That recruiter murder/suicide
SSG Adam Arndt, a married recruiter shot a woman he was involved with recruiting out of the Gaithersburg, MD station the other day. And then he shot himself. The Washington Post writes about him;
A decorated soldier from Manitowoc, Wis., who won the Army Commendation Medal three times, Adam Arndt began working as an Army recruiter in January 2011 after returning from posts in South Korea, Germany, Turkey and Fort Benning, Ga., according to Army spokeswoman Kathleen Welker.
EdUSMCleg sent us a link to Fox News who calls Arndt a “war veteran” but none of the articles about him don’t mention any duty he performed in war. In fact, his duty MOS was a series 42 – an admin clerk who became a recruiter;
Fox says that “his decorations include a medal for service in the global war on terrorism”, but I’m guessing that he had the GWOT medal that everyone gets for being in the military after 9/11 – that doesn’t make a war veteran, per se. Not that there’s anything wrong with it.
But the implication is that his murder/suicide thing is somehow related to his wartime service. But, no, he was a borderline pedophile who preyed on high school girls and his leadership at his recruting station missed it somehow, even though he was married to one of the ladies he recruited a few years back.
Category: Military issues
And he still has a job as a recruiter, HOW? after hooking up with one of his recruits?
That’s definitely a leadership failure. Either they didn’t want to go to the trouble, (mostly because it’d make them look bad as it happened on their watch) or he pulled recruits in so well that he made the station’s numbers look good.
He HAS to have the GWOT Service given to everyone, so if he only has one GWOT medal it is definitely the service one. They see “GWOT” and think “Oh he is a war veteran!”
Sad story. The SOB murdered a 17-year-old high school kid. My sympathies to her family.
He must be a great manipulator and liar, since he has the looks of a tractor wheel covered in cow shit.
Hey I’m not standing up for the guy in anyway. He was a d-bag who pulled someone into something they didn’t deserve. I read when the news story first broke out that the girl had sent text messages to her friends saying “I love you…goodbye”. So I’m not justifying what he did, what I am saying is this sounds like a collaboration between the two.
Interesting..
Or maybe he sent the txt from the girl’s phone after shooting her.
At any rate, I’ll repeat what was stressed to me at Recruiting School-
You’re there to put them in the Army, not the Army into them.
This is so sad, on so many levels.
What constitutes “highly decorated?”
It’s too bad that these predators don’t plan to kill themselves first and then their victim second…no great loss to have a dead bag of sh1t….but the girl dying is wrong on every level. This will never play well in the media…
#1 – Sadly, it happens. We had one guy who went from Gold Badge (#1 recruiter in the squadron) to Leavenworth in the space of about a year. USAF Recruiting enforcers came up from Randolph and went full inquisition on us, insisting that we had to have known what this guy was doing. We didn’t, but it turns out some of the squadron leadership had an idea. Of course, nothing much happened to them.
Worst piece of shit I served with was a SSgt that came fresh off of recruiting Duty with a young PFC he had put in. The slimy bastard was smart enough to wait until he was off of recruiting duty and she was going to MOS School to tie the knot. Marriage lasted about 6 weeks, since he was an overall assbag. He ended up getting bad paper and forced out because he didn’t know his ass from a hole in the ground MOS-wise. He also consistantly lied and back-stabbed his superiors, peers and Marines working for him.
@11 Are you the Mike Kozlowski that was racing motorcycles in New England some years back? Worked in Bloomfield Connecticut?
Boy, those 3 ARCOMS, WOW! I’m impressed!
What a scumbag. A shame someone else besides him had to die too.
What a shitbag….
Nobody’s come along and made a POGUE comment, so I will.
Now, I don’t have anything against administrators (per se) as I’ve only met 3 good ones. I don’t know the particulars of the case, but he was likely in a “one-man fighting hole” while on recruiting and had too much time on his hands and wasn’t properly supervised by an adult.
@7 – Marines have a similar saying for recruiting, except it was “no dipping in the pool/DEP (as in POOLEES, or DEP (delayed entry program))
Sad state of affairs for recruiting, for any branch of the service. Such a shame and a waste.
Jeezus, the media and its usual angling for war scarred
PSD schtick
#1 Thats not the shocking part, pretty sure in the early 2000s this probably happened alot in early 2000s. I remember hanging out in LA, we had a slimeball recruiter just went to high school to bother young females and make himself look cool to them and endear himself to the younger folks. He didnt last long before he was ran out of town. There were probably huge warning signs about this dirtbag and nobody wanted to run him out of town. I am guessing because of lack of manning.
@18 -The attached link lists a whole shit-pot of recruiter misconduct cases (but it’s a little dated):
http://www.dmzhawaii.org/wp-content/uploads/2008/12/Recruiter-Abuse-Full-Report.pdf
Based on order of precedence, and looking at his ribbons, it does appear as though this guy had the GWOT-Expeditionary. This means that he did deploy–but that it was either pre-2005 Iraq or Afghanistan or to another country eligible for the medal. The lack of a CSIB (replaced the “combat patch” on the ASU) is odd, though.
