(Reuters) - Robert Bales built a life around a call to arms. A call that emanated from the ashes of the World Trade Center in New York and took him to the mayhem of faraway Iraq and Afghanistan. A call he may have heard one time too many.
The 38-year-old U.S. Army staff sergeant suspected of gunning down 16 Afghan civilians, including nine children, had struggled to make financial ends meet and was disappointed at being sent back into a war zone for a fourth time rather than an easier posting in Germany or Hawaii.
Bales was a high school football star from Ohio who enlisted in the Army after the September 11, 2001, attacks on the United States. He married Karilyn Primeau in 2005 and soon they moved into a four-bedroom house near a clear Seattle lake. The couple had two children, but Bales was absent for three tours in Iraq, where he was commended for valor. His wife, a public relations executive, blogged enthusiastically about their life.
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3 comments:
I agree that this soldier should have not been sent to do so many tours, but this does NOT excuse his actions!
What he did is inexusable and was nothing but murder!
Looks like he'll get off though. That teaches our kids a lot, doesn't it. Go into the military, get sent into war and while you're there, and when you come home, you can kill people, it's ok.
Well, it's NOT ok!
we don't know the breaking point of anyone, but the military really should realize they can only go so far in taking advantage of our soldiers.
i believe he has to be punished, but the military should also take responsibility for their poor judgement regarding this soldier and others like him.
my family and i are very patriotic, but this is wrong.
still trying to figure out---where were the village men when this happened?
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