• This is a political forum that is non-biased/non-partisan and treats every person's position on topics equally. This debate forum is not aligned to any political party. In today's politics, many ideas are split between and even within all the political parties. Often we find ourselves agreeing on one platform but some topics break our mold. We are here to discuss them in a civil political debate. If this is your first visit to our political forums, be sure to check out the RULES. Registering for debate politics is necessary before posting. Register today to participate - it's free!

8 US soldiers charged in death of fellow GI

StillBallin75 said:
Correct me if I'm wrong but they do a battery of such tests at MEPS. I might be off, but there's definitely some sort of psych eval at some point in the enlistment process.
Click to expand...

the only psychiatric evaluation i remember they asked me at MEPS was if i had ever had any suicidal thoughts, ever did illeagal drugs, or ever have homosexual tendancies...thats it, the rest was physical stuff
 
fishinRod said:
the only psychiatric evaluation i remember they asked me at MEPS was if i had ever had any suicidal thoughts, ever did illeagal drugs, or ever have homosexual tendancies...thats it, the rest was physical stuff
Click to expand...

LOL - because having homosexual tendencies is just as bad as wanting to kill yourself. . . there's that 'military intelligence' for you.
 
fishinRod said:
the only psychiatric evaluation i remember they asked me at MEPS was if i had ever had any suicidal thoughts, ever did illeagal drugs, or ever have homosexual tendancies...thats it, the rest was physical stuff
Click to expand...

Yep, and I think they asked those at the recruitment office too...before you signed.
 
Damn. I was hoping that they'd finally rounded up Pat Tillman's murderers.
 
Even the psych eval for those in "high stress jobs" really isn't that intensive.

We got asked in a private office if we were ever in a "stressful situation", did we ever feel "overly stressed before", how did we deal with our stress, whether we ever thought about or attempted suicide, and questions like this. The main thing psych evals care about is whether you will commit suicide or do harm to yourself (at least when I went through it). They don't ask, nor look into (as far as I could tell) whether you are likely to do harm to others or bully others when stressed.

I have seen two contradictory cases for the answers to the suicide questions. One of the girls in my bootcamp division who was supposed to be a nuke got dropped from the program because she said she had thought about committing suicide at 13 during her psych eval. But when I got to nuke school, there was a guy there who had scars on his arms from actually attempting suicide (they went up his arms) when he was younger and he still got to go through school. He claimed he disclosed he tried to commit suicide and it would be hard to hide since there is a physical exam and the scars were pretty prominent.
 
Ikari said:
Yeah....murder tends to be one of those lines, huh. I'm not sure this case was bullying/hazing. It may have been outright murder.
Click to expand...

At this point it's unclear what actually happened. Some of the guys have been charged with negligent homicide, while other stories I have read say Pvt. Chen committed suicide because of harassment/social ostracization.
 
Blue_State said:
There are tests. It is a multiple choice question. I wouldn't consider it heavy...they were basically the same test you took highschool to determine what job you should have.
Click to expand...

I'm not talking about the ASVAB here, I'm talking about physical and psychological evaluations by the doctors at MEPS. Maybe things are different now than they were then, I'm no expert.
 
StillBallin75 said:
At this point it's unclear what actually happened. Some of the guys have been charged with negligent homicide, while other stories I have read say Pvt. Chen committed suicide because of harassment/social ostracization.
Click to expand...

also involuntary manslaughter.
 
StillBallin75 said:
I'm not talking about the ASVAB here, I'm talking about physical and psychological evaluations by the doctors at MEPS. Maybe things are different now than they were then, I'm no expert.
Click to expand...

Evals at MEPS? Screening perhaps, and that routinely fails in all contexts. Most nutbags are identified and dealt with during Basic, I figure. Can't catch 'em all.

ps. No idea about this case, just sayin'.
 