Unfortunately, as evidenced by some of the comments here, Recruiters have a stigma attached to them that is impossible to shake off. We are placed in positions of trust, often far outside of military communities, and the actions of a few stain the reputation of the whole. Don’t forget that there are many of us who were selected–or even volunteered–and who performed our duties with our integrity and honor intact.
That said, I’ve seen some of the worst “soldiers” during my time in recruiting. Shysters, liars, braggarts, perverts, and the like. There weren’t many, but they were there. Recruiting also seems to attract an inordinate number of those who have never deployed; those that did deploy often went to places such as Kuwait, got a patch, and are capable storytellers when it comes to talking about “war”.
IIRC, Recruiter misconduct doesn’t cover intimate relations with a Soldier after the recruiting process is done. We have a SFC who married a girl ten years his junior that he first met as a Recruiter three or four years ago. Creepy to an extent, but from what I understand they kept in touch after he went back to his MOS, started dating, and only recently got married. I’d draw the line at starting such a relationship while I was still out there. The second Arndt’s command found out he was involved with a girl he recruited, he should have been closely watched. I still keep in touch with some of the people I grew acquainted with two and three years ago, but as with the SFC mentioned above, I wouldn’t let them become anything more than acquaintances while I was still in the community.
Honestly, the rules for recruiters in the Army are way too lax. We had a guy in my company screw a DEP, he got demoted and sent to the same place as her duty station. They got married…oh by the way he was married with two kids. What happened to him? Just a one rank demotion and he got kicked off recruiting duty (which he didn’t want to be on anyways). I’ve never watch such an assbag smile as he PCS’ed to his new young wife. FTG.
Guaranteed if the Army finally started making an example of these people and locking them up (at the very least booting them out like they do with a DUI) they would either be a lot more cautious or wisen up and knock it off.
I spent three years as a recruiter. When I got to my station, my partener recruiter already had a reputation as being a creep and chasing young girls, even though he was in his late forties. He had been a police officer in civilian life and shot a guy while on duty, charged with manslaughter and spent time in the stoney lonesome. Came back into the military (Guard) and immediatley was placed on recruiting duty. Legally, this shit bag was not even allowed to carry a weapon, so I have no idea how he got back in. He told me the only reason he liked recruiting was, if he could not tag one of the young recruits, there was always their mother! I ended up taking over two of his schools and had a hell of a time getting excepted. He had smelled up the area so bad that the schools were reluctant to allow me in, I confronted him in one of our section meetings after I was told about his antics with a 17 year old and her Mother. That resulted in him leaving with a very sore jaw, me possibly being charged for assault (dropped) and instead of him being investigated, he was transfered to another area. Two months after he was transfered, he was shot at by a very upset Father. Father charged, recruiter sent back to his MOS with nothing else happening. He was the beginning of the animosity I had with my higher ups, I don’t put up with stupid shit that well and my section leader and I came close to blows on more than one occasion.
MSM said he went to turkey so he couldve got the gwot there.
@20 Closely watched indeed, when you cover for borderline pedophiles you eventually end up with the same level of credibility as Catholic Bishops in the United States who covered for such for years.
That’s a stink that’s hard to wash off, they should be removed immediately from their position and if found to have crossed that line popped dishonorably for being an 4ssclown and abusing their position of trust.
Then the good guys like you wouldn’t have to worry about your reception in the community.
Navy recruiting has many of the same issues. Google Anthony Watson (former CNRC–that’s an Admiral, in case you were wondering) and how he got the heave-ho.
But there’s LOTS more to the story than just his departure. Dipping DEPpers was only one of the many and varied ways recruiters stepped on their dicks, both “regular” and CRF recruiters alike.
The one thing I took away from my time there is that I was constantly amazed that we ever made goal at all with the bullshit that went on there during my time, and I’m sure it hasn’t improved much since.
“And he still has a job as a recruiter, HOW? after hooking up with one of his recruits?”
From the time I spent as a company commander in USAREC, you’d think that doing this was a REQUIREMENT for a 79R to become a CSM.
Looking at the pdf listed earlier, I wasn’t too surprised to not find anything in my Battalion AO during the time period I was there…but I also was the investigating officer for at least 20 claims of recruiter impropriety and misconduct. Only 2 were substantiated.
David–I was a recruiter out west for a few years back in the Clinton era. Oh, the stories I could tell.
They say the CPO community is the backbone of the Navy. If that was in fact true, the goat locker at the NRD I was in was one weak-assed paraplegic stain on the ass of life. And the shit started right at the fucking top.
Recruiters throwing ringers on deck to take the ASVAB. Driving drunk–in a G-Jet–WITH AN APPLICANT IN THE CAR. Trying to pawn their laptop for blow money. False travel claims to bump up their per diem. Pulling a train on a Zone Supervisor’s 21-year old wife (see Tony Watson.) How that 21-year old BECAME said Zone Sup’s wife. Calling a female prospect “bitch” in the middle of the classification floor when she wouldn’t take a program offered to her.
Oh, the list goes on, and on, and on…
I don’t care if that jerk shot himself, but did he have to take it out on that girl?