Robert Bales: How The U.S. Military Lost Him (PTSD, Brain Injury, 4 Deployments)

Staff Sgt Robert Bales Enlisted in the U.S. Army out of Patriotism soon after the 9-11 Attack on the World Trade Center. After 4 Deployments & a Brain Injury he's now being treated like Trash.


LOSING SERGEANT BALES


Staff Sergeant Robert Bales began a series of journeys a decade ago, by plane and car and Humvee and on foot. He started out and has ended up, at least for now, in the Midwest: he is from Ohio, and, on Friday, was flown to Kansas, to the prison at Fort Leavenworth.

Bales had gone to Iraq three times; in 2007, in Najaf, in the middle of a battle, his unit was sent to protect a helicopter that had crashed down: “It was like a match lit up. It looked like a toy with a candle lit underneath it,” he said at the time, according to an Army news release.

In 2010, he was driving in a Humvee when it rolled over, and his head was banged up. He flew to Afghanistan in December—his lawyer, John Henry Browne, told the Times that he didn’t want to go:

The family was counting on him not being redeployed…He and the family were told that his tours in the Middle East were over.

Military officials had kept Bales’s name secret since last Sunday, when he left his base and walked by himself for about a mile until he came to a village house, and went inside. When he walked out of that house he went to another, and then another.

Bales has two children of his own, a girl and boy ages three and four. In the three houses he allegedly shot and killed nine children, four of them under the age of six, and seven grown-ups, too.
Bales is thirty-eight. His namelessness was never going to last long, or be useful.

(It still hasn’t been released officially: Bales’s name was leaked, and first reported by Fox News.) The explanation was that his wife and children needed to be kept safe, but they were moved from their home in Lake Tapps, Washington, and sent to Joint Base Lewis-McChord days ago.

(Reporters who walked up to their house found a front porch “cluttered with empty boxes and a snow sled, while toys, a barbecue grill and a weathered hot tub sat in the fenced backyard,” according to the Times.) Transporting Bales hastily from Afghanistan to Kuwait only made both of those countries angry, in Kuwait’s case because the press figured it out before the government there did.

Without a name, Bales had been a phantom of suppositions. Browne had begun to make some of them solid, as had military officials who spoke to the press.

Browne told reporters that Bales had lost part of a foot in Iraq; that was in addition to the head injury. He also said that Bales saw a friend’s leg blown off last week.

Military officials told the Times that Bales had been drinking the night of the murders, and that he was having trouble with his wife.

Browne said that the drinking story was “very offensive,” according to the Post, and that Bales had a “very strong marriage.” Browne has hardly said a sentence that wouldn’t fit in a a closing statement in a defense built around post-traumatic stress disorder or diminished capacity—the loving husband and father broken by the war. But not all explanations can double as absolutions.

One shouldn’t stigmatize veterans by implying that this is normal behavior; but one doesn’t want to isolate them, or leave them stranded on a difficult path, by cheerfully failing to recognize real pain.

The decision to pack Bales on a plane and out of Afghanistan may lead to other journeys.

Will the villagers who saw him that night, like the woman who saw another woman taken by her hair and slammed against a wall, be brought to the trial to testify? (The answer may turn on Bales’s right to confront his accusers.)

The dead left behind in the villages had names and stories and maybe strong marriages, too.

We saw some of their faces in images in which mourners lifted up quilts to show their bodies. Now we are getting snapshots of Bales; neither set should banish the other.






Staff Sgt. Robert Bales' Neighbors Described Afghan Massacre Suspect As 'Good Guy'

Shock echoed down the street in Lake Tapp, Wash., where Staff Sgt. Robert Bales, named as the suspect who allegedly went on a rampage, murdering 16 Afghan civilians, was remembered as a family man and "good guy."

"I just can't believe Bob's the guy who did this," neighbor Paul Wohlberg told the Associated Press. "A good guy got put in the wrong place at the wrong time."

Neighbors painted a picture of the career soldier as a family man who spoke little about his deployments.

Kassie Holland, a neighbor, told the Associated Press that she would see Bales playing with his daughter Quincy, 4, and son Bobby, 3.

"My reaction is that I'm shocked," she said. "I can't believe it was him. There were no signs... He always had a good attitude about being in the service. He was never really angry about it. When I heard him talk, he said, it seemed like, yeah, that's my job. That's what I do. He never expressed a lot of emotion toward it."

Bales' platoon leader in Iraq described him to the Washington Post as an exemplary soldier who "saved many a life."

"Bales is still, hands down, one of the best soldiers I ever worked with," Army Capt. Chris Alexander , 28, told the newspaper.

Bales, 38, remains locked up today in Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, where he is being housed in a private cell away from other inmates.

Charges are expected soon against the career soldier, who was flown out of Afghanistan and arrived at the Army prison Friday night.

Bales is accused of breaking into several Afghan homes in the middle of the night last Sunday and killing 16 civilians, mostly women and children. He could face the death penalty if found guilty.

Pentagon officials said that Bales' being brought back to the U.S. does not necessarily mean that his military court proceedings will be held in the U.S., holding out the possibility that they could be held in Afghanistan. The Afghan government is demanding that Bales be tried in Afghanistan.

Details of Bales' military record have also emerged and they depict a soldier who has seen intense combat and lost part of a foot.

