I saw the AP story detailing your defense of SSG Bales linked on the Drudge Report. God bless you and all those who’ve served honorably during this hellish decade. 9/11 changed me, too and as a result I married a military officer. He’s been assigned overseas for the past 3.5 years, but largely not in harm’s way. I can only imagine what the Bales family and yours have been through. Right now this overall story as reported is not making sense to me.
Yeah, it all kind of blew up bigger than I expected, but as long as the word gets out to counter the “Sgt Psycho” crap.
Deployments are stressful whether you’re in harm’s way or not. I’ve done a combat deployment and a staff deployment. While the personal danger levels were certainly lower, the staff deployment involved much longer hours and an endless stream of demands from many, many people. After a while I was dying to do a few combat patrols!
For the benefit of those who may be interested, the comments by our very own “Capt. Future Snake Eater” are here in the Reuters article to which the Drudge Report linked: http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/03/18/us-usa-afghanistan-soldier-life-idUSBRE82H0A820120318
Here are comments from the Washington Post: “Army Capt. Chris Alexander, 28, who was Baless platoon leader during a deployment in Iraq, said in an interview Friday night that he ‘saved many a life’ by never letting his guard down during patrols. ‘Bales is still, hands down, one of the best soldiers I ever worked with,’ Alexander said. ‘There has to be very severe [post-traumatic stress disorder] involved in this. I just dont want him seen as some psychopath, because he is not.’”
Here's the CBS News report, including the photo Capt. FSE put up on Free Republic: http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-201_162-57399725/new-revelations-about-sgt-robert-bales-past/
Here's the Associated Press story which will be widely carried by lots of other media: http://articles.boston.com/2012-03-18/news/31208111_1_second-deployment-model-soldier-staff-sergeant
Many more links could be cited. Google News is showing 2,450 different news sources so far citing our Army captain from Free Republic in the same story as Sgt. Bales.
Welcome to the media world, Capt. FSE... I hope my colleagues from far bigger newspapers don't mangle your story. Sgt. Bales’ lawyer, and Sgt. Bales’ wife (apparently a public relations executive, based on media reports) have probably already given you lots of good advice on how to deal with reporters.
Now I need to get back to my main job for today, trying to make sense out of the uproar at the Missouri Republican caucuses on Saturday...