I cannot agree with you, Rod. You have NO idea what he's been through. Up to the very last day. Yes, it is no excuse, but it is the reason, like night following day, or rain coming from dark, swollen clouds.
How can something be stupid when no thought was even formed, and the only thing left was vast, horrendous outrage? If thought had won, nothing bad would have happened. But that is now in the past, and we must deal with the present and the future.
Please pray for Mrs Bales and her two small children.
While he should never have been sent over for yet another tour that he seemed not to have not wanted or to have been ready for,few will excuse what he did.
It is my belief that there has been a long term, deliberate policy/plan to grind down, over-deploy, stress out and weaken our military.
Additionally, destruction of morale through impossible ROE’s and legal prosecution/persecution via corrupt, politically-motivated JAG and NCIS lawyers and their politicized command hierarchy. Remember the “Haditha 9” marines? Multiply that by dozens of similar cases that passed beneath the public’s radar, which have destroyed careers, impoverished the families of services members and imprisoned many.
Now we are about to witness Sgt. Bales own chain of command throw him to the wolves in a vain, stupid and futile attempt to appease the mob of un-appeasable savages.