Some might call it desertion:
"Army data shows rarity of desertion prosecutions" Associated Press December 25, 2014
WASHINGTON — The Army has prosecuted about 1,900 cases of desertion since 2001, despite tens of thousands of soldiers fleeing the service in the face of deadly combat, long and multiple deployments in Iraq and Afghanistan, and strains on military families.
Wow!! It's that many?
The data reflect how rarely the military takes desertion cases to court.
Because they are getting new recruits all the time.
And the numbers underscore the complexities of such cases as a top military commander reviews the investigation of Sergeant Bowe Bergdahl, who left his Afghanistan post in 2009 and was captured and held by the Taliban for five years.
He's in the where-are-they-now file.
More than 20,000 soldiers have been dropped from the rolls as deserters since 2006, Army data show. Totals for earlier years weren’t available, but probably include thousands more.
Desertion is relatively easy to prove, former Army lawyer Greg Rinckey said, but circumstances are also taken into account.
Some disappearances involved divorce issues or sick children, he said. In other cases, soldiers deserted bases in the United States. Many of those are handled without going to court martial, with soldiers administratively punished.
Soldiers who avoid deployment or leave posts in combat zones are more serious cases.
‘‘Those are looked at very harshly,’’ said Rinckey, now a partner with the Washington law firm Tully Rinckey.
The maximum punishment for desertion during a time of war is death.
That outcome is highly unlikely. Only one service member, Private Eddie Slovik, has been executed for desertion since the Civil War. Slovik, 24, was shot by a firing squad in January 1945. His execution, approved by then-General Dwight D. Eisenhower, was kept secret by the Army until nine years later.
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Some called for that for Bowe:
"Inquiry concludes on disappearance of sergeant in Afghanistan" by Lolita C. Baldor, Associated Press December 20, 2014
WASHINGTON — The Army has finished its investigation into how and why Army Sergeant Bowe Bergdahl disappeared from his base in Afghanistan, and senior Pentagon leaders have been briefed, including Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel, officials said Friday.
Hagel was run out for a lot of reasons, one of which apparently was asking what the hell was going on with ISIS?
Details about the findings of the inquiry have been closely held. But the report is likely to lay out whether Bergdahl deserted his post or was absent without leave. And it could include recommendations on whether Bergdahl should be charged with any criminal violations or forced to leave the Army.
Any final disposition will eventually also determine whether Bergdahl gets as much as $300,000 in back pay and other benefits, including continued health care.
Officials said Army Secretary John McHugh could send the case to a military commander who would decide whether it should go before a court martial and what, if any, charges would be filed against Bergdahl.
Bergdahl disappeared on June 30, 2009, reportedly walking away from his unit after expressing misgivings about the US military’s role — as well as his own — in Afghanistan. He was captured by the Taliban and held by members of the Haqqani network, an insurgent group tied to the Taliban that operates both in Pakistan and in Afghanistan.
On May 31, Bergdahl was handed over to US special forces in Afghanistan as part of an exchange for five top Taliban commanders who were imprisoned at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
After spending about two weeks recuperating at a US military hospital in Germany, Bergdahl was sent to Brooke Army Medical Center at Fort Sam Houston on June 13. He is now doing administrative duties at the Texas base, awaiting the conclusion of the case.
Officials suggested that the report’s findings may not be made public any time soon.
‘‘Sometimes investigations are used in follow-on judicial processes, and therefore are not released until those judicial processes are complete,’’ said Navy Rear Admiral John Kirby, Pentagon press secretary. He added that Hagel’s briefing is ‘‘informational’’ and the Pentagon chief is not expected to have input into the investigation or make any decisions on the case.
‘‘The secretary is not going to do arm twisting’’ in the case, said Kirby of Hagel. ‘‘There’s no role for him in the process to modify the investigation.’’
An initial US military investigation in 2009 concluded that Bergdahl deliberately walked away, based on evidence available at the time.
Since his release, some former soldiers who served with him have labeled him a deserter and said he should be held accountable for leaving his post. Others have suggested that troops were put in danger, and even killed, as they tried to find Bergdahl.
But there are also those who contend that even if Bergdahl deliberately walked away, his five years in captivity were more than enough punishment for the soldier.
Shortly after Bergdahl was released, Army General Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, left open the possibility that an Army investigation could result in desertion or other charges. Dempsey was briefed on the results of Dahl’s investigation earlier this week and Hagel got a similar briefing on Friday afternoon.
Major General Kenneth R. Dahl was tasked to conduct an exhaustive investigation into the matter, and spent months interviewing unit members and commanders, and meeting with Bergdahl and his attorney, Eugene Fidell, a military justice expert who is also a visiting lecturer at Yale Law School.
And he came up with a piece of crap.
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"FBI says shooter at VA clinic was ex-employee" Associated Press January 08, 2015
EL PASO — A man who fatally shot a psychologist at a West Texas veterans’ hospital before turning the gun on himself was a former clerk at the clinic who had threatened the victim in 2013, the FBI said Wednesday.
The FBI identified the gunman in Tuesday’s shooting as Jerry Serrato, 48.
Officials did not provide a motive for the shooting. Dr. Timothy Fjordbak, 63, had reported that Serrato had made a verbal threat against him at an El Paso supermarket in 2013. Lindquist said Serrato had some sort of perceived or real grievance against Fjordbak and had said something to the effect of, ‘‘I know what you did and I will take care of it.’’
‘‘It was something in public at a grocery store where Mr. Serrato approached Dr. Fjordbak, who did not recognize him, and he made a verbal threat, and that was the extent of the report. As far as we can tell, that was the only connection that they had,’’ Lindquist said.
Both men worked at the VA at the same time in 2013, but authorities do not believe they had a working relationship, Lindquist said. There also was no immediate indication the gunman was a patient, the FBI said.
A security assessment is underway at the clinic because of the shooting, said Peter Dancy, the hospital’s acting director.
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Related:
"Two floors of administrative offices at the Bedford Veterans Affairs Medical Center were temporarily evacuated Monday as police responded to a report of a suspicious device placed outside of the facility, authorities said. According to John M. Guilfoil, a Bedford police spokesman, Veterans Affairs police were notified about the device shortly after 4 p.m. There had been no threats made to the hospital. Administrative staff waited outside for more than an hour as a bomb squad at the scene determined that the device did not pose a threat. No patients were evacuated."
It was cold out, too. Enough with the psyops.
"The body of a man was found on the Brockton campus of the VA Boston Healthcare System on Sunday morning, officials said. The man, whose name was not released pending notification of family, was found at 9:10 a.m. inside a structure that is at the facility to shelter people from inclement weather, according to Pallas Wahl, a spokeswoman for the Department of Veterans Affairs. The man’s death is not believed to be suspicious, Wahl said, but state and local agencies are investigating. “The VA’s office is really upset that this has happened,” said Wahl. No further information was available Sunday afternoon."
"The family of an MIT doctoral student who killed himself in 2009 is suing the university, two professors, and an associate dean, alleging the officials did not do enough to help him even though they had for months shared concerns about his mental well-being."
