Why is the first instinct of every military officer to cover things up:
A US soldier who captured a deadly 2009 rampage at Fort Hood with his cell phone camera testified Friday that he was ordered to erase the video by his commanders.
The video could have provided key evidence at the trial of Major Nidal Hasan, a US Army psychiatrist who faces 13 counts of premeditated murder and 32 counts of attempted murder.
Why would you order that? There seriously is something wrong in the military- I have no idea what they are teaching in the military schools or ROTC, but somewhere along the line they have dropped the ball when it comes to honor, integrity, and recognizing there are laws in the land. The officer corps, when you look at the overt politicking, the proselytizing, the rampant cover-ups, and so on, is just rotten to the core.
Cat Lady
Paranoia strikes deep. I blame Cheney.
arguingwithsignposts
cough – My Lai – cough
Barb (formerly gex)
It’s a Republican institution.
ETA: I know it isn’t supposed to be, but it has been pretty political and openly resistant to Democratic presidents lately.
Bella Q
Speaking of military what does “AR 635-120, CHAP 3” mean in the separation authority block of a DD214? And under narrative reasons for separation it lists “miscellaneous reasons – unqualified resignation.” Can any of our military experts explain that? It’s from the Snowbilly Winger for Senate’s website posting of his DD214.
Benjamin Cisco
Absolutely disgusting and inexcusable. Whoever issued that order should be court-martialed.
Daddy-O
And…anyone’s actually SURPRISED by this? After what they did to Pat Tillman?
The greatest thing about the ALCS game last night? The Rangers LOST, and embarrassingly. The worst thing? They refused to show the Smirk’s face when the winning Yankee run crossed the plate.
These seriously deranged people have fucked up EVERYTHING, and it ain’t over yet.
bkny
uh, isn’t that destruction of evidence. wtf.
terrifying to think just how subverted/corrupted the institutions of this country are — congress, courts, military, media.
i honestly think we’ve passed the point of no return.
kamper
Most amazing part? He was told to delete the video . . . and he deleted the video.
scarshapedstar
I think the Pentagon’s marching orders are “don’t let anyfuckingthing get onto the internet.” I suspect that was the concern.
On the other hand, why aren’t more people smart enough to simply email a video to a safe place and then delete it? Only takes a few seconds.
arguingwithsignposts
@Daddy-O:
Obligatory FTMFY.
James K. Polk, Esq.
Boy Cole, you sure are going full-metal DFH…
So, why do you hate the troops again? /snark
Ben
What do you make of the Gen. Hugh Shelton book accusation — that a Clinton Administration official asked about having a plane shot down over Iraq.
Same stuff, different rank.
And, oh by the way, if this was so egregious, so offensive, why didn’t Shelton speak up then? Why wait a decade and then publish it in a book? I thought these guys were supposed to be all about honor and valor. That smells an awful lot like cowardice to me.
Omnes Omnibus
Anecdote going the other way: In 2006, after several soldiers from the 101st raped and killed an Iraqi girl and the killed her family, the crime was reported up the chain of command, the battalion commander, LTC Thomas Kunk (who was in my platoon at OCS), investigated and referred the matter onward. All soldiers involved were convicted.
This is not to say that there is not a serious problem. Hell, as a 1LT 20 years ago, I remember hearing senior officers tell people that they don’t care if “it” is against regulations, just f-ing do it.
The Grand Panjandrum
John I think agrguingwithsignposts is on to something. We live in an age where media is everywhere so it could very well be that what we are witnessing is not so much an increase in these attempted cover-ups by commissioned officers as much as it is that they are more routinely exposed and brought to the publics attention. Everything affiliated with government is scrutinized with under the blogospheric microscope these days.
Mnemosyne
This seems really weird to me. Why would you demand someone delete evidence that someone murdered American soldiers? It gives it the smell of a cover-up even though there’s absolutely no reason to cover up anything.
Jay C
I both agree and disagree with you, John: for one, I, like you, find it incomprehensible that ANYONE in the military brass would order the erasure, however gory the video, of an attack like MAJ Hasan’s; knowing that it might be potential evidence – however redundant. I guess it is just reflex….
However, I think you’re a bit overboard with your wholesale condemnation of the “whole officer corps” – sure, there is plenty (way TOO much) of “…overt politicking, the proselytizing, the rampant cover-ups, and so on” – but that seems to be mainly an issue of the top echelons, rather than the military as a whole (and certainly not as you get further down the ranks).
