Sergeant Patrick Lae Incident Analysis

“The cost of freedom is always high, but Americans have always paid it. And one path we shall never choose, and that is the path of surrender, or submission.” – John F. Kennedy. The American troops have always lived by this type of mentally and Kennedy is absolutely correct to say that Americans have to pay for it, especially our troops. Ever since the both World Wars, there has been an elevation on Traumatic cases within our soldiers regardless of their nation. However, the United States has become more aware of this on-growing situation, but just being more aware is not enough. We keep seeing a rise in the amount of these cases, and we are wondering, “When is this going to be fixed?” In order to understand this issue we need to go to the

Sergeant First Class Jackson was a very humble warrior. In his cubical, you would find American Flags, Daily Bread pamphlets from the chaplain, maintenance magazines and a candy dish which we all loved. He never boasted about his accomplishments, but you knew there was something special about this gentle giant. As he and I talked prior to him undergoing surgery, he told me that he was assigned to the 507th Maintenance Company during his assignment to Fort Bliss, Texas. This company stood out in my mind because it was the infamous Maintenance Company which Private Jessica Lynch was assigned to when she became a prisoner of war. Staff Sergeant Jackson was the responsible for the maintenance of the fleet of vehicles that were partaking in the in the convoy. The convoy departed Kuwait, led by the Company Commander, Captain Troy K. King, en route to Iraq on the first day of the war in 2003. When many of the vehicles had become bogged down by the sand (Michael Luo 2003), Staff Sergeant Jackson moved forward to execute his functions and keep the convoy moving. The convoy became disoriented and was immediately surrounded by the enemy in Nasiriyah, Iraq. Staff Sergeant Jackson immediately began to return fire to help defend the convoy and protect his fellow Soldiers (Jackson 2014). He continued to fire until he was wounded and unable to fire his weapon. During the fog of war, Staff Sergeant Jackson transitioned from firing his weapon to

In September 2008, in Eastern Afghanistan, Trooper Mark Donaldson made an instant decision that may of got him killed or may change his life forever. His display of astounding courage that day saw him awarded the Victoria Cross for Australia, making him the first Australian to receive our highest award for bravery in wartime since Keith Payne in 1969, he was also the youngest person to ever receive a Victorian Cross. Yet it was Mark's crucial moments in Afghanistan, in which he saved so many lives that lead to him being able to receive such high award and be printed in Australian history. He was a rebellious child and teenager, who as a young boy got in with the wrong crowd and was peer pressured into doing drugs and drinking alcohol and this

An article from the New York Times written by Dave Phillips sheds light on the growing issue of suicide rates amongst military veterans. Dave Phillips does this by telling the story of fellow military men, through the eyes of one marine- gunner name Manny Bojorquez. Bojorquez, joined the marines at a young age of 19, one of the militaries most prestige combat forces. In 2008, the second Battalion, seventh marine regiment -also known as the 2/7- deployed to a mid-swath of Helnend providence. Bojorquez remembers this combat as one of the worst and most traumatizing combats of many marines’ lives. After experiencing these traumatic events, the agonies of war,

The second season of the podcast series, Serial, hosted by Sarah Koenig, an American Journalist, focuses on a soldier named Bowe Bergdahl, who, at the age of 19, enlisted into the Coast Guard. Bowe Bergdahl only lasted a couple weeks in training due to the fact that he was diagnosed with situational anxiety. Without proper guidance, the Army did not look into Bergdahl 's diagnosis. Therefore, Bowe Bergdahl was able to re-enlist into the army. Because the Army neglected to check Bowe’s medical history, Bowe caused a Dustwun in the middle of Afghanistan in 2009, and was later captured by the Taliban. As a result, the Taliban established a trade with the United States. In exchange for Bowe Bergdahl, the Taliban wanted five of their commanders who were held by the United States in Guantanamo Bay. However, the Army could have prevented Bowe from being held captive, if the military had checked Bowe’s records. Therefore, the army was at fault for allowing a mentally ill soldier to re-enlist in the army.

March 11, 2012, Staff Sergeant Robert Bales found himself committing the worst war crime in American history. Under the cover of darkness, Bales meticulously infiltrated Panjwai, Kandahar, and callously mutilated and murdered non combative Afghan citizens. Bales killed a total of 16, and wounded 6. Of the 16 victims, 9 were children, 4 were women, and 3 were men. Bales spared very few during his rampage, only sparing two or three citizens. After committing the murders, Robert Bales walked back to base where he was swiftly taken into custody.

