There have been 23 deaths this year among Fort Hood's 36,500 soldiers. According to officials, the deaths include seven off-duty accidents; seven suicides; one combat-related death; four homicides, one of which was on the base; two of natural causes; one that was undetermined pending an autopsy; and one drowning.
This article details the disturbing details of 8 of those deaths. (This should be being covered all over MSM, but crickets.)
.0006% mortality rate among tens of thousands of trained killers and mercs is pretty damned good if you ask me(no one did).
Im not sure we're at the point of tech where we can eradicate death just yet.
Something to shoot for I posit.
@SeaGreenEyez I agree.
We had a case like this at the "Deep Cut" Barracks in the UK.
An investigation was a started after one 18 year old squady committed "suicide" by shooting himself in the back of the head eight times while running away from himself.
An open an shut case when govt investigates itself.
It was considered so until the parents forced an investigation and found 20+ other cases of "suicide" a the base over the proceeding ten years including at least three other shooting themselves in the back and one "outed" boy deciding to end it all by pushing a grenade up his own arse
Why are these details disturbing? Some drunk soldier got into a fight and got shot at a bar, someone drowned, someone was murdered after telling her assailant she was going to have him investigated, some guy offed himself out of guilt. None appeared to be extraordinarily heinous - just run of the mill murders and heat of the moment killings. Humans are savage motherfuckers and society curbs it ... for the most part.
I served at Fort Hood. I was constantly on guard against everyone, because half of the young soldiers at the post (IMHO) were dimwitted testosterone-fueled assholes who were drunk as often as they could be. I went out of my way to ensure I did not piss anyone off, or get on anyone's bad side because I knew that they might hold a grudge ... and they had the ability to run around with loaded weapons and the Army's blessing on occasion. If I was going to have someone investigated, I certainly wouldn't have told them before the fact, and especially not to their face, away from witnesses.
And this may sound heartless, but personally I think ANYONE in the Army that is murdered face-to-face (without being ambushed) needed more hand to hand combat training. Their JOB is to kill or be killed, and if someone can bludgeon them to death after a conversation, then they should have done a few more push ups and worked on their fighting technique.
Yes, TA and waaay less than 1%, particularly if you take out the accidents & suicides... compare to an average city of the same size......
I was a Cavalry trooper in 3d ACR (now CR) the unit where a couple of these soldiers are stationed at Fort Hood. Unfortunately it comes down to averages.
Some may be listed as deserters until remains are found. These are young troops, more testosterone than sense. Not an excuse. But perhaps an explanation about what they are doing in their off duty time.
Sad about Vanessa Gullen. At certain levels glad the trooper alleged to have killed her ended up killing himself.
@SeaGreenEyez I'm not apologizing for anything. I'm not sure where you got that.
I was keeping up with the Vanessa Guillen death. She had told her family that she was being sexually harassed by a co-worker, her family thought she had told her higher ups but supposedly she never reported it and the guy who was harassing her killed her, I think there's more to this story and now more are coming out into the spotlight.
Like the one young man that they claimed was a deserter and they found his body with signs of foul play, yeah, something is going on there.
@SeaGreenEyez Combat on American soil and still nothing is questioned about the death! I feel so bad for the families, they think that their children are going into the military to defend the United States and wind up dead without going to war. This is just horrible in so many ways!
Well, we're finally taking mental health and treating combat PTSD more seriously. A couple years ago, I had to drive 70 minutes one way for a therapy appointment. Today, that's ~10 minutes and there's a goal so no veteran anywhere in the USA will have to drive an hour to see a therapist by 2024.
My therapist takes one day to see people an hour north of us.
One good thing the pandemic is doing, tele-health and remote therapy are being spotlighted, researched and seem to be nearly as effective as in person therapy.
Seems like a pretty low rate, and well-documented/investigated. Why do you think it is something unusual? When my first husband was in boot camp his 21-year-old buddy died of a heart attack. It happens.
I was in 2nd AD at Ft Hood, and a 24 year old guy in the 1st Cav dropped dead in morning PT after a run. Died on the spot; no CPR or anything they tried saved him.
You're right - it just happens sometimes.
@SeaGreenEyez but yet, you list "homicides", QUOTING THEM, so i fail to understand you.
And what would be the statistics for a small town of simliar size? I expect much higher!
Of course they should have. But the media doesn't care unless it fits whatever narrative they're trying to push at the time. Fox isn't going to cover it because it makes trump look bad. msnbc isn't going to cover it because they're pushing covid against trump. Cnn.... well I'm not even sure what CNN does anymore.
We're put out there to die, the bad thing is nobody in the media or the government CARES if we do die. Thats just the cold hard truth I learned when in.
The msm can't multi task.....or report a complete story coherently
@SeaGreenEyez if I watch any msm its usually foreign. Typically Europe.