Word: platoons
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...Airborne Division took control of a stretch of land just south of Baghdad that had come to be known as the Triangle of Death. Experiencing some form of combat nearly every day, suffering from a high casualty rate and enduring chronic breakdowns in leadership, one of the battalion's platoons - 1st Platoon, Bravo Company - fell into a tailspin of poor discipline, substance abuse and brutality. In March 2006, four 1st Platoon soldiers - Specialist Paul Cortez, Specialist James Barker, Private First Class Jesse Spielman and Private First Class Steven Green - perpetrated one of the most heinous war crimes known to have...
...crime did not occur without repeated warnings. Grievously out of touch with the reality on the ground, the unit's leadership was either unable or unwilling to recognize just how impaired 1st Platoon was and how serious and imminent a threat to Iraqi civilians Green, in particular, had become. Almost from the beginning of the deployment, Green frequently and loudly declared his desire to kill Iraqi civilians, something he did not even attempt to hide from superiors. In late December 2005, for example, Green had a one-on-one meeting about his mental state with the brigade's commander, Colonel...
...whether a double standard is at play. Is the Army serious about accountability only when a soldier murders other soldiers on U.S. soil and the shooter is an Islamist? There were no disciplinary repercussions for those in Green's chain of command above the rank of captain. Green's platoon leader (a lieutenant) and company commander (a captain) were indeed removed from their positions in the late summer of 2006. But those dismissals had as much to do with a nearly contemporaneous but unrelated event in which three of Green's platoon mates were abducted and killed by insurgents...
Adapted from Frederick's book Black Hearts: One Platoon's Descent into Madness in Iraq's Triangle of Death...
...Reprinted from Black Hearts: One Platoon's Descent into Madness in Iraq's Triangle of Death. Copyright ? 2010 by Jim Frederick. Published by Harmony Books, a division of Random House...