Bales, who enlisted shortly after the 9/11 terror attacks, was first deployed in November 2003 when his unit spent a year in Mosul, Iraq.

In June 2006 he and his unit were sent back to Iraq and their year-long deployment was given a three month extension until September 2007. During that time, he saw duty in Mosul in the north, Bagdad when the city was pressed by militants, and then to Baquba where his unit took major casualties.

His final Iraq deployment was from September 2009 to September 2010 in Diyala province, which was also a hotbed of insurgent activity.

In December 2011, he was ordered to Afghanistan.

Bales' alleged murderous rage is in stark contrast to what he said after a fierce battle in Zarqa, Iraq, in 2007.

"I've never been more proud to be a part of this unit than that day for the simple fact that we discriminated between the bad guys and the noncombatants and then afterward we ended up helping the people that three or four hours before were trying to kill us," he told Fort Lewis' Northwest Guardian.

"I think that's the real difference between being an American as opposed to being a bad guy, someone who puts his family in harm's way like that," Bales said at the time.

John Henry Browne, Bales' lawyer in Seattle, told The Associated Press Thursday that the soldier had witnessed his friend's leg blown off the day before the massacre.

Bales reportedly spent his entire 11-year career at Joint Base Lewis-McChord in Washington state and lived not too far from the base. Originally from the Midwest, he was deployed with the Second Battalion, 3rd Infantry Regiment of the 3rd Stryker Brigade, 2nd Infantry Division in December.

Browne said that he was highly decorated and had once been nominated for a Bronze Star though he did not receive it. He also lost part of a foot because of a combat injury.

"He's never said anything antagonistic about Muslims. He's in general very mild-mannered," Browne told the AP.

Bales reportedly left Camp Belambay, where he was stationed to protect Special Operation Forces creating local militias, in the middle of the night wearing night-vision goggles, according to a source. The shooting occurred at 3 a.m. in three houses in two villages in the Panjway district of southern Kandahar province.

In the first village, more than a mile south of the base, he allegedly killed four people in the first house. In the second house, he allegedly killed 11 family members -- four girls, four boys and three adults.

According to a member of the Afghan investigation team and ABC News' interviews, he then walked back to another village past his base and killed one more person. He reportedly returned to the base on his own and turned himself in calmly.

An official told ABC News that the soldier had suffered a mild traumatic brain injury (TBI) in the past, either from hitting his head on the hatch of a vehicle or in a car accident. He reportedly went through the advanced TBI treatment at Fort Lewis and was deemed to be fine.

He also underwent mental health screening necessary to become a sniper and passed in 2008. He had routine behavioral health screening after that and was cleared, the official said.

When the soldier returned from his last deployment in Iraq he had difficulty reintegrating, including marital problems, the source told ABC News. But officials concluded that he had worked through those issues before deploying to Afghanistan.

On Thursday, Browne said that Bales' marriage was "fabulous."

Afghan political leaders have called for the shooter to be tried publicly in Afghan courts, but U.S. military officials say the case will be handled in U.S. military courts. A U.S. military official says Afghan officials were made aware of the transfer before it occurred.


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Sources: ABC News, AP, Daily Mail, New Yorker Magazine, USA Today, Youtube, Google Maps

Robert Bales' Wife Published Blog About War & A Soldier's Life

* Robert Bales transferred to Fort Leavenworth in Kansas on Friday night

* Wife and two children moved to Ft Lewis-McChord base for protection

* She wrote in her Blog she was 'Sad and Disappointed' her Husband was overlooked for promotion

* Soldier, 38, 'did not want to go to Afghanistan' after three tours of Iraq
Bales could face death penalty if convicted, says Defense Secretary Leon Panetta


Inside the troubled family of Afghan 'massacre' soldier: Wife's blog reveals her 'disappointment' that he missed promotion as friends describe dedicated father


Details are emerging that depict the home life of the U.S. soldier held in connection to the shooting rampage that claimed the lives of 16 Afghan civilians six days ago.

Karilyn Bales, who works as a project manager for a marking firm, wrote on her blog that she was ‘sad and disappointed’ her husband didn’t get a promotion that would have allowed them an assignment in an adventurous location like Italy, Germany, or Hawaii.

'It is very disappointed (sic) after all of the work Bob has done and all the sacrifices he has made for his love of his country, family and friends,' she wrote early last year on the blog.

'I am sad and disappointed too.'

She added: 'But I am also relieved, we can finally move on to the next phase of our lives,’ she wrote.

Real estate agent Phillip Rodocker said that Mrs Bales was earnestly looking to ‘stabilize her home life.’

According to the Seattle Times, Bales was on-duty when his first child was born in December 2006. ‘He simply cannot wait for the surprise to come,’ Mrs Bales wrote on her blog in May of that year.

But with a growing family, the tours of duty appeared to put a strain on the family.

‘The family was counting on him not being redeployed,’ Mr Browne told reporters Friday. ‘He and the family were told that his tours in the Middle East were over.’

He continued: ‘I think that it would be fair to say that he and the family were not happy that he was going back.’

Neighbours said he was a loving father two his two children – his daughter, Quincy, and son, Bobby, adding that there were no signs that the Army sergeant was troubled.