Blue_State said:
Yep, and I think they asked those at the recruitment office too...before you signed.
Click to expand...


nope, not me...i never went to a recruiting station..the recruiter came to my house
 
I find it kind of weird that everybody is talking about psych evaluations here, almost if we are assuming that people in the military don't have the same kind of distribution of bad people that exist in civilian life. Murder happens in civilian life. Murder also happens in military life. People are people, no matter the situation. Here is the way I see it - 8 gangstas committed murder. Convict them and lock 'em up. End of story. Charge the Lieutenant with conspiracy and lock him up too.
 
danarhea said:
I find it kind of weird that everybody is talking about psych evaluations here, almost if we are assuming that people in the military don't have the same kind of distribution of bad people that exist in civilian life. Murder happens in civilian life. Murder also happens in military life. People are people, no matter the situation. Here is the way I see it - 8 gangstas committed murder. Convict them and lock 'em up. End of story. Charge the Lieutenant with conspiracy and lock him up too.
Click to expand...
How did they commit this murder? Which of the 8 did what?
 
StillBallin75 said:
Sounds like the result of a severe failure in leadership and unit cohesion. If these guys are found guilty, then the 1LT should be stripped of his commission and all the noncoms should be busted down to private.
Click to expand...

That's the most disfunctional way to run an army that there is: blaming the actions of others on their leaders.

If it worked like that, the Army would be made up of nothing but privates.
 
liblady said:
this is so terribly sad.........and here's are my questions:

does the military institution breed this kind of pack behavior, and should we start to think about more in depth psychological testing and higher stanards for entrance into the military?




U.S. News - 8 US soldiers charged in death of fellow GI

and you're right, we don't know the facts. but the military does, and they've deemed this to be negligent homicide/involuntary manslaughter.
Click to expand...

Yeah! It's the Army's fault!

It's not like this happens in the civilian world...hell, in high school even.
 
apdst said:
That's the most disfunctional way to run an army that there is: blaming the actions of others on their leaders.

If it worked like that, the Army would be made up of nothing but privates.
Click to expand...

Uhhh, no. Are you just saying this **** to be different? How exactly is that "the most dysfunctional way to run an army?" In a cohesive unit, leaders are of course responsible for the actions of their subordinates, or at the very least they are accountable for taking care of this kinda **** when it gets out of hand. Who else is gonna do it? You're gonna have the privates police themselves? It is precisely the job of leaders to keep this kinda **** from happening.

And your argument completely fails upon the fact that some of these so-called leaders are actually charged with the act of negligent homicide itself. Some of these guys weren't simply the enablers, they are the alleged perpetrators.
 
Last edited:
danarhea said:
I find it kind of weird that everybody is talking about psych evaluations here, almost if we are assuming that people in the military don't have the same kind of distribution of bad people that exist in civilian life. Murder happens in civilian life. Murder also happens in military life. People are people, no matter the situation. Here is the way I see it - 8 gangstas committed murder. Convict them and lock 'em up. End of story. Charge the Lieutenant with conspiracy and lock him up too.
Click to expand...

Their platoon leader was in on it?
 
StillBallin75 said:
Uhhh, no. Are you just saying this **** to be different? How exactly is that "the most dysfunctional way to run an army?" In a cohesive unit, leaders are of course responsible for the actions of their subordinates, or at the very least they are accountable for taking care of this kinda **** when it gets out of hand. Who else is gonna do it? You're gonna have the privates police themselves?

And your argument completely fails upon the fact that some of these so-called leaders are actually charged with the act of negligent homicide itself. Some of these guys weren't simply the enablers, they are the alleged perpetrators.
Click to expand...

It's totally assinine to say that this incident had anything to do with a lack of unit cohesion.

Kinda makes you rethink the whole end DADT thing, don't it, since all our soldiers are so professional-n-all.
 
apdst said:
It's totally assinine to say that this incident had anything to do with a lack of unit cohesion.

