not allowed to haze someone then how could I ever be justified in killing someone that is not an immediate threat to my family therfore hazing in defense of my squad or platoon is obviously justifable. Yes that is what you should ask.
Nothing from nothing, Curmudgeon….this makes no fucking sense “Well, Rock didn’t straighten up and actually left his rifle back on base during patrols multiple times, article 15s didn’t do anything, 550 cording the rifle to him didn’t do anything, giving him a broomstick in place of a rifle didn’t do anything.”. Your NCO’s and CO didn’t do guard mount or an inspection before you headed out on patrol?
#11, nope during QRF we just hauled ass to the vehicles and left. During patrol I guess they thought that no one in their right minds would leave their weapon behind. Believe me, Rock’s NCO got his ass chewed repeatedly and I believe I remember him saying he got some bad points on his NCO ER.
Dammit.
There is something else to consider here that really is important. That is it is really really hard to change someones ingrained behavior or the way that they are.
When I was little my mother always used to make a big deal if I did not lift up the lid when I took a pee. So I learned to automatically to always lift the lid.
Now for more than 25 years I have been getting flack for not putting the lid back down when I am finished. I really really want to never for get. But I do forget, alot. It reached a point that each time I forget the lid would get SLAMMED and hard. That behavior bugged the piss right out of me. But I did not complain because I knew that I was at fault. Yet even these terse reminders have not solved the problem.
Now this should not be confused with another problem that I have that I refuse to work on fixing. It is my protest againt the Gods. It is about filing papers. I am so pissed off about the papers that come in the mail that should be filed because one day you might need them but the chance of actually needing any one particular paper is about one in ten thousand that I just do not give a fuck anymore.
It really pisses me off just to think about it.
Eagle Keeper: that might work for the AF. . . except Fighter Jocks are Type A personalities from the get go. Tell me this: would you want our Green Berets to be giant flaming pussies who stopped fighting every time they got a boo boo? BUDs really skirts the line of hazing. Hell even my Frat shied away from “water night” where you make guys do push ups “bows and toes” while splashing them with water. That’s par for the course with BUDs. We are not in the buisness of making everyone feel “actualized” or full of “personhood” or whatever the fuck you want to call it. Bottom line, our job is to kill our nation’s enemies, or if on a goodwill mission to help/assist the peoples we’ve been tasked with helping. I don’t care if you’r an AF cook, or a Navy shit scrubber, or an Army Water Prossessing specialist, or a Marine truck driver, if you fuck up PEOPLE WILL DIE!!! if a Load Master doesn’t set the load right and the plane is off balance, that leads to a crash. If the Navy Nuke isn’t monitoring the god damned gauges, the core might melt down (highly unlikely though that is). If the Private on sentury duty takes his plates out and puts his laptop in instead (this one actually happened on FOB Rusty) do you think he’s going to spot the insurgents that place an IED 200 FUCKING METERS FROM THE GOD DAMNED GATE?!?!?! which I am here to tell you DID kill someone. I could go on. But lets ask this simple question: if you were to take away all the really cool toys, the NODS and the UAVs and all the nifty gadgets, and threw our Army against another Army that was half way compotent (say China) would you have any reason to expect a victory? Or would you expect a TF Smith-like outcome? Military life is hard, and requires hard men (and yes I mean men). EK, you’re Paulbot view is dangerously niave. Yes there is a line, a line we DO NOT CROSS,… Read more »
@ Courteous Cutey Curt – did you seriously just compare the operant conditioning that your mother, and now (presumably) your wife have inflicted on you to preparing soldiers for combat? I would ask – have you ever led men in combat? If not, do you understand what corrective training or NJP is?
@ Doc – there are many that have made it through basic – especially when they were signing waivers for everything – that I had to take and didn’t want. Despite corrective training, they still couldn’t hang. I agree with #5 and #6, but it isn’t just military leadership. It’s parents, teachers, and society. Just look at OWS.
All those False Official Statement charges indicate something happened that was being covered up. We’ll see what else comes out over time. I’ve had a Pvt Rock in my squad, it’s a leadership challenge and hard as Hades on everyone during the time it takes to put together a chapter packet. Pvt Rocks are often not correctable, a danger to everyone, and there isn’t a quick fix when one is assigned to the unit.