The best case scenario for the next phase in their family's life, Mrs Bales wrote, would be an Army assignment in an adventurous location like Germany, Italy or Hawaii, and barring that, possibly an assignment in Georgia, where her husband could become a sniper instructor.

‘We are hoping that if we are proactive and ask to go to a location that the Army will allow us to have some control over where we go next,' Mrs Bales wrote.

It would seem she was greatly looking forward to the promotion, which would allow him to be home with her and their children.

But when Bales was passed over for the position, Mrs Bales was understandably upset.
Sgt Robert Bales, who served as an Army sniper, joined the military after the September 11th terrorist attacks.

His attorney, John Henry Browne, described the couple’s marriage as ‘fabulous.’

He said on CNN that marital problems were 'totally bogus,' adding that his client had a 'very strong marriage and, frankly, we're all taking offense at that.'


A neighbour, Paul Wohlberg, recalled that when he last saw Bales in November the two men talked briefly about the soldier's imminent departure for Afghanistan.

'I just told him to be safe. He said, 'I will. See you when I get back,' said Mr Wohlberg, who recalled attending barbeques at the Bales' homes.

Mr Wohlberg described Bales as a man who clearly loved his country. 'I'm sure he still does,' he said.

The 38-year-old soldier, who arrived at a detention centre in Kansas yesterday night, had been in Afghanistan since December, despite telling his family he did not want to return on what would be his fourth tour of duty.

Bales, an 11-year veteran, is said to have been plagued by various stresses stemming from his deployment, his marriage, and the fact that he had seen a friend's leg blown off the day before the massacre.

The father of two from Ohio was reported to have been drunk at the time of the alleged rampage, according to some sources.

He was also suffering from a traumatic brain injury, but this was not considered enough to disbar him from active service.

A military newsletter from September 2011 featured Bales participating in a training exercise designed to improve relations between the U.S. military and Afghan civilians.

He is recorded asking a village elder: 'How's the security affecting your family?'

And after a 2007 battle in Iraq, he told a local newspaper: 'I've never been more proud to be a part of this unit than that day for the simple fact that we discriminated between the bad guys and the noncombatants and then afterward we ended up helping the people that three or four hours before were trying to kill us.

'I think that's the real difference between being an American as opposed to being a bad guy, someone who puts his family in harm's way like that.'

Bales was stationed at Joint Base Lewis-McChord, near Tacoma, Washington, where his family - including his children, thought to be aged three and four - remains under protection.

He was flown to an American base in Kuwait earlier this week, but on Friday evening was transferred to Fort Leavenworth, Kansas for detention ahead of a future court martial.

The Army said he was placed in his own cell, not a normal four-person bay. He will get time out of his cell for hygiene and recreational purposes and religious support.

Bales has not yet been charged over his alleged offences, nor has he been officially named by the military.

Mr Browne has said he plans to highlight Bales's suspected post-traumatic stress disorder, exacerbated by his witnessing a friend's grave injuries the day before the alleged attack.

'We have been informed that at this small base that he was at, somebody was gravely injured the day before the alleged incident - gravely injured, and that affected all of the soldiers,' Mr Browne said.

He also said that the soldier had previously been injured twice - once sustaining a concussion and, on another occasion, requiring surgery that removed part of his foot - and he and his family thought he was done fighting and might become a military recruiter instead.

Mr Browne added: 'He wasn't thrilled about going on another deployment. He was told he wasn't going back, and then he was told he was going.'

He told reporters that he has met with the wife and other family members of the 38-year-old staff sergeant.

'They were totally shocked,' he said. 'He's never said anything antagonistic about Muslims. He's in general very mild-mannered.'

He said the family said they were unaware of any drinking problem, and described the couple's marriage as 'fabulous'.

Neighbours of the soldier in Lake Tapps, Washington, were surprised to hear of the allegations against Bales.

Kassie Holland, who lives next door, said she would often see Bales playing with his two kids and the family together at the modern split-level home.

'My reaction is that I'm shocked,' she said. 'I can't believe it was him. There were no signs. It's really sad. I don't want to believe that he did it.

'He always had a good attitude about being in the service. He was never really angry about it. When I heard him talk, he said, it seemed like, yeah, that's my job. That's what I do. He never expressed a lot of emotion toward it.'

Military officials say the soldier received sniper training and is assigned to the 2nd Battalion, 3rd Infantry Regiment of the 3rd Stryker Brigade Combat Team, of the 2nd Infantry Division, which is based at Lewis-McChord.

Beau Britt, who lives across the street, said: 'For something like that to be right across the street from us is just amazing.

'I kind of sympathise for him, being gone, being sent over there four times. I can understand he's probably quite wracked mentally, so I just hope that things are justified in court. I hope it goes OK.'

Bales and his wife bought the Lake Tapps home in 2005, according to records.

The home was placed on the market Monday, the day after the attack, and was listed at $229,000. Overflowing boxes were piled on the front porch, and a U.S. flag leaned against the siding.

Bales - who signed up to the military after 9/11 and served three tours of Iraq - had no prior events in his Army dossier indicating misbehaviour, according to the lawyer.
The soldier could face the death penalty if convicted of the crime, according to Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta.

