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CRIMINAL PASTS OFTEN FORESHADOW SOLDIERS'
MISCONDUCT -- The military has lowered standards
and handed out more waivers to offenders, who
may go on to break the law on duty.
There's a very simple dynamic here: If
there are waivers, then there are no standards.
Story here...
http://www.startribune.com/world/
24794794.html?location_refer=Style%20+%20People
Story below:
-------------------------
Criminal pasts often foreshadow soldiers'
misconduct
By RUSSELL CAROLLO
McClatchy News Service
Before Army Sgt. First Class Randal Ruby was accused in Iraq of beating
prisoners and of conspiring to plant rifles on dead civilians, he amassed
a 10-year criminal record documenting assaults on his wife in Colorado and
Washington state and a drunken high-speed police chase in Maine for which
he remains wanted.
Before Lance Cpl. Delano Holmes stabbed an Iraqi private to death with a
bayonet, he was hospitalized after threatening
 suicide
in high school, accused of assault, disorderly conduct and trespassing,
and, in the months leading up to deployment, was twice linked to drug use.
Before Army Spc. Shane Carl Gonyon was convicted of stealing a pistol at
Abu Ghraib prison, he was convicted twice on felony charges and arrested
four times, once for allegedly giving a 13-year-old girl marijuana in
exchange for oral sex. He enlisted weeks after his release from prison in
Oregon.
During a yearlong examination, the Sacramento Bee studied the backgrounds
of hundreds of troops identified from recruiting documents and other
military records, focusing on those who entered the services since the
Iraq war began and those linked to in-service problems.
That's only a fraction of the 1.4 million people in uniform -- about
145,000 of them serving in Iraq -- and the examination was conducted
largely without benefit of sophisticated criminal databases available to
the military.
Still, the study was able to link dozens of soldiers with criminal records
and other questionable backgrounds to misconduct in the military.
"Criminal history is the best predictor of future behavior," said Shawn
Bushway, a criminology professor at the University of Albany, N.Y., School
of Criminal Justice. "Any time you lower your standards, you're going to
raise the risk. No question about it."
The 250 military personnel analyzed most closely included 120 with
questionable backgrounds, including felonies and serious drug, alcohol or
mental health problems. Of those 120, 70 have been linked to incidents in
the military, mostly occurring in Iraq. At least 18 had felony arrests or
convictions or histories of mental illness. At least eight of the 18 later
were connected to incidents in Iraq, and a ninth fatally shot himself
while on guard duty in Kuwait.
"These guys are out there carrying weapons, fighting on the streets with
drugs in their pockets," said Tressie Cox, whose son, Lee Robert, had a
history of drug and mental problems before he was charged with selling
drugs in Iraq. "Shame on my son, but shame on all you people out there who
are policing this and allowing this to continue to happen."
The soldiers identified here were retained as the armed services --
entering the sixth year of the Iraq war -- lowered educational, age and
moral standards and granted a growing number of waivers to applicants
whose backgrounds would otherwise have barred them from serving.
The percentage of Army recruits receiving so-called "moral conduct"
waivers more than doubled, from 4.6 percent in 2003 to 11.2 percent in
2007. Others were able to enlist because they had no official record of
arrests or convictions, their records were overlooked or prosecutors
suspended charges in lieu of military service.
"How in the hell can they legally possess a gun?" asked Montgomery County,
Ala., Sheriff D.T. Marshall, when questioned about a soldier from his
county, Eli C. Gregory, who was convicted in an attempted home invasion
and of felony theft, making him ineligible to legally possess a firearm.
Yet the military gave him a rifle and sent him to Iraq, where he was
convicted by the Army of assault and battery on a fellow soldier and
discharged.
The military defended its policies.
"Standards in our society have changed over the years; we are a reflection
of those changes," said Douglas Smith, spokesman for the Army Recruiting
Command. "Considering offering a waiver to otherwise qualified recruits is
the right thing to do for those Americans who want to answer the call to
duty."
Earlier this month, the Defense Department announced a system to
categorize waivers by the severity of prior offenses to allow the services
to analyze the link between waivers and military behavior.
In December, the National Guard quit granting felony waivers. Its chief
recruiting officer, Col. Mike Jones, told the Army Times the previous
policy was "a risk," but he later told the Bee an increased number of
applicants made the policy no longer necessary.
-------------------------
posted by Larry
Scott
Founder and Editor
VA Watchdog dot Org
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