I totally agree with a cover up comment. This is the strangest “suicide” investigation I’ve ever seen. Private Chen died on Oct 3 but the military has not released it for his family to bury.
I’m wondering why they just don’t release it to his family so they can have closure? Does an autopsy really take that long?
also, @1, I understand the need to know both sides of a story – so can you clarify with your hazing example and answer, did you ever drag Captain Rock across the floor and bully him to the point that he suicide?
From what I understood, no.
It’s not the crime it’s the cover-up. how much does anyone want to bet that that is why all the officers are being charged? A note on the hazing, where does hazing stop and assault begin, dragging someone across the floor and throwing rocks at their heads sounds a lot more like assault to me. Also who i would rather take with me outside the wire: I really would rather take a “pansy”, as you call him (although committing suicide does not make you that unless you would like to call all the infantry vets who have committed suicide pansies) then some of these hazers and here is why. They were either to stupid, too unobservant, or just didn’t give a F&$^ enough to know or care that they were driving a fellow American and fellow soldier (regardless of how much of a F$&#-up he may have been he was still an American and a Soldier who volunteered to serve his country as an infantrymen in a time of war, something that deserves to be respected) to suicide. Now i don’t know about you but none of those are traits i want in someone watching my back or for that matter in my Platoon. when you get down to it, the hazers and their chain of command failed in one of, if not their most important job, watching their fellow soldiers backs, for that alone they were morally (if not legally) derelict in doing their duty. Lastly a note on hazing in general. There is a reason beyond PC bullshit that all the services have been moving away from and cracking down on it. unless it is done exactly right, meaning starts at the right time and ENDs at the right time and is carried out in the right way it is incredibly destructive to a military unit. There may be a place for it in basic, or ROTC/USMA/OCS but there isn’t a place for it a line unit. the odds of it going wrong and undermining cohesion instead of building it are just too great. It gives too much… Read more »
Doc (14),
1. This has nothing to do with Ron Paul, so get a grip. Seriously.
2. The AF has more “mundanes” — aircraft mechanics, fuelies, electronics techs, cooks, materiel folks, admin types, etc. — than “fighter jocks.” By a long shot. And I worked with a Vietnam era tanker pilot at my last job — hardly “type A.”
3. We had a goofy guy in basic who couldn’t march if his life depended on it, the DI was holding his hand and a base drum was beating right next to his ear. Adios, my friend. I don’t personally recall any airmen who were tossed out for just plain incompetence after basic and tech school. (Course, I’ve been out 28 years.) But it certainly could be done.
4. “We are not in the buisness of making everyone feel ‘actualized’ or full of ‘personhood’ or ” blah blah blah. Yeah, I know. All them examples you gave? I know. Which goes to my point of getting rid of the incompetents, sooner rather than later. If they square their stuff away in short order … hello general (or lesser) discharge and welcome to civilian life.
Your own remark is exactly what I’m saying: “Yes there is a line, a line we DO NOT CROSS, but it is a failure far before he got to A-stan. If he was that much of a pussy that he couldn’t take ribbing, he shouldn’t have made it so far.”
It’s an all-volunteer force, right? He volunteered in … his own comrades should be able to volunteer him right back out.
Correction, Item 4: … If they don’t square their stuff away in short order … hello general (or lesser) discharge and welcome to civilian life.
EK: Here’s the problem: more often than not a chain of command won’t drop a soldier because its a pain in the ass. Trying to explain why someone is not deploying or did deploy and was sent back to Read D for disciplinary issues. . . you had better have a lot of good reasons. Hell if the counseling packet has even one T out of line that’ll effectively shut the chapter down, and you have to wait until he fucks up again (multiple times) to start the process over.
Yes it would be nice to offload the useless before we got to the desert. But the Congress in all its wisdom has made the rules for getting rid of dead weight so stringent that you might as well frag their asses.
add to that, in deployment stress is already high. Every fuck up is magnified in severity. Minor things like forgetting to lock and load, or falling asleep on guard. . . gets you pretty fucking pissed when it happens.
as for the AF: I get that its one of the softer services and the word “combat” might as well be french to most of that service, but the principle still applies. You fuck up someone dies.