Bales had completed 20 hours of anger-management counseling following a 2002 arrest at a Tacoma hotel for investigation of assault. Mr Browne said the case involved a woman other than Bales' wife, whom he married in 2005.

Records also associated with Bales show that in 2009 he had a hit-and-run charge dismissed in municipal court in Sumner.

Mr Browne's resumé includes defending notorious serial killer Ted Bundy and Colton Harris-Moore, the 'Barefoot Bandit'. Bales specifically asked that he should represent him.

A high-ranking U.S. official told The New York Times on Thursday: 'When it all comes out, it will be a combination of stress, alcohol and domestic issues - he just snapped'.

Nine of the 16 killed by the lone U.S. Army staff sergeant were children, and three were women.

Villagers have described him stalking from house to house in the middle of the night, opening fire on sleeping families and then burning some of the dead bodies.

Mr Browne said he knew little of the facts of the shooting, but disputed reports that a combination of alcohol, stress and domestic issues caused him to snap.

The soldier is suspected of going on a shooting rampage in villages near his base in southern Afghanistan early Sunday, killing nine children and seven other civilians and then burning some of their bodies.

Some villagers told officials they heard shooting from different directions, but many others said they only saw a single soldier. NATO insists the soldier acted alone.

Fort Lewis-McChord is about 45 miles south of Seattle and home to about 100,000 military and civilian personnel.

A former soldier out of Fort Lewis shot and injured a Salt Lake City police officer in 2010, and on January 1, a 24-year-old Iraq War veteran shot and killed a Mount Rainier National Park ranger.

Four Lewis-McChord soldiers were convicted in the deliberate thrill killings of three Afghan civilians in 2010.

The military newspaper Stars and Stripes called it 'the most troubled base in the military' that year.

The shooting, which followed a controversial Quran-burning incident involving U.S. soldiers, has outraged Afghan officials.


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Sources: AP, CBS News, Daily Mail, NY Times, USA Today, Youtube, Google Maps

Robert Bales Lauded By Many As "Mild-Mannered, Great Guy Who Loves America"

Why would the U.S. choose to release Army Staff Sgt Robert Bales' Identity?

This just creates more problems for U.S. Troops in Afghanistan.

I repeat: Why is Pres. Obama giving in to Karzai's demands by Identifying an American Soldier? Karzai does NOT give a Darn about the United States or Our Troops!

Staff Sgt Robert Bales Enlisted in the U.S. Army out of Patriotism soon after the 9-11 Attack on the World Trade Center. After 4 Deployments & a Brain Injury he's now being treated like Trash.

Afghan Civilian Shooting Suspect Staff Sgt Robert Bales's Defense?

The U.S. Army is Liable because Bales has a Serious Case of PTSD & a Brain Injury yet he was serving in a Combat Zone on his 4th Deployment.

Please understand that I am NOT advocating Violence, nor am I Condoning what Staff Sgt. Bales did when he Shot those Afghan Civilians.

However under UCMJ Law Sgt. Bales still deserves a Fair Trial.

He also still deserves to be treated with the Dignity All U.S. Military Personnel are Worthy of.

Especially Military Personnel who served in War Zones, such My husband who retired after 23 Years of Service & Robert Bales.

I could be wrong but U.S. Officials choosing to release Army Staff Sgt. Robert Bales' Identity (Afghan Killings Suspect) was NOT a Wise move Politically, nor Strategically.

I don't care about this Man's Ethnicity!
WHITE, BLACK, Latino, Asian, etc.,

In the Army EVERYONE's Ethnicity is supposed to be GREEN!

I repeat: In the Army EVERYONE's Ethnicity is supposed to be GREEN!

U.S. Army Staff Sgt Robert Bales Should NOT be tried in the Media! He is Still Under UCMJ Law! He is Still a Soldier Deployed 4 Times!

So why are U.S. Officials doing things to Satisfy Afghanistan President Karzai’s demands when its obvious this Corrupt Middle East Leader does NOT give a Darn about the United States or our Troops?

Afghanistan is a Tribal Region ruled for Decades by the Taliban.
This will NEVER Change! NEVER!

Karzai doesn’t want the U.S. to help him get rid of the Taliban.

Instead he just wants the U.S. to continue giving Afghanistan Billions of Dollars each year while still propping up the Opium Drug Trade & still allowing the Taliban to Control his Country.

And…..

Karzai also wants to continue Abusing Women & Children.

President Karzai can NOT be Trusted & he is Corrupt, so how is it possible for the U.S. to remain in Alliance with him?

Our Alliance with him has cost America at least a Trillion Dollars, Thousands of Lives of U.S. Troops & NATO Troops.

In fact we should just pull our troops out TODAY!

Osama Bin Laden is Dead so why are we staying there until 2014?

In 2011 Pres. Obama said All U.S. Troops would be pulled out by 2013.
However now it appears he's pandering to GOP Lawmakers in Congress by choosing to NOT pull our troops out until 2014.
Why?

Is this decision due to Political Reasons?

Our Troops remaining there until 2014 will NOT make any difference because Afghanistan will Always be a Corrupt Country governed by the Taliban, thus we will NEVER Win this Conflict just as we NEVER Won Conflicts in Cuba (Bay of Pigs) & Vietnam.

Let's Please Go Now!
Dear God Help Us!




