April 11, 2005

Fort Knox DI pleads guilty to abuse of recruits

By Jane McHugh
Times staff writer


FORT KNOX, Ky. — A drill sergeant pleaded guilty Monday to three counts of cruelty and maltreatment against recruits, was acquitted of a fourth, and was found guilty of obstructing justice.
He was sentenced to a reduction in rank from E-7 to E-6.

Sgt. 1st Class David H. Price, 36, admitted to forcing a recruit to swallow his own vomit, to hitting a recruit on the head with a rolled up newspaper, and to dragging a recruit by his ankles down a hallway.

The Army judge, Lt. Col. Richard Anderson, found Price not guilty for putting a recruit in a chokehold, but did find him guilty of obstructing justice for trying to cover up the abuse.

Eight other charges related to cruelty and maltreatment toward recruits were dismissed before the court-martial got under way.

Price faced up to a year in military confinement, forfeiture of pay, and a reduction in rank to private based on the original 13 counts.

“I think the judge made a fair ruling,” said his attorney.

Price read a statement to the court, saying he was “burned out from being a drill sergeant too long.” And that he “was extended beyond [his] two years, as were many drill sergeants at Fort Knox.”

Price had been a drill sergeant 28 months, and has been in the Army 15 years.

“I think Price will stay in the Army and retire from the Army,” the lawyer said.

Three other drill sergeants have been charged with abuse, but only Price’s case was heard Monday. A captain has been charged with dereliction of duty for allegedly failing to stop the abuse.

The abuse of trainees in early February was investigated after their battalion commander received reports of abuse from soldiers in an adjacent barracks. An investigation was conducted by the Army’s Criminal Investigative Command.

Besides Price, the drill sergeants charged are Sgt. 1st Class Ricky L. Stauffer, Staff Sgt. Michael G. Rhoades and Staff Sgt. Bryan G. Duncan. Each was charged with maltreatment.

The company commander charged is Capt. William C. Fulton. Army leaders will decide whether Fulton will face a court-martial or other disciplinary action under the Uniform Code of Military Justice.

Gee.. back in my day, he'd have been rated top sergeant and those ' drills' made SOP..

" burned out from being a drill sergeant too long..."
probably got totally pissed at having to coddle the prissy newbies with all that PC crap and couldn't call them as he saw 'em like Lee whatsisname in Platoon...

Before I went into the army, I used to hear the older gentlemen say, "you aren't a man until you finish bootcamp." The Marines had a slogan back in the '60's, "give me your boy and I will send you back a man." People highly respected a person in uniform and still do, but the rules in the military gotten soft.

I don't think that 28 months as a DI is to long, burn out mt butt he is a dumb azz and should have gotten a bigger punishment than losing one strip, what if the kid had choked to death because he was not alowed to throw up? He is a black eye on all professional nco's

Back in 1961, when we got off the bus at Ft. Knox we were met by Sgt.'s King and Wheeler. Sgt. King was a large Black man and Sgt. Wheeler was a wiry, White southener. We were kicked, slapped, and cursed and the fear of God was surpassed only by our fear of Sgt. King and Sgt. Wheeler.

In the brief spate of about 15 minutes we learned several valuable lessons.

1. If you had any problems with race you had damn sure better keep it to yourself and not let it affect teamwork.

2. Sgt. King and Sgt. Wheeler could and would kick our ass.

3. We were no longer normal members of society or even the human race.

4. We were delivered into hell and had looked into the eyes of satan and felt his hard hand and hot breath.

5. If we did not strive hard and achieve the objectives set for us they would kill us.

6. We were united in misery.

We emerged as Soldiers.

I spent nine months assigned to basic training companies on Fort Knox and, with one exception, the drill sergeants were all professionals (even the short timers). They realized that being hard on the troops made them good soldiers but being sadistic did nothing.

Slapping someone with a rolled up newspaper would have gotten a meeting with the First Sergeant and a real ass chewing but nothing more unless it happened again. Getting drunk and abusing the troops got one demoted a stripe and placed back in a line company to live out his re-enlistment.

More than one troop got a whack on the back of the head (helmet liner) on the firing range, but we all agreed with the conduct while we were in basic and saw no reason for change later on. People can get killed during training so a certain amount of discipline of a non-prescribed nature is overlooked as long as there is professional oversight.

The sergeant got what he deserved.

HarryP, I don't know what period you were a DI but at this time in history I was among some genuine bad-asses. Some of these guys were already warriors, except they had no discipline, ideals, direction or purpose.

Being a draftee Army we had all kinds of people from every background you could imagine. But in that breif period of initial brutality we had bonded. It was us against them.

This, of course, was exactly the desired response. It's much easier to start hard and ease up than to start easy and then try to go hard.

I don't think our DI's were sadistic. I think they were some smart, tough NCO's who knew how to make soldiers out of some tough street punks.
Some guys you could talk to. Other guys needed a boot up their ass. The genius is in knowing what to do when.

It is my understanding that in today's Army the "tough" option no longer exists.

Thus, I was not a drill but assigned to the units as a company clerk (most of 1968) which let me see all of the administrative actions. Most of the DI's were combat veterans but a few (mostly armor) were not but all of the E-6 and above had been overseas and assigned to line companies. They had a pride in their professionalism and tired to turn out the best soldier from the pool of people given to them. Even when I went to the field during some training sessions, they were engaged and using the required sarcasm on the pool troops.

Everything I can think of to say has to do with the differences in Marine and Army training so I'll refrain.

I will say this, however.

The vomit thing was over the top but it should have been, could have been handled within the company.

That was the only offense and a minor one at that.

