One soldier's suicide

Back to that Stars and Stripes article I mentioned in the last post.

The article itself is mostly about the suicide of one soldier, Army Spc. Brushaun Anderson, deployed to Afghanistan. According to the article, Anderson was bullied, humiliated, and subjected to fatiguing physical duties as punishment for infractions. It struck me as grimly ironic that Anderson was punished for falling asleep at his post: what did his supervisor expect when Anderson was forced to undergo workouts in full body armor in the Afghanistan sun? Talk about a Catch-22.

That said, the article sheds absolutely no light on why Anderson was singled out for such abuse, and he was singled out by all appearances. There are hints he made more serious mistakes than were usual even among soldiers of his inexperience, but some anonymous soldiers claimed his mistakes were not severe enough to warrant the punishments he received. Bolstering these anonymous claims is the (to my mind, credible) accusation that Anderson was punished for technical infractions of regulations that went unpunished when committed by others.

A few commenters lamented the portrayal of the three sergeants an Army investigation found primarily at fault, along with the battery commander (a captain), for Anderson's suicide. The sergeants were lionized by these commenters in a way that was even more more artificial than their demonization by the correspondent.

I've never served in the military, and I know nothing about the actual circumstances here beyond what was laid out in the article. However, I'm as entitled to weigh in on this topic as any other barely-informed idiot, so here goes.

It sounds like Anderson was the sore thumb in his outfit -- the fellow who sticks out. Every group has at least one. And it's extremely tempting to pick on the sore thumb, especially since it gives the superficial impression of more closely bonding the rest of the group. That impression carries an obvious appeal for those, like the aforementioned sergeants, who are charged with fostering camaraderie and cohesion. Unfortunately, it's a false impression.

I've been the designated weirdo in more than one group, and I've been in the putatively normal majority in other groups. It has been a while since I ran into a leader stupid enough to employ the pick-on-the-weirdo strategy (corporate America's HR departments frown on it, and if you don't respect their rules you quickly find yourself facing corporate America's legal departments), but the few I've seen try it have wound up creating fractured groups. There are the bullies, the bullied, and the conscience-stricken who despise the leader for employing such a cruel and counterproductive strategy. Only the bullies are willing to follow the leader's orders: the rest obey only grudgingly.

Grudging obedience has been enough for armies, historically speaking. It's not enough for an all-volunteer force like the U.S. military, though. Like it or not, in the absence of conscription, the U.S. military has to work harder to hold onto soldiers.

As for Anderson himself, I can't help wondering whether he made more mistakes than other soldiers, and might have drawn unwelcome attention to himself. It's at least a possibility, however unwelcome that possibility might be to his family. I'll add that it in no way excuses what appears to have been the cruel, or at the very least glaringly futile, punishments foisted on Anderson.

Maybe the biggest unanswered question in my mind is, if he was such a problem that he merited unusual punishment in the guise of additional training, why didn't someone recommend transferring him? If he was endangering his fellow soldiers, why did they keep him around?

Maybe Anderson hadn't been there long enough to justify a transfer, and he was being disciplined as per normal, in spite of what the article claims. Maybe Anderson's superiors really were the sadists they're made out to be. Maybe Anderson wasn't smart enough to do the job he was assigned to do (once or twice I got that impression), or had an undiagnosed mental illness that contributed to his suicide. I don't know.

The Army has to figure out whether Anderson was an anomaly, or another victim of whatever is causing the unprecedented level of suicides in the last nine years.