At Home, Asking How ‘Our Bobby’ Became War Crime Suspect -- New York Times
He was not the star, just a well-regarded young man who seemed to try to do the right thing. That was Robert Bales, “our Bobby,” friends said. He was a busy, popular kid, but he made time for the autistic man down the block. Other neighborhood boys admired him. As a high school linebacker, he was good enough to be captain, but also gracious enough to help a more talented player take over his starting position. It was good for the team, he said.
That solid-guy reputation followed him into the Army infantry. He joined at the relatively seasoned age of 27, just a few weeks after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, and became respected for his maturity and calm, including in battle. “He was a damn good leader and a damn good soldier,” said Zachary Parsons, who served with Staff Sergeant Bales in Iraq in 2007.
Read more ....
Update: The Sergeant in Question: A Portrait of the Accused Shooter of Kandahar -- Time
My Comment: What strikes everyone about this case is that he is .... quintessentially speaking .... the boy next door. If it could happen to him .... it could happen to anyone.
In response, I have say yes and no.
This soldier has clearly gone through a lot .... multiple deployments, being injured in Iraq, stress at home, redeployment to a war zone that he thought that he was not going to be sent to, being deployed thousands of miles away while his financial problems back home escalated, the stress of seeing close comrades injured or killed. But while these experiences are extreme, many others in the military have also experienced them, and they have never gone out and committed a war crime.
In the end .... when the story is finished .... I suspect that this case will become the poster child on what went wrong for the US in Afghanistan .... and more to the point (and one that I can only hope for) .... a realization on the limits of putting our soldiers into a situation where the conflict appears to be perpetual .... with no end in sight.