I think the reduction in grade was appropriate. No need to end the man's career and put him in jail over the incident's described. There's no need for physical brutality if the Drill Sergeant knows his business. Induced stress, harsh language, and punishment PT should be enough. We had Drill Sergeants at FT Bliss that could cuss with the eloquence of Shakespeare, and I more than once felt their wrath: "Claaark! Get your goat smellin' a** over heah boy! That bunk looks like two dogs f***in' under a blanket on the White House lawn! You gonna do push-ups 'til you've pushed Fort Bliss up so high we ALL gonna be suckin' ozone! Now get on your face sh*thead!" I swear, by the time he was done with me, I'd wished that he'd just gone ahead and kicked my a**.

We got hit just enough to feel tough but not enough to qualify as being out of line.

When we were getting our individual pictures taken before graduation, they had us put on one of those funeral type jackets that tie in the back and the white cover (hat). The civilian photographer shows us the mirror and then disappears to the front of the shooting area.

The DI steps up and said "I'm your foul-filthin' mirror." And then he would proceed to straighten your cover, make sure your jacket was straight, and then punch you in the stomach. He said he wanted to make sure no one was smiling in the picture. Sure enough, no one smiled.

The rolled up newspaper thing is just ridiculous though. I'm rougher than that with my high school students

The guys over at the DNI website are what some people would call contrarians. Never happy, always seem to see the worst in any situation, etc.

With that said, they are active and prior service military mostly with some good ideas about maneuver warfare and how to improve the lot of the boot on the ground.

DNI Commentary

That article is from July of 2000 and they're talking about low recruiting numbers for the Army and poor retention rates, even then. I don't know what the numbers were then but this takes some of the argument away from the anti-war on Iraq crowd. Seems as if the Army was having problems in peace as well.

Anyway, this commentary and the multiple sources cited in it give a pretty good glimpse into what is going wrong with the esprit de corps of our Army.

As much as I love my Marine Corps, the Army is too big and politically powerful not to pay attention to. If they suffer, I believe in the long run we all suffer. So forget inter-service rivalry, I want the Army to be hitting on all cylinders, for their own good, for the good of the military and of course the country as a whole.

DNI reinforces my attitude towards DOD, SECDEF and the war planners.

We need to let NCO's set the standards for troop readiness and be able to enforce it. If we lower standards let it be some of the PC ones about tatoos, and peircings, not PT or combat drills. We should give judges the power to include military service as an option to individuals they deem worthy.

And we should reinstate the draft. This is not a partisan issue but rather an acknowledgement that the AVM experiment has shown some serious flaws and needs to be fixed. To this date, I have not seen a workable alternative including realignment, and all the other smoke-and-mirror schemes which add up to cosmic avoidance.

The sooner we get down to it the better.

I knew you'd like DNI Thud.

I agree with your post inasmuch I would want the Army and only the Army to get the draftees and the would be convicts.

Otherwise you know my position on conscription.

Outside of those hot buttons however, this really is a joke. Everyone here would probably draw a slightly different line as to what would constitute abuse versus tough training but the bottom line is that tough training brings a group of guys together and eventually, this is what builds real esprit de corps. (Or at least the initial seed.)

@Airwinger....Why would you want all the draftees and convicts go into the Army? I can see all the draftees equally distributed in all the branches according to their skills and ability, but convicts would be a problem and a babysitting job. I wish all the convicts could be shipped overseas and fight if they want to go free, but if they survive they can go free and stay overseas and never return to the U.S.

fwilli:

Britain used those tactics or ' recruiting undesirables ' for the military during the early wars [ 7 Years/ Rev War/1812 ]..
promise them pardons and land, fight ofr King and country but don't come back, etc...[ one reason That Scots got spread all over the world ] . Ultimately you get badass folks dumped on foreign soil giving the homeland a bad PR image and you lose control over them...short term gain [ i.e. numbers ] at a cost to long term benefit...

not worth it...

@Rocketeer....Thank you for the info, I guess it's something like what Fidel Castro did back in the eighties (80's)!

quote:

Originally posted by fwilli52:
@Airwinger....Why would you want all the draftees and convicts go into the Army? I can see all the draftees equally distributed in all the branches according to their skills and ability, but convicts would be a problem and a babysitting job. I wish all the convicts could be shipped overseas and fight if they want to go free, but if they survive they can go free and stay overseas and never return to the U.S.

Not talking about hardened convicts here but kids, mostly first offenders who have made a mistake that could get them some jail time. This would be at the discretion of a judge who would try to determine if they are salvageable. "One in the county or three in the Military".

Airwinger, I get the distinct impression that you somewhow feel that draftees would make lessor soldiers than volunteers. In the real world nothing could be farther from the truth.

This is typical dogma from those who want to use this fiction as a rationale to keep the AVM "pure". In reality the draftees are often better Soldiers than the volunteer. Most draftees want to do their time, stay out of jail and show them damn RA's they ain't shit. There have been some volunteers who realize that they have bit off a lot more than they can chew and this is coming to light as we speak.

If you want to give all the draftees and almost cons to the Army that will be just fine but the Marines might suffer for it.

Once again, you guys are prisoners of your own logic, or lack thereof.

If the convicts and draftees can perform just as well or better on average as any other volunteer troop, then the Army shouldn't have any beef with taking all of them.

I can remember when I was assigned as an armor trainer at Know in the late 70's to early 80's. I was in E-2-1 14 week training cycles and worked very closely with DI's and I never saw anything that was out of like with the troops. I served with DI's that had alot longer than 28 months on the job. I still say there is no need for bad treatment towards recruits durning training.