We could never have the multiple deployment problem again if we stay out of multi-decade wars with no actual goal to win.
That said I can apppreciate his service, but there is no mitigating circumstance fro murdering 16 people including 9 children.
At the risk of insulting you, have you ever been to war? I’m going to jump out in front and assume that you have, so you have probably seen some pretty terrible things, just as I have.
I remember when I was going through SERE school as part of my aircrew training. We were taught a lot of survival skills and spent the last 24 hours of the school in a simulated POW camp. Simulated. 24 hours. I was shocked by the number of guys who “broke” during “interogation” by the camp guards (school instructors).
Months later, I realized that what we had experienced was kindergarten compared to what a week in the Hanoi Hilton would have been like. And, yet, guys broke and we were in the state of California with no one shooting at us!
I don’t condone what SSgt. Bales did, but I also can’t and won’t hold him solely responsible. As I said before, I hold his superiors as much or more responsible for sending a man who had suffered a brain injury back into a war zone on his 4th deployment. We all have our breaking points and I believe that SSgt. Bales hit his.
What happened to those civilians should not be completely heaped on him, even though he alledgedly acted alone. There’s PLENTY of blame to be handed out in Washington!!