U.S. Identifies Army Sergeant in Killing of 16 in Afghanistan


The military on Friday identified the soldier accused of killing 16 Afghan villagers earlier this week as Staff Sgt. Robert Bales, a 38-year-old father of two who had been injured twice in combat over the course of four deployments and had, his lawyer said, an exemplary military record.

The release of Sergeant Bales’s name, first reported by Fox News, ended an extraordinary six-day blackout of public information about him from the Pentagon, which said it withheld his identity for so long because of concerns about his and his family’s security.

An official said on Friday that Sergeant Bales had been transferred from Kuwait to Fort Leavenworth, Kan., where he had a cell to himself in the medium-security prison there. His wife and children were moved from their home in Lake Tapps, Wash., east of Tacoma, onto Joint Base Lewis-McChord, his home base, earlier this week.

Military officials say Sergeant Bales, who has yet to be formally charged, left his small combat outpost in the volatile Panjwai district of Kandahar Province early in the morning last Sunday, walked into two nearby villages and there shot or stabbed 16 people, 9 of them children.

Little more than the outlines of Sergeant Bales’s life are publicly known. His family lived in Lake Tapps, a community about 20 miles northeast of his Army post. NBC News reported that he was from Ohio, and he may have lived there until he joined the Army at 27. Sergeant Bales’s Seattle-based lawyer, John Henry Browne, said several members of the sergeant’s family moved to Washington after he was assigned to Joint Base Lewis-McChord.

Mr. Browne said the sergeant joined the Army right after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, and then spent almost all of his career at Joint Base Lewis-McChord, where he was part of the Third Stryker Brigade in the Second Infantry Division, named after the armored Stryker vehicles.

The killings have severely undermined longstanding NATO efforts to win support from villages in Kandahar, the birthplace of the Taliban, and have shaken relations with the government of President Hamid Karzai, who this week told Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta, who was on a visit to Afghanistan, that he wanted American forces out of villages by next year.

Pentagon officials, who have been scouring the sergeant’s military and health records for clues, have said little about what they think motivated the killings. But one senior government official said Thursday that Sergeant Bales had been drinking alcohol before the killings and that he might have had marital problems.

“When it all comes out, it will be a combination of stress, alcohol and domestic issues — he just snapped,” said the official, who had been briefed on the investigation and spoke on the condition of anonymity because the sergeant had not yet been charged.

Mr. Browne has disputed those assertions, telling reporters on Thursday that the sergeant’s marriage was sound and questioning reports about drinking. On the day before the shootings, he said, the sergeant had seen a fellow soldier lose his leg from a buried mine.

Mr. Browne, who said he had had a short conversation with Sergeant Bales because he was worried that their phone call was being monitored, added that the sergeant had thought he could avoid this deployment and was upset when he could not.

“The family was counting on him not being redeployed,” Mr. Browne said. “He and the family were told that his tours in the Middle East were over.”

He added, “I think that it would be fair to say that he and the family were not happy that he was going back.”

The Bales family lived in a two-story, wood-frame house beneath tall fir and cedar evergreens in Lake Tapps, an unincorporated section of Pierce County, Wash. Kassie Holland, a neighbor, said that as far as she could tell, they were a happy family and the sergeant was a devoted father to his young children, a daughter, Quincy, and a son, Bobby. “There were no signs,” Ms. Holland said when asked whether Mr. Bales seemed troubled.

The Baleses’ house had a lock box on the front door on Friday. Phillip Rodocker, a real estate agent, said that he was contacted by Ms. Bales on March 8, three days before the shooting in Afghanistan, and that she told him she wanted to sell the house in Lake Tapps.

“She told me she was behind in our payments,” Mr. Rodocker said. “She said he was on his fourth tour and it was getting kind of old and they needed to stabilize their finances.”

Mr. Rodocker said he and a colleague met with Ms. Bales at the house the next day. “It looked like it had been really, really neglected,” he said. “Four tours of duty and nobody around to take care of the exterior of the property.”

Because it took time for the paperwork to go through, the house was not officially put on the market until Monday, the day after the shooting. On Tuesday, Mr. Rodocker said, “She called and said needed to take the house off the market due to a family emergency.”

He said that the house remained on the market because he had not received a written request for it to be removed.

Zillow, the real estate Web site, shows the house listed for $229,000, about $50,000 less than the family paid for it in 2005. Mr. Rodocker said the house was going to be a short sale, meaning the Baleses owed more to the bank than what it would sell for.

Mr. Rodocker said Ms. Bales also asked his colleague to sell a second property, a house in Auburn, Wash., that he said she had bought before the Baleses were married.

Boxes were piled on the front porch at the house in Lake Tapps along with a snow sled, while toys, a barbecue grill and a weathered hot tub sat in the fenced backyard. Mr. Rodocker said Ms. Bales told him she was collecting boxes to prepare for a move.

Over the course of the decade, Sergeant Bales was deployed three times to Iraq, Army records show: between 2003 and 2004; for 15 months between June 2006 and September 2007, during the height of the civil war and at the beginning of what became known as the surge; and then between August 2009 and August 2010.

During his second tour, his unit, the Second Battalion, Third Infantry Regiment, was involved in a major battle in the city of Najaf while trying to recover a downed Apache helicopter.

