Anybody here ever served 4 combat tours? I guess I was lucky. [View all]

[11 Bravo]

I just had one. I took my first R&R at Vung Tau, nursing what amounted to nothing more than a flesh wound. But after two months in the bush, I was pretty tightly wound. Then, a couple of months after rejoining my platoon, Charles got lucky again, and I wound up in Walter Reed. At that point I was seriously pissed. Fortunately, I was surrounded by family and friends, and eventually limped back into civilian life relatively unscathed.

SSGT Robert Bales did four fucking tours! He received a TBI, was diagnosed with PTSD, and lost a part of his foot. Then the was sent back. Again!
From there, my take is that he lost his shit. He allegedly massacred innocent Afghan civilians, and if true, he needs to answer for that. But can we at least entertain the posibility that he was not of sound mind? That may not prove to be the case, but I'm troubled by the number of DUers who are willing to reflexively paint him as just another maladjusted, murderous grunt.

War is Hell, but combat is a mother-fucker. I won't even try to describe or explain it, but for anyone who has never been there to ascribe a motive to a guy who spent 4 tours in a meat grinder is uninformed at best.