Retired Green Beret Contractor killed in alleged fratricide

[Marauder06]

Alcohol, bad decisions, and cover-ups. Common themes in too many cases like this.

 

[Teufel]

SOCOM has always sold the public, and congress, that you can deploy SOF into highly sensitive areas because of their advanced levels of maturity, discipline, and competence. These examples like this of SOF ignoring rules and regulations is going erode that confidence. I would assume that this violation of GO #1 was not an isolated incident and suspect that the SOTF/battalion turned a blind eye to it. I'm sure the investigation will figure that out real quick and some field grade officers may also find themselves on the chopping block.

 

[Gunz]

Hmm, so I looked it up on the Wing's website. In Bagram and Kandahar, the Wings had a GO-1 link on their respective homepages. Here outside of shooty places, they do not. I had to do some digging to find it on the Wing's page.

Except from the Wing Community Standards:


Per GO-1C, alcohol is prohibited in Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Iraq. Security Cooperation Offices can allow a waiver for personnel assigned to an SCO to possess and consume alcohol.

Unless those guys fell under an SCO, they are dicked on the alcohol charge. For those of us outside of the aforementioned countries, we're G2G to consume alcohol provided we don't show up for work drunk, DUI, etc.

And GO-1C is dated from 2013.

GO1 also bans porn. I have a suspicion it was floating around anyway.

 

[Gunz]

Alcohol, bad decisions, and cover-ups. Common themes in too many cases like this.

SOCOM has always sold the public, and congress, that you can deploy SOF into highly sensitive areas because of their advanced levels of maturity, discipline, and competence. These examples like this of SOF ignoring rules and regulations is going erode that confidence. I would assume that this violation of GO #1 was not an isolated incident and suspect that the SOTF/battalion turned a blind eye to it. I'm sure the investigation will figure that out real quick and some field grade officers may also find themselves on the chopping block.

Sirs...do you think any of this could be a result of fewer combat opportunities, more boredom? Or a kind of withdrawal from adrenal stimulation? I just can't help compare some of this trouble with post-war garrison duty. I know SF/SOF are kept pretty busy most of the time, but they're wound-up.

 

[Teufel]

Sirs...do you think any of this could be a result of fewer combat opportunities, more boredom? Or a kind of withdrawal from adrenal stimulation? I just can't help compare some of this trouble with post-war garrison duty. I know SF/SOF are kept pretty busy most of the time, but they're wound-up.

This sounds like a basic discipline problem to me. Remove alcohol from this situation, which occurred in a combat zone by the way, and I think it doesn’t happen.

 

[Gunz]

This sounds like a basic discipline problem to me. Remove alcohol from this situation, which occurred in a combat zone by the way, and I think it doesn’t happen.

Rog that...but I kind of meant in broader terms, service wide, among combat arms MOSs...and all the more publisized cases involving SEALs, Raiders SF/SOF etc. I was just thinking there might be more drug/alcohol/behavior/discipline issues that might be attributed to fewer deployment opportunities, less action.

I know 2ndMARDIV CG read the riot act in a directive not long ago...and NSW has done the same.

 

[LibraryLady]

@Gunz - one big difference between now and Vietnam is conscription.

LL

 

[Gunz]

@Gunz - one big difference between now and Vietnam is conscription.

LL

Yes ma'am, that's very true. But the Marines didn't draft many. In fact I don't think I ever met a Marine draftee.

And yet there were problems. You had salty combat vets coming back into the rifle companies in the Fleet, many of them suffering from PTSD that nobody recognized, many yearning for that adrenal fix of combat and trying to find substitutes for it...through bar fights, drugs, alcohol, driving their cars or motorcycles like maniacs...and then you had all these young guys coming up from SOI, privates and PFCs who missed the war but just wanted to be trigger-pullers, action guys...and the war was over. There was no place for them to be the fighters they wanted to be.

I just recognize many parallels between post-war then and post-war now. And I see these young guys who post on here who want to be in combat, they want to be Green Berets, Rangers, Raiders, Recon, they want to kick doors and pull triggers. But there fewer deployment opportunities, less combat. And then there are our OEF/OIF veterans on here some dealing with PTSD, family break-ups, alcohol, drugs, divorce, transition problems, anger, whatever...

It's like deja vu.