I blame Bush (43), of course – though his father had more than a little to do with it – Dubya the Dim and Darth Cheney, IMO, consciously manipulated this country’s inbuilt respect for the military to cloak the insane folly (and botched execution) of his Iraq adventure: how many times did their Administration and its parrot-chorus in the media/blogosphere use “support[ing] the troops” a club to beat critics of their war policies?
When you make a institution into a sacred cow; you can’t complain about the piles of b*llsh*t it leaves on your floor….
The Grand Panjandrum
@Ben:
For the same reason many of the top brass advised against this latest Iraq War but were told to STFU or you’ll end up on the retirement list with Shinseki. Honorable men would resign then go public if they felt that strongly about it.
Kirk Spencer
OK, I’ve now read this in a few places.
First, it wasn’t an officer who ordered him to delete it, it was an NCO.
Beyond that, I’m sorta mixed about this. See, reading this story I suspect that all he had was shots of soldiers lying dead, dying and wounded on the ground. And I’m wondering if he was talking about youtubing it.
I don’t know.
I notice that neither side asked what he’d recorded, which tells me they already knew and didn’t think it worth raising (either side). I notice that he says when he saw the shooter he started to tackle him but Hasan reloaded so he ran out the door instead. Not much chance of recording when you’re doing, doncha know.
Bottom line there is too much we don’t know to go off about the issue.
Hunter Gathers
It’s a society wide problem, just not in the military.
It’s the fucking Baby Boomers.
They don’t want to take responsibility for any of the crap they have done since they came of age, and it will be up to the rest of us to clean up their pile of shit that they left in the corner.
cleek
charitably, you could assume his COs thought there weren’t any questions to be asked about what happened (crazy guy started shooting – there are more than enough eyewitnesses to prove that), and they especially didn’t want that video showing up on YouTube out of respect for the victims.
charitably.
arguingwithsignposts
@Kirk Spencer:
Having no military experience, I had to look up exactly why a non-commissioned *officer* would require such hairsplitting.
My original point stands, however. This is not a new phenomenon.
Omnes Omnibus
@Hunter Gathers: There aren’t too many Boomers left in the Military. Top Brass only, everyone else from 0-6 down is probably Gen-X or later.
Jay C
@Daddy-O:
Was our former A$$hole-In-Chief at that game? I’m not surprised that he would be: but unless I missed the shot, TBS didn’t show him? Or else the view was blocked by the glass of whatever luxury suite he was in….
Heh – what a disgrace: when you have CC Sabathia doing his Hindenburg imitation (enormous grey object crashing and burning) to hand you a five-run lead, it takes a certain special kind of – well, something
– to blow it all in just one Inning From H*ll. Something.
Well, as they say over at LGM: “Yuck the Fankees“
Hunter Gathers
@Omnes Omnibus: Remember that old anti-drug ad from back in the day?
“I learned it from watching you!”
If Daddy got away with it, why can’t I?
General Stuck
I met a girl who sang the blues
And I asked her for some happy news,
But she just smiled and turned away.
It’s a gorgeous day out here in the high desert. sunny, 75 degrees and this boomer aims to enjoy it. Plenty of time later to unravel the secrets of the universe through blogging. peace out, man.
danelison
No it isn’t, Cole. It just isn’t. Speaking as a former member of the group you cite, I can say quite emphatically that it is like any group – there’s a lot of stuff that goes right and by the book by perfectly normal, decent people intent on making things better. And then there’s the reptilian-brained folks that do something that ranges from inept to inhuman to illegal. I think I know the spirit in which you wrote it, but I would ask that you don’t mar your normally-insightful blog by blanket statements.
Violet
@Daddy-O:
After Abu Graib? After Mai Lai? After…fill in the blank.
Military running amuck reminds me of the brilliant tank scene from “Buffalo Soldiers.” Nothing new under the sun.
Texas Dem
I think they deleted the video because they were afraid it would go viral and make a handy recruiting tool for terrorists. All other things being equal, the simplest explanation is usually the best.
Omnes Omnibus
@Bella Q: I looked and I can’t find an AR 635-120. When did this person get discharged. It might be an old AR. This is the list of current separation regs.
arguingwithsignposts
@Texas Dem:
The earlier version of your comment had an extra measure of bitterness. Or perhaps I’m imagining things.
Omnes Omnibus
@Omnes Omnibus: @Bella Q: Looking a little more deeply, it looks like it might be a separation because he had been passed over for promotion twice. I can’t find the specific AR, but I am finding some that state that they are replacements for that one. Under the up or out system, you have two shots at promotion, if not you get bounced. In some situations, they will let you stay a couple of years to get 20 years and then retire. I hope that helps.