I have followed this story from day 1. Pvt. Chen, graduated OSUT in Jan 2011. This unit deployed in April of 2011, he was NOT with them. He arrived at their unit at the end of Aug. 2011 and killed himself Oct. 3,2011. He was with the platoon less than 6 weeks.
From the very beginning his parents refused to believe it was suicide..if you read the Chinatown papers, they said he would never do such a thing because it was against their culture. His parents are Chinese immigrants who speak NO english. The Congresswoman for Chinatown, several NYC Council Members and a Chinese/American Activist group immediately became involved and publically denounced the Army’s finding of suicide. Last week OWS became involved and held a rally to have these soldiers heads on a pike, along with politicians and the Chinese American something or other. With the help of the Congresswoman and the Chinese/American activist group, the family was also able to get an meeting with those in the Pentagon.
Other articles today are saying that the proof of harassment begins in Feb. 2011…the proof according to an e-mail he sent was, they call him Chen and ask if was Chinese several times a day..they also used a goat voice to say his name. Once he arrived with this unit they called him Jackie Chen..that is listed as part of the harassment as well.
Please stay on this story, I fear this will be because of PC politics….
On a side note…Obama signed an order that any suicide that occurs while deployed is treated the same as the death of a Soldier KIA…….Pvt. Chen was buried with full military honors at Valhalla.
Red Leg OK,
Brilliant Idea let us make mid level NCOs responsible for hazing. Then they set the example for thier subordinates.
So their subordinates can mimic them more effectively.
After that we can make school assistant principles responsible for bullying is school so that bullies can learn how to push thier art right up to the line but not over the line.
I was wrong about what I wrote yersterday a zero tolerance policy towards hazing would never work in the military. Why with out hazing order and discipline could never be maintained.
I was operaing on the mistaken assumption that the soldiers are bound by the same ethical principles that the rest of us are. In Michael Chapter four verse 26 it clearly states that soldiers are given an exemption from everything that is written in the rest of the book while they are on active duty and especially when they are at war. Furthermore there is ethical rule number one. This is an ethical rule agreed to by many of the worlds greatest philosophers. In an emergency ethical rules take a back seat to survival. I ask you here today, What better example of an emergeny could there be other than yet another war?
It was clearly foolish to assume that soldiers have the same ethical obligations that I do for example.
I understand now that since soldiers are routinely expected to do thins that would be considered unethical in civilian society they have to be conditioned to operated by a differnent rules while they are in the service.
Please expect my apology.
There was another recent case (I think it was Marines) in which leadership was being held accountable for what amounted to NJP for someone that kept falling asleep on guard duty.
If it’s the case I’m thinking of, this is the case of LCPL Lew. Guy fell asleep FOUR TIMES while pulling guard.
At what point does it sink in you don’t do that shit? Yeah, on the boats we were always hard on each other, especially the nubs–if only to find out if the guy COULD in fact be a team player, if in fact they’d keep their shit in one sock when the shit hit the fan or just fall to pieces.
We had one guy on my first boat who most definitely fell into the latter category. Long story short, he was being taken to Captain’s Mast for a THIRD time (and frankly had deserved mast a lot more than that) and probably kicked off the boat (again, never should have been on one given that he had been rolled back FOUR TIMES in Sub School), so while he’s standing topside watch, he tells the Pier Sentry to go take a forward draft, he walks behind the sail, pulls out his .45, and blows his brains out.
Could we have been “kinder and gentler” with the kid? Maybe, but a lot of the correction and attitude towards him was self-inflicted. The command KNEW he shouldn’t be there, but they kept him anyway, figuring the issue would resolve itself.
Problem is, Eagle–combat is NOT the place to find out whether or not you’ve got a shitbag in your midst. Your entire unit (or in our case, boat) depends on him doing his job. When he doesn’t, it means others have to refocus their efforts on someone who should already have his shit together. The whole unit suffers.
That being said, there’s a very significant difference between correction, fucking with someone, and flat-out hazing, the last category cannot and should not ever be allowed or condoned. If they covered it up, burn their asses.