Deceased philosopher Bertrand Russell once said, “War does not determine who is right- only who is left”. Those left are the soldiers of the 1-502nd, specifically Bravo Company 1st plt, and the Janabi family and to a greater extent, the ever-changing global world we all live in today. The tragic events that conspired in a small Iraqi village became a microcosm of how leadership failures at every level shaped the actions of a few soldiers who committed atrocious acts. One can also see how a high operational tempo, along with prolonged violence and death, has on a person’s psyche. It is the ugly side of war that the average American citizen may not want to hear or talk about. For a soldier, it is inevitably what they train their

The Iraq war and the Afghanistan war involved several injuries; as well as, four thousand casualties, and the number of suicides from 2012 to present outnumbers the soldiers dead from combat. The high cost of soldiers were dying in an unpopular war by the Bush administration and the cost to Americans at home and abroad in caring for these wounded warriors, as a result, by 2003 to 2010 the deaths in military action suicides, and suicides at home at a rate of thirteen point five per one hundred thousand troops (Lancet). This only includes America’s causalities, not the deaths of Afghanistan, Iraq, allies and Iraq civilians killed during the war, yet on top of that; rebuilding their shattered lives. The tragedy of war did not just affect Americans; the American soldiers were in

reactions of the soldier’s family. Krebs comes home from a long overseas war with exhausted

It was 115 degrees; the platoon was walking through the middle of the desert each of them with 40 pounds of gear on and an M16A2 rifle. It was summer time in the country of Afghanistan and the temperature was rising. At this point I asked myself what the hell I am doing here and why did I join the United States Army? Right when I was thinking that I felt a tug on my leg and there stood a young boy about 7 years old with only one arm, “Candy,Candy” he asked. Upon speaking with the local villagers we found out that his arm was taken from an improvised explosive device (IED) planted

You have to consider for a moment the serious nature of this action. When we deploy, we rely on the person to our left and right. The profession of arms is one that requires all to do their part. Combat, by nature, is a physical, difficult, and demanding task. A person’s very life may depend on the actions of those around him or her. Ask any Soldier pulled from the vehicle hit by an improvised explosive device if that is true or not. You must have personnel on whom you can rely. The actions and directions from the brigade forced us to accept people who may be

On November 5, 2009, the public gained knowledge about an incident that took place at an U.S. Army installation. Maj. Nidal Hasan, an Army psychiatrist, fatally shot 13 people and injured more than 30 others. He was facing a deployment to one of the many war zones overseas (McFadden, 2009). There are many reports about this incident and what actually took place. From what I’ve gathered, Hasan went into a processing center where soldiers go before and after they come back from deployment. After Hasan’s shooting rampage, he was finally stopped when Army Military Police (MP) officers shot him a total of four times. He is now paralyzed from the waist down due to the shooting. The Fort Hood shooting marked the worst shooting ever to take place on a military installation state side, to record. There was almost no structural damage because he used hand guns instead of bombs, or what we call weapons of mass destruction.

On November 5, 2009 at approximately 1:30 p.m., a gunman opens fire inside the base's Soldier Readiness Center at U.S. Army Base, Fort Hood, Texas. Soldier Readiness Center, is where soldiers who are about to be deployed or who are returning undergo medical screening (http://search.proquest.com). During the shooting the gunman killed 13 and wounded 31 others. The gunman was shot and wounded by base police during the incident. This was the first time that an attack like this has happened in a military base on U.S. soil. All the soldiers and civilians inside of the Soldier Readiness Center were unarmed at the time of

Armando is a 27-year-old male who presented in the emergency room of the county hospital. He is extremely agitated and complains that his wife and family just don’t understand him. He is experiencing tachycardia, profuse sweating, and describes the sensation of “not being able to get my breath.” After lab findings are negative for heart attack, he explains to the ER physician that he came home from Afghanistan eight months earlier after a two-year deployment. He admits that some of the things he experienced during his deployment involved his directly witnessing the deaths of his fellow soldiers as well as seeing daily explosions of IEDs during his work as a member of a group that finds and detonates various explosive devices in order to protect both military and civilian personnel. He denies that the experiences have had a negative effect on his homecoming, although he does note

service members who have been deployed to either Iraq or Afghanistan have returned with an range of signs and symptoms that we are now calling post-deployment syndrome (PDS). Traumatic brain injury, combat stress, blast injury, post-traumatic stress disorder, or post-concussive syndrome each fit into the variety of symptoms called PDS. Four hundred thousand previously healthy service men and women now live with PDS that, at times, causes them to be entirely disabled or to suffer so much that they even may take their own lives. This number may seem shocking, however PDS doesn’t just affect these service members, reservists, and veterans, but also their friends, family members, employers, communities, and even the very health care workers who are desperately trying to help them. Surprisingly, despite how common this condition is, it still remains puzzling to fully define and