Michael
Because the sorts of white wingnuts that drive our current internal military policy come from a filthy culture of bullshit and lies while their petulant, psychopathic deity forgives them for it, so long as it is in the service of their continued hegemony.
debbie
It’s not just the military, it’s this entire country. There’s no such thing as integrity anymore. Evidence #1: Wall Street (or business, in general).
Omnes Omnibus
@debbie: That is a bit a a broad brush you are painting with here. There are millions of people going to work, making and keeping commitments, and generally trying to do the right thing every day.
Glenndacious Greenwaldian (formerly tim)
John, and I don’t mean this facetiously, but do you really believe this issue of integrity in the military as you frame it in your post, to be a NEW thing?
Maybe the level of integrity is no lower than in society as a whole, and it is just the massive gap between the over the top military-worship and idealization bullshit in the U.S. and the reality, that makes for such a stark picture?
Cranky Observer
It’s not just the military; it’s all hierarchical organizations of any significant size in our society. Sometime between 1980 and 1990 the process of abjuring all responsibility through the use of obfuscating corpro-speak, language derived from the (also perfected) worlds of marketing and advertising, and “pushing back” against any and all news that was in any way bad (“we don’t allow red lights on OUR progress charts in THIS organization”) was perfected and became the norm in every hierarchical organization I have encountered. People at the top of such organizations who have feathered nests and infinite prospects for themselves don’t want to hear bad news, and they now have the tools and resources at their disposal to ensure that neither they nor the outside world ever does hear it.
Cranky
Stefan
Having no military experience, I had to look up exactly why a non-commissioned officer would require such hairsplitting.
A non-commissioned officer (or NCO) is not the same thing as an officer. In the Army, officer rank starts at lieutenant and works its way up past captain, major and colonel to general. An non-commissioned officer, on the other hand, is basically an enlisted man above the rank of private. Corporals and sergeants in the Army are NCOs.
Donkee
@Texas Dem: How is that the simplest explanation? Why isn’t it simpler to imagine that the NCO thought the entire incident might reflect badly upon his commander, his base, or perhaps his own leadership and thought reflexively that controlling information might be a good thing?
soonergrunt
@Bella Q:
Army Regulation 635-120, chapter 3, this regulation prescribes procedures whereby an officer on active duty may tender a resignation, provided that the officer meets all applicable service obligations and is not under investigation or awaiting charges.
In other words a Commissioned Officer resigned his rank and commission and didn’t have any obligation in any form to the service and so was allowed to do so.
But I’m probably lying because I was a career soldier and that’s what we do.
All Black people eat watermelon and collard greens, All Priests fuck little boys, All Liberals are communists, and so on and so on and so on.
Karmakin
@Cranky Observer: This.
It all tracks with the rise of the Religious Right, to be honest. The Religious Right brought with them a really twisted ideology, that results were more important than methods, and that morality is a suspect thing that can be waved away if you’re in the right tribe. (Actually, it’s more that being in/allegiance to the right tribe is the most important thing in the world and pre-empts all other considerations)
soonergrunt
@cleek: You could also assume the story is bullshit from a joe who wants to get his name in the papers and be associated with a big event.
If all the people who claimed to have attended Woodstock were actually present, New York City would’ve been a ghost town, and if all the people who claimed to have won the Medal of Honor had done so, it would be less valuable as the Army Service Ribbon, AKA the “I joined the Army Ribbon”.
“I saw the whole thing, but I don’t have proof because it’s someone else’s fault and you’ll put my name in the paper because I say it’s true even though CID and FBI and ATF siezed every device with a camera from the site so they could build their case, you should believe that nobody but my supervisor knew I had video of the whole thing and he ordered me to destroy evidence of the only mass murder to ever occur on a US military base in the nation’s history…”
RIIIIIIIGHT.
@John Cole–was this what your unit was like? Was it routine for the leadership to do stupid shit like that and cover up things from higher and adjacent units? Cause that, and nothing like that were ever part of my experience in the military. I don’t know. I must’ve just lived under a lucky star.
Mike G
@Cranky Observer:
The apotheosis of this was the “We make our own reality/never admit to mistakes/don’t bring me any bad news/make the intelligence report say what you want” Chimp Assministration.
That and their corruption of every department of the federal government from the US Attorneys to the Minerals Management Service to the Coalition Authority in Baghdad, stuffed with ideological deliberate-incompetents and manipulated as political weapons, is one of their most disgusting, cancerous legacies for this country.