Chen’s diaries and e-mails show a pattern of harassment that began at Fort Benning, Ga., during basic training this year. “He was taunted several days,” she said. “Some of it was ignorance, some of it was outright taunting.”
——————————————————
You guys can go talk about this all day but the reality of the situation is this… This cherry just like that marine grunt that killed himself was a fuckin pussy and couldn’t hack the infantry plain and simple. Now guys are going to burn for it.
@CC
You clearly missed my point. Right after i said that hazing is a bad idea, I said IF IT IS TO BE DONE. All I was saying in that last sentence is that in order for hazing to not be the incredibly destructive thing it most often is it needs to be done by or over seen by someone with maturity and not some new PVT right off the block. I am against hazing as the rest of my post makes clear particularly in line units. Is there place for hazing in basic, maybe. But that also depends on how you define hazing doesn’t? Is repeatedly making fun of someone for losing a rifle ect until they stop hazing, yes, is it destructive in an environment like basic, probably not and will it help imbue the importance of keeping your weapon with you, yes. Is dragging someone across the floor and throwing rocks at them ok? No thats assault.
@DM
So dragging a fellow soldier and american across the floor and throwing rocks at him, was OK, because he couldn’t hack the infantry? How about failing to watch a fellow soldiers back, was that ok because he couldn’t “hack the infantry”?
question do you give up your humanity and care for your fellow soldiers because they “can’t hack” the infantry? Maybe next time a FOB takes incoming and someone gets hit we should just leave them because after all they are just FOBBITs.
@ Red Leg-
I’m sorry man but if the kid was squared away (which I doubt) I don’t see him getting fucked with. You make it seem like him getting dragged across the floor was an atrocity (even though infantry privates are routinely used as a body breach for wired obstacles in training). But if the kid shot himself because guys screamed at him, smoked him, slapped him around then good riddance. Last time I checked the grunts is a hard place to be. I Can think of a number of things way worse then getting dragged across a floor like doing a 3 day patrol and getting into a fire fight
I am sorry IF I missed your point.
I do not pretend to know if PVT. Chen actually committed suicide because he was harrassed. He was such a young man.
Many years ago I heard of an even more myserious case.
This man was young too but probably about twice the age of PVT. Chen.
His name was COL. Westhuising. His death was ruled by the Army a suicide. It is not the first time that someone of his rank has committed suicide and it was not the last. I seem to recall a case of another high ranking officer in Alaska committing suicide several years ago.
I would think it quite obvious that COL. Westhuising did not kill himself, if he did in fact kill himself because he was hazed. Is it possible that he was a wimp? I have always found it really really interesting that so much ink is spent on How SGT. (SSG?,SFC?) Tillman really died but hardly a peep out of how COL. Westhuising really died and his case is much more mysterious.
see here’s what really bothers me about these “hazing” stories, they’re pretty vauge, there’s no who when what or where. Calling a guy by a nickname is kind of par for the course. We had a guy that looked like Tiger Woods, hense “Tiger” another guy was new, so “Fish” one Sgt came down from S-3 and was older than your average NCO, so “old Balls”
As for the initiation rituals, how do we know that this isn’t just a bunch of rough and tumble “bet you can’t do it”. I got told I was a pussy if I didn’t put a whole can of Skoal in my mouth for 10 mikes without spitting. I did it and puked my guts out. did not make it to 10 mikes. but to my knowlege my guys didn’t call me a pussy. even if they did, I’d have called them a pole smoking fagot or something to the effect.
I should quote Kipling;
We aren’t no thin red ‘eroes, nor we aren’t no blackguards too,
But single men in barricks, most remarkable like you;
An’ if sometimes our conduck isn’t all your fancy paints:
Why, single men in barricks don’t grow into plaster saints;
[…] body January 3rd, 2012 I’m sure you remember the tragic case of Private Danny Chen who NSOM wrote about last week or so. All we know for sure is that Chen committed suicide, but eight soldiers are accused of […]
Army revealed ‘sensitive’ information to family:
http://usnews.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/01/05/9900635-army-reveals-sensitive-material-to-family-of-dead-chinese-american-soldier
Man, this dude was six foot three, if I were that size I wouldn’t allow myself to be bullied.