(MintPress)—A soldier who opened fire on five fellow servicemen in 2009 is set to stand trial in a military court, a case that will highlight the possible link between violent stress disorders and multiple deployments. If convicted of his charges, Army Sgt. John Russell could be put to death.
Russell is accused of killing five servicemen on May 9 at a combat stress center in Camp Liberty, near Baghdad. Victims of the shooting included a Navy commander and four soldiers.
According to an Army Times report issued after the shooting, preliminary reports indicated Russell was taken unarmed to the stress center. Once there, he began to argue with staff members — an action that led to his eviction of the center.
While being led away from the camp, which is intended to tackle cases of military-related stress, he boarded the escorting officer’s vehicle and stole his weapon, which he allegedly used to order the officer out of the vehicle. He then allegedly returned to the stress combat center, where he opened fire, killing the five servicemen.
Russell is facing five counts of premeditated murder, one count of aggravated assault and one count of attempted murder. Russell’s charges are considered within the military system as capital offenses. A trial date for the Army sergeant has not been set.
Putting the pieces together
Russell joined the Army in 1983 at the age of 23 . The native of Sherman, Texas, was on his third tour in Iraq at the time of the incident and was just over a month shy of being relieved of his duties, at which time he would have been allowed to return to his home base in Germany with his wife, a native of the country.
Before serving in Iraq, the electronics technician had also been stationed in Bosnia and Kosovo, collectively for 13 months. According to the Army Times, Russell was first deployed to Iraq in 2003, returning again in 2005 for his second round of duties.
The Assistance to the Incarcerated Mentally Ill (AIMI), an organization aimed at drawing attention to military personnel who suffer from stress disorders, claims Russell had been diagnosed with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) and was issued treatment in Iraq, rather than being sent home.
Following the shooting, Russell’s father stepped forward, saying his son was responsible for his actions, but that multiple deployments pushed his son to go over the edge. Wilburn Russell, 73, told the Military Times that Russell spoke with his wife days before the incident, claiming he was going to get even with the Army.
“John had forfeited his life,” Wilburn Russell told the Associated Press. “Apparently, he said to his wife, ‘My life is over. To hell with it. I’m going to get even with ‘em.’”
Wilburn Russell also claimed his son emailed his wife claiming officers threatened him during a two-day period, which his son indicated were the worst two days of his life.
Russell’s 20-year-old son told the publication his father was a caring, loving guy and not a violent person. He claimed his father would not normally do something like this, indicating that something had to happen to drive him to such levels of violence.
An LA Times report indicates Russell allegedly told superiors that he was suicidal and that he was shuffled from doctor to doctor for psychotic behaviors.
“This case is going to reveal not only shortcomings in the Army mental health system, but criminal shortcomings,” Military Defense Attorney James Culp, who is defending Russell told the LA Times. “John Russell was not only not treated by mental health clinical professionals, he was mistreated.”
Russell had been accused of domestic violence against his first wife in the early 1990s and was issued with a restraining order following a divorce, according to documents obtained by the AP. No other criminal history was found after that point.
An unsuccessful petition to the president
A website sponsored by AIMI includes a petition to President Barack Obama to not prosecute Russell for murder, but rather provide him with care and support for a mental disorder, which the organization claims the military is responsible for.
“No one can be punished or rehabilitated into a state of mental health,” the website reads.
The organization also questions on the site why Russell was escorted away from the stress center when he began to show signs of anger, considering the center was designed to treat those who exhibited symptoms of stress disorders.
“They escorted him out with a guy with a gun,” the site quotes Wilburn Russell as saying. “That was the worst thing they could have done.”
Friday’s announcement that Russell will be tried under capital charges in a military court quashed hope that such arguments would be accepted, despite initial suggestions made by the investigating officer, who advised the death penalty should be taken off the table because of Russell’s mental disease, reported the LA Times.
Soldiers and stress disorders
In a 2009 press conference following the incident, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Michael Mullen, indicated the incident provides incentive for the military to pay attention to stress disorders among personnel.
“It (the incident) does speak to me for the need for us to redouble our efforts in terms of dealing with the stress (of combat), he said. “It also speaks to the issues of multiple deployments (and) increasing dwell time.”
In 2010, a year after the incident, the Department of Defense issued a press release regarding the Army’s efforts to expand combat stress detection, citing that nearly 30 percent of all Army troops leaving Iraq and Afghanistan are at risk of developing PTSD symptoms.
“Earlier wars have taught us that you need to be very aggressive and very close to the battle when treating and diagnosing psychological impacts of development and combat exposure,” Army Ltl. Gen. Eric B. Schoomaker said in the press release. “You can actually create more problems for the individual soldier by delaying the treatment or evacuating them out of theater.”
The release made no mention of incidents of violence occurring in combat zones, but did recognize that war does have lasting psychological effects on a great number of military personnel.
A CBS report filed after the shooting at Camp Liberty cited an Army study, which determined that soldiers were more likely to suffer from PTSD after a third and fourth deployment — Russell was on his third deployment in Iraq at the time of the incident.
Since that time, suicide rates among veterans have skyrocketed and similar attacks by U.S. forces have occurred, most notably the 2012 case in which Army Sgt. Robert Bales shot and killed 16 Afghani civilians after leaving his base in the middle of the night. Following the Bales incident, a legal team was noted as planning to form a defense that Bales was suffering from PTSD at the time of the incident. His alleged crimes occurred on his fourth tour of duty.