Word: platoons
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...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...
...school, he developed a reputation for not being quite right in the head. There was no doubt he was smart, but he was a racist and a misanthrope. He remained socially awkward and unable to control his emotions or impulses. He did have some friends, but most of the platoon viewed him less as a class clown and more as the village idiot - occasionally entertaining as spectacle, but best kept at an arm's-length...
...After three loved and respected leaders from 1st Platoon - First Lieutenant Ben Britt, Staff Sergeant Travis Nelson and Sergeant Kenith Casica - were killed in a two-week period in late December 2005, the unit went into a tailspin of poor discipline, substance abuse and brutality. Green, however, was more noticeably and disturbingly affected than anyone else...
...While many men within 1st Platoon were having trouble adjusting to the casualties the unit incurred, the incessant pace of combat operations and the constant threat of violence, Private First Class Steven Green was reacting particularly badly. The day Nelson and Casica died, he had snapped. That was the when he gave up even pretending to support any notion of peace-keeping, society-building, or being nice to Iraqis. From then on out, all he cared about was killing them...
...prodding of his platoon sergeant, Green went to see Lieutenant Colonel Karen Marrs, a psychiatric nurse practitioner from the Combat Stress team who was visiting Bravo Company's base on December 21. The intake evaluation form she filled out while talking to him that day is a horror show of ailments and dysfunctions. In the entry marked "Chief Complaint," she quoted him: "It is f - ing pointless." Green told Marrs he had been suffering from symptoms of instability, extreme moods and angry outbursts, including punching walls. He told her he was experiencing all of the following: sadness, difficulty falling asleep...