Bella Q
@Omnes Omnibus: Thanks!! I think it was 1992 or so; it’s the Snowbilly WInger for Sentate from AK, Joe Miller. There’s always been a whisper that it was awfully weird he only did 3 of his 5 year service commitment after West Point, and of course his ethical challenges are coming to light more frequently now that he’s a general candidate and people are looking harder.
Tsulagi
Nothing like starting the day with a big ‘ol steaming mug of bullshit, right?
Let me try this blend…Politicians, when you look at the overt spinelessness, the rampant cover-ups, not giving a damn about anything other than the election or reelection of their ass, and so on are rotten to the core showing you would have to have an 11D sized level of retardation to give any one of them a dollar much less a vote.
Okay, I see how that brush works.
Bella Q
@soonergrunt: Thanks, and hope you’re feeling dandy these days.
I asked because that’s what’s on Joe Miller’s DD214, which is whacky, as I mentioned in response to OO, as he had 2 years left to go to pay for West Point…
John Cole
@Tsulagi: Bullshit. I think the officer corps has gone rogue. Name any high profile case in which the brass is involved, from Lynch to Tillman to you name it, and there was a cover-up and massive deceit. Something has gone radically wrong within the military culture.
soonergrunt
@Bella Q: Well, it’s not usual for a West Pointer to get out two years early, but if his officer evaluation reports were less than stellar that wouldn’t surprise me. Particularly if it was during the draw-down of the early ’90s.
Svensker
@Hunter Gathers:
Oh jeez, come on already. Whine whine whine. You’re screaming that the Boomers won’t take responsibility, while blaming them for everything everyone has ever done since 1968. Do you have issues with your parents or an older family member that you need to work out?
The Dangerman
Three thoughts:
1) How did the video occur? Was there a video being taken already or was the response to the attack to take out your cell phone and hit record? If the latter, that’s kinda sad, doncha think?
2) Not sure why one would want the video; at the end of the day, it is a gruesome snuff film.
3) Finally, under the circumstances, I can forgive the order being wrong given the gravity of the situation. Yeah, it probably should have been saved, but given the ease of having it go viral, I can understand the concern.
soonergrunt
@soonergrunt: I would add to my last, particularly if the officer in question had been accepted to a law school or medical school, then given the other circumstances I described then, yeah, it’s a little more possible.
Today, not so much.
soonergrunt
@The Dangerman: I just don’t buy it, barring a sworn statement by the leader in question that it happened that way.
CID would be taking statements from everybody and their brother present at the scene, and interviewing everybody.
For this to make any kind of sense whatsoever, you have to accept that:
1: The Private took the video in question, and then either slipped through the cordon that MPs and DoD police put around the active shooter site so that he wasn’t questioned, or that he was questioned and lied about it to the investigator, or that he was questioned and it never came3 up or occurred to him, when asked what he saw to say “I got it on my cell.” Nobody else saw a guy holding a cell phone out shooting video, or if they did or thought they did, never mentioned it to anyone.
2: The Private then told his supervisor, who, in the midst of all of the posters up around Fort Hood, and the announcements on the local radio stations and on the local TV stations that CID was looking for witnesses, took it upon himself to order the Private to destroy the video.
3: The Private and the NCO never told anyone else at the time about the existence of the video.
The Dangerman
@soonergrunt:
You’re right, something smells, which correlates to my sniff test, which is, how/why would a video even be available? One way or the other, something doesn’t add up.
YellowDog
@Donkee:
My first thought was that someone did not want video of soldiers hiding or fleeing from a lone gunman with a pistol shouting “Allahu Akbar.” That video would be excellent propaganda for terrorist recruitment if it did go viral.
Tsulagi
@John Cole:
Bullshit right back atcha. Collectively, how many hundreds/thousands of decisions are made by officers every day? Some with a lot of consequences, some not so much. Have no rough idea of the number, but guessing it’s a lot. Out of those you cite a few not made exceptionally well, which of course none say as in the Tillman situation could have been influenced by if not directed by paragons of honor and integrity in civilian political leadership.
If I were having a big party at my house and really wanted to invite straight up, solid good people you could depend on likely to keep their word and do the right thing when it counted, with the pool of invitees limited to politicians or officers/NCOs, guessing the ratio of those fitting the invitation criteria would be 1,000 to 1 officers/NCOs to politicians. Okay, know being way too generous to pols estimating that ratio, but I’m liberal like that.
