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Killings May Be Due to 'Military Culture'

Wives slain: Soldiers may have been ashamed to seek help for domestic woes

Monday, September 2, 2002
The Associated Press

What is most disturbing to Crystal Black, a Cumberland County counselor who holds weekly meetings at the base, is that none of the families was even on her radar screen. None had any reported history of domestic turmoil.

FAYETTEVILLE, N.C. -- AP
The killings of four soldiers' wives at Fort Bragg in just six weeks have forced the Army to take a hard look at the culture of its elite soldiers that considers revealing any hint of domestic problems to be a sign of weakness.

In every case, the husband was the suspect and there was marital discord. Three of the men, including two who took their own lives, had returned from Afghanistan as part of the Special Forces.

One Special Forces veteran fears there will always be a potential for domestic violence among special operations soldiers because the unwillingness to seek help is deeply ingrained.

Special operations soldiers "aren't allowed to have problems. You take care of it yourself," says Eric Haney, 50, an early member of the ultra-secret Delta Force who recently wrote a book about life inside the anti-terrorism unit.
(More: The Herald News Online News Source)
2002 © The Associated Press.

Andrea Floyd's mother, Penny Flitcraf, who is now caring for her three orphaned grandchildren in Alliance, Ohio, says it's "like an unspoken rule that you do not exhibit any inability to be in control of every aspect of your life." She feels equally sad for her son-in-law. "He was overtrained and underhelped," she said through sobs.

And I saw congratulations to the media, who have single-handedly taken and trajedy and compounded it by nearly shattering this woman and the rest of her family to pieces. How bloody considerate can you get? It reeks...

And please note that, though the man might have been “overtrained and underhelped”, this does in no way explain why none of the wives reported troubles. But it must be the Army’s fault. After all, there has never been a surprised domestic killing of persons with utterly no military background whatsoever... But then we would have to believe that the military are really human beings, not automatons sent to to a job no one really wants.

One soldier's wife, Janice Burton (likely not one from the Dead Wives Club) , says she's tired of seeing the Special Forces beaten up in public. She wishes people could see the men who came to her family's aid when her husband, Staff Sgt. John Burton, was injured in a motorcycle wreck last summer. "His room was filled every day to overflow with people coming to check on him, to see if he's OK," she says. "I went home to take a shower one day, and there were a bunch of guys mowing my yard, cutting my bushes and cleaning my gutters. They take care of their soldiers. They take care of their family."

Shit happens, people die -- everywhere, and all the time.

Dan