On his third deployment, in 2010, a Humvee carrying Sergeant Bales flipped over, possibly because of a roadside bomb, Mr. Browne said. Sergeant Bales injured his head and probably sustained a minor traumatic brain injury, which in chronic cases can lead to cognitive problems, personality changes and a loss of impulse control. Mr. Browne said it was possible that Sergeant Bales also had post-traumatic stress disorder.

Mr. Browne also said the sergeant lost part of a foot in another episode, also apparently from an explosive device. It was not clear whether he might have sustained a second traumatic brain injury then.

Court records show that Sergeant Bales was charged with assault in 2002, but that the charge was dismissed. In 2008, he was charged with a hit-and-run involving a parked car, but that too was dropped, the records indicate.

Though the Army has said nothing about the case, investigators have been poring over Sergeant Bales’s evaluations, health records and computers in search of telltale information. But Mr. Browne said his client’s record was good and that he had been awarded a number of medals.

“He’s never said anything antagonistic about Muslims,” Mr. Browne said. “He’s in general been very mild-mannered.”

Joint Base Lewis-McChord has come under scrutiny because of a string of problems in recent years. In 2010, rogue soldiers from another Stryker brigade murdered three Afghan civilians during combat episodes staged by the soldiers. This year, the Army opened investigations into the base’s Madigan Army Medical Center after soldiers complained that diagnoses of post-traumatic stress disorder were being changed or dismissed.

Some advocates for active-duty troops and veterans say the problems demonstrate that the sprawling base, the Army’s largest on the West Coast, with nearly 40,000 soldiers, was not prepared to handle the strain of repeated deployments. Between 2009 and 2010, when Sergeant Bales was on his third deployment to Iraq, about 18,000 soldiers from the post were sent to war zones, and almost all returned at roughly the same time, overwhelming base services, the critics contend.

But on Friday, the general in charge of managing military bases said that the installation was not under an exceptional amount of strain from multiple deployments and was not seeing an unusual number of crimes or mental health issues, at least when compared with other bases.

“There’s nothing different here than most places,” said Gen. David M. Rodriguez, the commanding general of the United States Army Forces Command. “Again, those things happen. Everybody knows that doesn’t reflect our standards and our values.”


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Sources: AP, ABC News, CBS News, CNN, Daily Mail, NY Times, Russia Today, USA Today, Youtube, Google Maps

Don Cornelius Dead At 75 From Self-Inflicted Wound; Troubled By Marital Problems. He'll Be Missed! (R.I.P.)

Don Cornelius The Creator Of "Soul Train" & Founder Of The American Soul Movement, Is Dead At Age 75 From A Self-Inflicted Wound To The Head.

Police Say His Death Occurred At His Home In Sherman Oaks, Ca, however apparently he was pronounced DEAD at the hospital.

Today Is The First Day Of BLACK History Month & Don Cornelius Is DEAD!

Let's Please Have A Moment Of Silence To Honor Him & What He Did For The American Music Industry.

Were It Not For Don Cornelius There Would Be NO MTV, VH-1, VIBE, Source, Sony, American Music Awards, Video Awards, TRL, BET, 106 & Park, NAACP Image Awards, Hip Hop, Warner Bros Music, Island Def Jam, No Michael Jackson, No Jay-Z, No Beyonce, NOTHING!

He Also Launched The Music Careers Of Thousands Of BLACK & White Singers & Musicians.
Like Michael Jackson, Don Cornelius Can NEVER Be Replaced!

NEVER!

Don Cornelius Also Taught BLACK America How To Become Business People, By Copyrighting & Licensing Your Stuff.

In Fact Before BRANDING Came On The Scene, Don Cornelius Was Already Branding His Stuff.

Let's Hear It For A GREAT BLACK, Businessman From Chicago!

Was He Ever Invited To The White House? I Don't Know. I'm Sure Pres. Obama & Michelle Are Saddened Today By His Death.

Brother Don Cornelius You Will Be Missed!

Your GREAT Legacy Lives Forever!

A Moment Of Silence Please.

R.I.P.









Don Cornelius, creator of Soul Train, found dead in apparent suicide after 'gunshot wound to the head'


Don Cornelius has been found dead in an apparent suicide this morning, according to police.

The creator of Soul Train, 75, was discovered at his home in Sherman Oaks, California with a gunshot wound to the head which was reportedly self-inflicted.

He was pronounced dead in the hospital and had died around 4am, according to authorities.

In 2008, Cornelius was arrested at his Mulholland Drive home on suspicion of domestic violence.

He appeared in court on November 14, 2008 charged with spousal abuse and pleaded not guilty before changing his plea to no contest the next year and was placed on 36 months probation.

Cornelius' second wife, Viktoria Chapman-Cornelius, a Russian model, filed for divorce in 2007. She had filed two restraining orders against her former husband.

Soul Train was a dance-variety show which ran from 1971 for 35 years. It mainly featured R&B, soun and hip-hop artists.

The series was created by Don Cornelius, who was both its host and executive producer. It holds the title of the longest, continuously running syndicated program on TV.

He was known for his catchphrase at the end of every show: '...you can bet your last money, it's all gonna be a stone gas, honey! I'm Don Cornelius, and as always in parting, we wish you love, peace and soul!'


