Leadership Failed Them. Words Fail Me.

Holy shit. Really, that's about all you can say, is "Holy shit." Sorry for the strong language, but really, what else can you say about this?

In fact, given the brigade’s record at Fort Bliss of suicide, murder, assault, drunken driving and drug use, its troops are statistically at greater risk at home than while deployed in Iraq.
During the past year, only one of the unit’s soldiers died in combat, but in 2008, the last time the brigade was home from Iraq, seven soldiers were killed and six others committed crimes in which at least four civilians and soldiers from outside the brigade died in a little more than a year.
Drugs, including heroin and a methamphetamine lab, were discovered in the barracks, as was a homemade sex tape that had been circulating among soldiers and that featured one of the brigade’s female lieutenants and five male sergeants.

It does seem like the chain of command is trying to get a handle on things...

One by one, he ticked off cases in which one of the unit’s soldiers had ruined his life at Fort Bliss before the brigade’s deployment to Iraq last year: four suicides, a drug overdose, a murder committed with a baseball bat, fatal drunken-driving offenses, cases of domestic violence, and a shooting after an argument in a bar.
At least six of the unit’s former soldiers are serving 15 years or more in prison for those crimes, and more trials are pending.
As part of a housecleaning, Colonel Newell dismissed more than 150 soldiers from the Army and brought formal disciplinary charges against more than 10 percent of the brigade’s 3,500 troops. In one company, 39 of 150 soldiers were court-martialed.

But seriously, what other reaction do you have than "Holy shit!"?

By: Brant