Ruckus
@Cranky Observer:
I was going to make the observation that this is a lot like the police. Shutting down as much or all the cell phones, cameras so that they will not be seen as doing anything wrong. The thin blue line as it were. But your observation that this seems to be in a lot more organizations than just the military or police may explain a lot more of our current state of affairs. Look at the mortgage mess. The whole goal was to split up everything so no one could see how much of a mess it really is. And now we hear the masters of the universe telling us to shut up, that’s why.
Soonergrunt.
I hear the pride in your writing about working hard at a basically thankless job. But not everyone had a good experience in the military. I served with an E7 who had been in for 20 at the time who said he had great duty stations and loved the military, until he landed in the unit we were in. He said he understood why people hated the military, which he had never been able to figure out before then. This unit was exactly the type of unit that you would expect from John’s rant. And it got predictable results. Maybe the military has changed and there are fewer of these types of units. That sure would be nice.
Omnes Omnibus
@soonergrunt: In the early 90s, officers were being let out early right and left. People on their initial commitment, i.e., lieutenants were able to resign early with no problems. Captains and majors could actually get cash bonuses for getting out. I have a friend who paid for his MBA (at Georgia Tech) with the cash bonus he got for getting out as a captain with seven years in. He had stellar OERs and was a graduate of DLI. As a lieutenant, I got the pay and leave that they owed me and a ticket home.
soonergrunt
@Ruckus:
@Ruckus–to be sure, I’ve had units that sucked donkey balls. My tour in Germany comes to mind immediately. I’ve never seen a unit before or since that was so blazingly hostile to its own Soldiers. Fort Ord was magical, and I shed tears to leave it. I’ve seen individual officers and NCOs that were little better than criminals. I’ve known two personally that were criminals. One of them may still be in Leavenworth.
I’ve also known dozens, if not hundreds of Officers, NCOs, and Soldiers for whom honor, integrity, and service were the elements of the foundation of our lives. Not every man succeeds all the time, but the vast and I do mean vast majority of men do not break the law, or their oaths.
I understand that people usually only hear about the bad stuff and that this can cause people to assume circumstances of the unusual as if they were commonplace, but a vet like John should know better. Was his unit full of mendacious liars? Was it a place where corruption was systemic and daily, or was it a place where men lived daily lives without a tremendous amount of drama and the occasional happenstance bad events, wherein some rose above their peers, a few fell below, and most simply met the challenge and moved on? You know, like the vast majority of organization in the real world?
soonergrunt
@Omnes Omnibus: I remember good officers getting out during the draw down. The economy was going great and people with the horizons to do so were moving on to greener pastures.
I only ever wanted to be a Soldier, and there was a time when promotions in the enlisted ranks were so lean as to be almost impossible. At one point, it took so many points to make E-5 that a Soldier would’ve had to have had a college degree, maxed out on military schooling, and maxed awards. Litterally one point short of perfect is what it would’ve taken.
Norman Rogers
It was misguided to do that, of course, but here’s what they may have been thinking:
The video would have made a perfect “victory” message for those who wish to celebrate or carry out a similar attack. It’s the sort of thing that would appear on “jihadist” websites.
Chalk this up to “overthinking” and poor management focus. With fewer and fewer “old hands” around who can temper the old man’s poor decision making skills, this is the sort of thing that leaves people frustrated.
I’m not saying that an old Sergeant Major with more than his fair share of common sense would have prevented this sort of thing, but I am making the point that, more often than not, when someone wearing stripes can compel someone to think before acting, the results do tend to be a little better. The old Army knew this, instinctively. The new army is faced with a future where many of those men and women have voted with their feet and gotten out.
timb
@soonergrunt: So, you’ve now turned a valuable critique against John’s indictment of the officer corps into an indictment (and a whiny one too) of all soldiers*? Jesus, Danielson had a point; you’re just imagining an insult.
*And, ironically, since Cole served in the Army, he would be calling himself a liar! Can a liar tell us he’s lying? If so, does that mean he’s telling the truth? But, how can he tell the truth if he’s a liar?……
Be pretty clever if Star Trek hadn’t done an episode of it 40 years ago. Take your skirt off and make a real point.
timb
@John Cole: Look at the dude running for Congress in North Carolina. The fact that he was an officer and is NOT in prison is an indictment of the leadership of the Army.
debbie
@Omnes Omnibus
And sadly, none of them have much influence on the state of affairs in this country.
soonergrunt
@timb: You know dude, I hope that you warmed up before that stretch. Otherwise you might hurt yourself.
soonergrunt +3
One Hand Clapping
@Omnes Omnibus:
Fish rots from the head down, as do organizations.