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Sources: CNN, Daily Mail, LA Late, NY Daily News, Youtube, Google Maps

Elizabeth Edwards Not A "Saint", Abusive To John...Game Change

This new book "Game Change" co-authored by John Heilemann and Mark Halperin, is extremely juicy!

If your a Political "Junkie" (like myself) you WILL want to buy "Game Change"!

In the meantime I have included an excerpt from their book on Elizabeth Edward's allegedly true character published in the New Yorker Magazine.

John and Mark claim their information came from very credible sources and that Elizabeth is NOT the same "Saint" of a wife portrayed in the Media.

They allege she was extremely abusive (Verbally, Mentally) to John Edwards for years even before he ran for President.

Perhaps she was still grieving over Wade or afraid of dying early from Breast Cancer.

Could this be the reason why he slipped into a relationship with Rielle Hunter?

Poor Elizabeth.

After viewing a segment about "Game Change" from Fox News, grab your coffee cup and read on....

Yes I watch Fox News and Fox News Sunday so what?

I also watch CNN, MSNBC, Morning Joe, Hardball, The Situation Room, Meet The Press, CBS News, ABC News, etc.,







Saint Elizabeth and the Ego Monster


Even before the cancer, she was among her husband’s greatest political assets.

In one focus group conducted by Hickman in Edwards’s Senate race, voters trashed him as a pretty-boy shyster—until they saw pictures of Elizabeth, four years his senior. “I like that he’s got a fat wife,” one woman said. “I thought he’d be married to a Barbie or a cheerleader.”

The Edwardses’ eldest son, Wade, had been killed in a car crash in 1996; for a long time, Elizabeth went to his grave site every day and read softly to the tombstone. The combination of her suffering, resilience, and imperfections made her a poignant figure. But it was the illness that elevated Elizabeth to a higher plane. She confronted her treatment with bracing courage and wry humor, emerging as one of the most outspoken and widely admired cancer survivors in history.

No one in the Edwardses’ political circle felt anything less than complete sympathy for Elizabeth’s plight. And yet the romance between her and the electorate struck them as ironic nonetheless—because their own relationships with her were so unpleasant that they felt like battered spouses. The nearly universal assessment among them was that there was no one on the national stage for whom the disparity between public image and private reality was vaster or more disturbing.

With her husband, she could be intensely affectionate or brutally dismissive.

At times subtly, at times blatantly, she was forever letting John know that she regarded him as her intellectual inferior.

She called her spouse a “hick” in front of other people and derided his parents as rednecks. One time, when a friend asked if John had read a certain book, Elizabeth burst out laughing. “Oh, he doesn’t read books,” she said. “I’m the one who reads books.”

During the 2004 race, Elizabeth badgered and berated John’s advisers around the clock. She called Nick Baldick, his campaign manager, an idiot. She accused David Axelrod, his (and later Obama’s) media consultant, of lying to her and insisted that he be stripped of the responsibility for making the campaign’s TV ads. She would stay up late scouring the Web, pulling down negative stories and blog items about her husband, forwarding them with vicious messages to the communications team. She routinely unleashed profanity-laced tirades on conference calls. “Why the fuck do you think I’d want to go sit outside a Wal-Mart and hand out leaflets?” she snarled at the schedulers.

Elizabeth’s illness seemed at first to mellow her in the early months of 2005—but not for long. One day, she was on a conference call with the staffers of One America, the political-action committee that was being turned into a vehicle for John’s 2008 bid. There were 40 or 50 people on the line, mostly kids in their twenties being paid next to nothing (and in some cases literally nothing). Elizabeth had been cranky throughout the call, but at the end she asked if her and her husband’s personal health-care coverage had been arranged. Not yet, she was told. There are complications; let’s discuss it after the call.

Elizabeth was having none of that. She flew into a rage.

If this isn’t dealt with by tomorrow, everyone’s health care at the PAC will be cut off until it’s fixed, she barked. I don’t care if nobody has health care until John and I do!

The health-care call attained wide infamy in the Edwards camp. The people around them marveled at Elizabeth’s Callousness.

This from a woman whose family had multiple houses and a net worth in the tens of millions. Yet no one called her out on her behavior, least of all her husband.

His default reflex was to mollify her—or avoid her. No one doubted that, as her condition improved, the increase in John’s travel had a lot to do with steering clear of his wife. What they didn’t know was that the road would soon hold other enticements, too.

“Get ready to get mic’d up,” Edwards announced to Brumberger one day in June 2006 as the campaign was beginning in earnest. We’re gonna have a camera operator and a documentarian traveling with us, Edwards said. We’re gonna show the world what it’s really like to be John Edwards.

Brumberger was stunned to learn that the filmmaker was Hunter. The idea was that she would produce a series of Web videos documenting life on the trail with Edwards.





Edwards told Baldick, now running his PAC, that he liked the concept, that they should do it. Baldick objected for any number of reasons—but not because he had the slightest worry that Edwards was fooling around with Hunter. That was one thing the people in Edwards’s orbit never stressed over when it came to John, who they believed had long ago made the decision not to fall into that trap. And, anyway, he had always seemed … well, sorta asexual, at least to his staff.