Kinda makes you rethink the whole end DADT thing, don't it, since all our soldiers are so professional-n-all.
Click to expand...

Well, I'm sure it was real cohesive for Pvt. Chen :shrug:

And for the record, I said it was the result of a failure of leadership more than anything else.

As for the DADT thing, if you're a faggot and you're in an environment where there are hostile attitudes towards homosexuality, you're gonna shut up about your sex life whether or not DADT is there.
 
Last edited:
StillBallin75 said:
Well, I'm sure it was real cohesive for Pvt. Chen :shrug:

And for the record, I said it was the result of a failure of leadership more than anything else.

As for the DADT thing, if you're a faggot and you're in an environment where there are hostile attitudes towards homosexuality, you're gonna shut up about your sex life whether or not DADT is there.
Click to expand...

None of us have enough information to know that for sure.

I mean, for all we know, Chen may have been a barracks thief, or a shirker. He might have dropped the ball in a fire-fight and gotten people killed. He might have made threats of his own towards other soldiers.

The point is...we don't know, and blaming all this on unit leadership is just plain stupid.

You're right, leaders are responsible for the actions of their men. What that means, is that they are responsible to teach the proper mode of conduct and to punish them when they step out of line.
 
Last edited:
I hope these bastards enjoy a nice long stay in Levanworth.
 
StillBallin75 said:
As for the DADT thing, if you're a faggot and you're in an environment where there are hostile attitudes towards homosexuality, you're gonna shut up about your sex life whether or not DADT is there.
Click to expand...

There's a difference between getting "shut up" (and being able to bring complaints/charges regarding it) and getting prosecuted.
 
StillBallin75 said:
I don't think psychological testing (or lack thereof) is the problem here, given what little we know about the situation. Most people who pass recruit training are already physically and psychologically tougher than 90% of the rest of the population.

The same thing could have happened in any college fraternity across America. The difference is that officers and noncoms are supposed to watch out for this **** and deal with it as soon as possible, rather than neglecting or even perpetrating it.
Click to expand...
I agree, I think that the officers and noncom should watch out for this and I think it was probably a breakdown in the chain of organization or something like that. It should a component of training and promotion to watch out for this kind of stuff. I guess the least positive is that some people are being properly held accountable for this, although it is a tragedy that it wasn't stopped in time.
 
liblady said:
this is so terribly sad.........and here's are my questions:

does the military institution breed this kind of pack behavior, and should we start to think about more in depth psychological testing and higher stanards for entrance into the military?




U.S. News - 8 US soldiers charged in death of fellow GI

and you're right, we don't know the facts. but the military does, and they've deemed this to be negligent homicide/involuntary manslaughter.
Click to expand...

The military does not create "touchy-feeley" people, it creates killers. It's like having a Rottweiler. The dog may never harm anyone, then all of a sudden it will maul a child. While the actions of those solders was deplorable, what else is to be expected of people prepared to die at any given moment and are wired tighter than a drum. We have trained killers, emotionless killers...it is the nature of the beast to be aggressive. Not only that, you have the hot blood of youth running through their veins. The military will take care of its own. They always have.
 
Opteron said:
I agree, I think that the officers and noncom should watch out for this and I think it was probably a breakdown in the chain of organization or something like that. It should a component of training and promotion to watch out for this kind of stuff. I guess the least positive is that some people are being properly held accountable for this, although it is a tragedy that it wasn't stopped in time.
Click to expand...

You believe this because of your long military career. Yes?

Care to into depth about how the, "chain of organization", brokedown?
 
apdst said:
You believe this because of your long military career. Yes?

Care to into depth about how the, "chain of organization", brokedown?
Click to expand...
Did I say I had a long military career? I was merely adding my opinion and observation. I wrote chain of organization instead of chain of command to show that I do not have a military background. I am able to voice my observation and thought on this subject just as equally as you are. Please post your credentials if you feel you are so qualified.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom