“Sad. But better him than an entire platoon while he slept on duty.”
I wonder if that is what he was thinking as well when he killed himself. I imagine that while the physical abuse was bad - the verbal abuse was even worse. “You should be happy that we’re all throwing sand all over you and kicking you. At least that means we’re not all DEAD because you took a nap. Why don’t you just kill yourself - then it will just be you, and not all of us as well.”
Especially in view of the one soldier’s statement of fearing of a suicide.
Obviously they should have handled this much differently.
He didn’t get that much physical abuse. Marines going thru basic get harsher treatment than that!
“Obviously they should have handled this much differently.”
That’s the last thing from their mind. They didn’t care about handling it properly. They cared about not getting their throats slit by Mahjeem in their sleep. Kicking sand on the guy, hitting him and kicking him...that stuff goes on more than the average person wants to think or know about. It’s part of the culture of an Infantry unit...magnified with the stress of a combat zone.
Everybody wants to blame the victims, the other men in the unit. If we can hypothesize about every malady or brain dysfunction for the guy who put the unit in danger, why do we not afford the same protection to the men who kicked him and hit him?
Certainly they were under great mental duress knowing this one guy could get them all killed, they probably couldn’t sleep and were critically deprived of sleep.
NOT GUILTY.
But no, they will be scapegoated. We only afford defense and protection to those who abdicate responsibility, not those who accept it.