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Sources: Harper Collins, Amazon, New Yorker Magazine, Politics, Harpo Productions, Fox News, Youtube, Google maps

Tiger Woods' Accident Leaves Many Questions For Police...Rumors & Speculations

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

<a href="http://msn.foxsports.com/video?vid=5aeaaeda-cca8-4672-bc4c-61499e013dbd&amp;from=IV2_en-us_foxsports_articles" target="_new" title="Police talk Tiger crash">Video: Police talk Tiger crash</a>




Police want to talk to Tiger about car accident



More than two dozen media and a cluster of television trucks camped outside the gates of Isleworth on Saturday waiting for authorities to visit with Tiger Woods and clear up questions about crashing his SUV into a neighbor's tree.

The Florida Highway Patrol said it expects to release tapes of the 911 call on Sunday, and it will investigate the crash that left Woods' mouth bloodied as a traffic accident.

Florida Highway Patrol spokeswoman Sgt. Kim Montes said investigators are "trying not to get on the rumor mill."

Police said the world's No. 1 golfer smashed his Cadillac into a fire hydrant and a tree near his $2.4 million mansion at 2:25 a.m. Friday.

Plenty of vivid details from the car crash that sent Woods to the hospital have emerged. His lips were cut, and Windermere police chief Daniel Saylor said Woods' wife, Elin Nordegren, used a golf club to smash out a back window and help Woods from the car.

There are also plenty of questions. Troopers planned to speak to Woods about the wreck Saturday afternoon, and by 2:45 p.m. Saturday, two patrol vehicles had entered Woods' gated community.

Montes said the investigation should be finished within the next couple of days.

Woods is to host his Chevron World Challenge next week in Thousand Oaks, Calif., which benefits his foundation. Woods' news conference had been scheduled for Tuesday afternoon, although it was not clear if he would still play, or even attend.

"We do not know if Tiger is playing, we are anticipating a great week of competition," said Greg McLaughlin, the tournament director and president of his foundation.

One of Woods' neighbors, who didn't want her name to be used, said it was quiet in front of his house Saturday. She said there are usually two or three cars parked outside his home and that was the scene now as well.

The neighbor said everyone in the gated community was discussing Woods' crash.

According to the patrol, Woods had just left his Florida mansion when he lost control of his 2009 Cadillac and hit a fire hydrant, then a tree on his neighbor's property. The report said alcohol was not a factor.

The patrol reported the accident occurred at 2:25 a.m. Friday morning and classified the injuries as serious. The first word from Woods' camp — some 13 hours after the crash — was that it was a "minor accident," and he was in good condition after being treated and released.

Saylor said his two officers found the 33-year-old Woods lying in the street with his wife, Elin, hovering over him.

Saylor said Woods' wife told officers she was in the house when she heard the accident and "broke the back window with a golf club." He said the front-door windows were not broken and that "the door was probably locked."

"She supposedly got him out and laid him on the ground," he said. "He was in and out of consciousness when my guys got there."

In a telephone interview, Woods' father-in-law, radio journalist Thomas Nordegren, told The Associated Press in Stockholm that he would not discuss the accident.

"I haven't spoken to her in the last few ... " Nordegren said about his daughter, Elin, before cutting himself off. "I don't want to go into that."

Woods' mother-in-law Barbro Holmberg also refused to address the matter.

"She doesn't want to comment on private issues like these," Holmberg's spokeswoman Eva Malmborg said.

Asked at a Friday evening news conference if the couple could have been arguing, Saylor said he had no knowledge of that. The couple, married five years, have two children.

The accident came two days after the National Enquirer published a story alleging that Woods had been seeing a New York night club hostess, and that they recently were together in Melbourne, where Woods competed in the Australian Masters.

The woman, Rachel Uchitel, denied having an affair with Woods when contacted by the AP.

"I resent my reputation is getting completely blasted in the media," she said during a telephone interview late Friday. "Everyone is assuming I came out and said this. This is not a story I have anything to do with."

Uchitel said she was in Melbourne two weeks ago with clients and never saw Woods the entire time she was there.

"The story stands for itself," National Enquirer executive editor Barry Levine told the AP on Saturday.

Woods, coming off a two-week trip to China and Australia earlier this month, is host of the Chevron World Challenge in Thousand Oaks, Calif., which starts Thursday. He is scheduled to have his press conference Tuesday afternoon at Sherwood Country Club. Steinberg said he did not know if Woods planned to play next week.

Woods rarely faces such private scrutiny, even as perhaps the most famous active athlete in the world.

He usually makes news only because of what he can do with a golf club. Few other athletes have managed to keep their private lives so guarded, or have a circle of friends so airtight when it comes to life off the course.

Woods' $2.4 million home is part of an exclusive subdivision near Orlando, a community set on an Arnold Palmer-designed golf course and a chain of small lakes. The neighborhood, which is fortified with high brick walls and has its own security force, is home to CEOs and other sports stars such as the NBA's Shaquille O'Neal.

Woods has won 82 times around the world and 14 majors, becoming the first player of black heritage to win a major at the 1997 Masters when he was 21.

He won six times this year after missing eight months recovering from reconstructive surgery on his left knee. Even though he failed to win a major, Woods said he considered this a successful year because he did not know how his knee would respond.



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Sources: MSNBC, Fox Sports, TMZ, Google Maps