Specifically in the Case of Robert Bales
Staff Sergeant Robert Bales is currently on trial and may receive the death penalty for his crime. Bales is accused of going into an Afghan village in the middle of the night, breaking into homes and opening fire on the families inside the homes. He is charged with killing four women and nine children. He is accused of setting them on fire after killing them. Bales supposedly surrendered to coalition services after this event happened. Now he states that he cannot remember the time during killings. He can only recall events before and after. Staff Sergeant Bales should not receive the death sentence, even if proven guilty, as Bales is not entirely to blame for his actions.
A United States Code of Crimes and Criminal Procedure, in reference to war crimes, seems solid, but it does not give room for the circumstances of Robert Bales' situation. Section 2441 of War Crimes says: "(a) Offense - Whoever, whether inside or outside the United States, commits a war crime, in any of the circumstances described in subsection (b), shall be fined under this title or imprisoned for life or any term of years, or both, and if death results to the victim, shall also be subject to the penalty of death...the person committing such war crime or the victim of such war crime is a member of the Armed Forces of the United States...willfully kills or causes serious injury to civilians" (Find Law, 2012). He is a physically injured man who was driven insane by these injuries and the war. If the military had not sent him back in his condition, this never would have happened.
Although Staff Sergeant Bales faces six counts of attempted murder and six counts of assault, he should not be sentenced to death because he is trained to kill. The U.S. puts a common man in this position and a common man has a resistance to killing. In his book, On Killing, Lt. Col. Dave Grossman discusses the psychological cost of soldiers being conditioned to kill. He says, "There can be no doubt that this resistance to killing one's fellow man is there...It is there, it is strong..." (Grossman, 1995). All soldiers are trained to kill. The United States military puts them into a war zone, and before doing so they teach them how to survive by killing. "The method used to train today's soldiers is nothing more than application of conditioning techniques to develop a reflexive 'quick shoot' ability" (Grossman, 1995). The soldiers train in foxholes using man-shaped targets at different ranges within a wooded terrain. Bales was conditioned to kill and he should not be held fully responsible to the point of death for lack of knowing when to hold back.
Robert Bales was conditioned to kill and the United States needs to accept the responsibility for his lack of moral judgment. "We can, and have, conditioned soldiers to kill - they are eager and willing and trust our commands. But in doing so we have not made them capable of handling the moral and social burdens of these acts, and we have a moral responsibility to consider the long-term effects of our commands" (Grossman, 1995). The word morals is defined as "the embodiment or type of something" (Dictionary.com, 2012). Robert Bales simply embodied what he had become, a soldier trained to kill.
Robert Bales was a great man before he became a soldier and that accounts to the military affecting the change in his demeanor. Bales joined the military to protect his family, friends and his country (Associated Press, 2012). This is why most soldiers join the military, for family and for freedom. Bales was described as a good man by friends in his home town of Norwood, Ohio. He comes from a large family. He has a family. His wife and two kids are in shock that these charges are placed against him. Karilyn, his wife, said that she and other family members reported that this is "completely out of character of the man I know and admire" (Associated Press, 2012). Even the court records show that Bales "had commendations for good conduct after four tours in Iraq" (Associated Press, 2012). There is no doubt that placing a common and cordial man in the midst of a warzone changes him.
Staff Sergeant Bales was already on his fourth tour of duty and he believed he was done fighting when the military called him back for more and compromised his mental well-being. In the short story "The Things They Carried," author Tim O'Brien opens our minds as to how heavy the mental weight of war is on a soldier. The story says, "They carried all the emotional baggage of men who might die. Grief, terror, love, longing - these were the intangibles, but the intangibles had their own mass and specific gravity, they had tangible weight" (O'Brien, 1990). The weight of the emotion and the mental grief is heavier than any other weight a soldier carries. The emotional and mental damage that is done to a soldier at war cannot be argued.
Robert Bales had previous injuries from another tour in Iraq that affected his mental state; the United States military should be held responsible for sending him back to war when they knew this was the case. Bales suffered a head injury and a foot injury. Bales did not expect to be sent back to war. He was in a healing process that the military interrupted when they called him into another tour.
The United States Army has supposed high standards for keeping up on behavioral health, therefore they should have been able to diagnose and treat Bales for his health issue. Post traumatic stress disorder is common in many army soldiers. "PTSD is a condition where the war events...continue to affect a person...Symptoms of PTSD include nightmares, flashbacks, feeling revved up or irritable, feeling numb..." (Army Behavioral Health, 2010). This sounds very similar to how Robert Bales was feeling. On an Army Behavioral website they say that about one-third of soldiers returning home from war receive mental health care in the year that follows their return. 10-15% of those soldiers are at risk for post traumatic stress disorder (Army Behavioral Health, 2010). The Army healthcare providers are trained to diagnosis and treat these cases. The people who ran his post deployment health assessment clearly did not do a good assessment. They overlooked his condition.
Robert Bales was said to have been drinking the evening that he went into the village and opened fire; this affected his instable state even further. The United States Army Behavior website says that, "Soldiers with PTSD symptoms may use alcohol to try to alleviate other symptoms. However, it only makes things worse" (Army Behavioral Health, 2010). Bales was already impaired. Alcohol increased the symptoms of his PTSD. This could be the cause of his blacking out during the times of the attack.
The United States military allows soldiers with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder to serve more time at war allowing room for error such as this. On the Army Behavioral Health website it states, "...most soldiers diagnosed with PTSD are treated and can remain on active duty...Our intention is to return soldiers back to duty" (Army Behavioral Health, 2010). That statement is made about treated soldiers. The United States Army is desperate for people to serve and they pay no mind that the person may have suffered mentally or physically. Bales was so much worse off as a soldier left untreated and therefore the U.S. Army created room for this offense.
Soldiers returning home from war are not treated as they should be for the PTSD. When I was communicating with a wife of an Active Duty Combat Engineer, who just returned from a tour in Afghanistan, she said, "...I do know that PTSD is a big issue and it's not fun for the soldier or the family - sometimes soldiers get pushed to the side..." (B. Cones, personal communication, March 28, 2012). She lives on Fort Stewart and she told me a story of a soldier who went into the hospital and held people at gun point because every time he would ask people to help him with his PTSD he was pushed away. "By no means am I saying what he did was right but he had severe PTSD and is now getting the treatment he needed to begin with..." (B. Cones, March 28, 2012). Without treatment of this disease drastic things will happen.
Placing the death sentence on Staff Sergeant Robert Bales will do nothing for what the United States military helped to plant in him. Bales is in no way innocent. However, his crimes should be treated for what they are: mental instability. He should serve the time for this crime in an incarcerated mental facility. The United States needs to take a closer look at their post deployment health assessments. Military doctors and civilian doctors must take the time to serve those who have served them and their country to the extreme. The United States needs to accept responsibility for what they helped to create. "But if a society prepares a soldier to overcome his resistance to killing and places him in an environment in which he will kill, then that society has an obligation to deal forthrightly, intelligently, and morally with the result and its repercussions upon the soldier and the society" (Grossman, 1995). The U.S. military is in no way fully to blame for this. However, if the U.S. justice system makes Robert Bales take full responsibility for his crimes through capital punishment, then society needs to open their eyes to the moral issues that were the underlying cause of all his actions.
Works Cited
Find Law. Thomson Reuters. 27 March 2012. <http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/casecode/uscodes/18/parts/i/chapters/118/sections/section_2441.html/>.
Dictionary.com.
27 March 2012. .
Associated Press. "Afghan Killings Suspect Recalls Little of Incident; Owed $1.5 Million for Securities Fraud." 20 March 2012. Fox News.com.
27 March 2012. <http://www.foxnews.com/us/2012/03/20/afghan-killings-suspect-recalls-little-incident-owed-15-million-for-securities/>.
O'Brien, Tim. "The Things They Carried." New York: Houghton Mifflin, 1990.
Grossman, Lt. Col. Dave. On Killing - The Psychological Cost of Learning to Kill in War and Society. New York: Hachette Book Group, 1995.
U.S. Army Medical Department Army Behavioral Health. Office of the Army Surgeon General, Public Affairs, and Directorate of Information Management, Fort Detrick, Md.
27 March 2012. .
Martinez, Luis. "Sgt. Robert Bales Officially Charged for Afghan Massacre." 23 March 2012. ABC News.com.
27 March 2012. .
Cones, Britt. Personal Interview. 28 March 2012.
(Hope you guys don't take too much offense. It was fun to write. I felt like I was his lawyer, fighting his case. I have a feeling I should get a pretty good grade on this one =)
