The third soldier to be court-martialed in hazing related to the Oct. 3 suicide of Army Pvt. Danny Chen in Afghanistan was found guilty of dereliction of duty Friday after pleading guilty to wrongfully possessing and consuming alcohol in violation of a general order.

Staff Sgt. Blaine Dugas, an infantryman assigned to the 1st Brigade Combat Team, 25th Infantry Division at Fort Wainwright, was demoted to sergeant and sentenced to three months of confinement with a 90-day credit for time served before his trial.

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The charges relate to Dugas’ failure to prevent subordinates from mistreating Chen, 19, and engaging in abusive behavior, as well as a false statement Dugas made to investigators claiming he hadn’t been informed of Chen’s mistreatment.

See the story at KTUU

Elizabeth OuYang, president of OCA-NY, a national civil rights organization serving Asian Pacific Americans, told NBC News the sentence was disappointingly light.

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“It’s outrageous. The military justice system cannot deliver justice,” OuYang said.

Dugas' "failure to ensure the physical well-being of Private Chen cost Danny his life," OuYang said.

Eight soldiers have been charged in connection with Chen’s suicide, with four subsequently recommended for trial.

In previous courts-martial related to the Chen case, Sgt. Adam Holcomb was sentenced last month to 30 days in prison and a demotion, while Spc. Ryan J. Offutt received a six-month sentence earlier this week as well as a demotion to private and a bad conduct discharge.

Related: Sergeant faces 30 days, demotion over soldier's suicide

NBC station KTUU and NBC News' Miranda Leitsinger contributed to this report.

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An Army sergeant found guilty of maltreating and assaulting Pvt. Danny Chen, who committed suicide in Afghanistan in Oct. 2011, was sentenced to a reduction in rank and 30 days in confinement, the military announced Tuesday. The sentence was sharply rejected by the Chinese-American soldier's advocates as too light.

In a court-martial that concluded Monday at Fort Bragg, N.C., Sgt. Adam Holcomb was found innocent of the more serious charges — including negligent homicide and reckless endangerment — in connection with the death of Chen, a Chinese-American soldier. Prosecutors had alleged that Chen was driven to kill himself due to abuse by his superiors.

"This trial has always been about the danger to an Asian-American soldier under a failed leadership," Elizabeth OuYang, New York branch president of OCA, a national civil rights organization serving Asian Pacific Americans, said in an email. "The racial humiliation, the hazing, and blatant neglect by the accused endangered Private Chen's life and contributed to his death. For the conviction of assault and two counts of maltreatment, a sentence of thirty days hardly equates with Private Danny Chen's life being cut short at age 19."

Holcomb, assigned to the 1^st Brigade Combat Team, 25^th Infantry Division, Fort Wainwright, Alaska, was also demoted to an E-4 rank, resulting in forfeiture of $1,181 in pay, Fort Bragg said in a press release.

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Holcomb, 30, and seven others were charged in connection with the death of Chen, who died of an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound on Oct. 3 in Afghanistan.

Army reveals sensitive material to family of dead soldier
Soldiers may not face most serious charges in GI's alleged abuse death

Chen, the son of immigrant parents who grew up in New York City’s Chinatown, was found dead at a guard tower with his rifle lying next to him at Combat Outpost Palace in the Panjwa'i district of Kandahar province.

OuYang said Regional Command-South investigators found that almost immediately after he arrived in mid-August, Chen, the only Chinese American in his platoon, was required to do exercises that crossed over to alleged abuse.

Some of the alleged abuse was inflicted by one soldier and some by a group, according to OuYang, who was briefed on the investigation. 

Investigators also found evidence that the platoon sergeant and the platoon leader — the top two officers in the unit — were aware of an attack on Chen on Sept. 27 and chose not to report it, OuYang said.

According to testimony, Holcomb injured Chen by dragging him across gravel after the lower-ranked soldier left a water pump on in a shower at their remote base in Afghanistan, Reuters reported.

Holcomb also was accused of calling Chen racially derogatory names such as "dragon lady," "Jackie Chen," and "egg roll," the report said.

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The family of a Chinese-American soldier believed to have committed suicide in Afghanistan after allegedly being hazed by his fellow soldiers has received "very sensitive" new information on the investigation from the Army, according to a family friend.

Army officials briefed the parents of Danny Chen for several hours on Wednesday at Fort Hamilton in Brooklyn about the death of their 19-year-old son, said Frank Gee, an Army veteran and vice commander of the American Legion's New York branch who also attended.

"Basically they informed the family of what ... happened," said Gee, 72, who was called into the case to help translate for the Chen family.  "... There is something new, but we are not authorized to divulge anything. It's very sensitive material because the prosecution is going on, the case is going on, and they don't want to jeopardize it."

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Chen was found dead at a guard post on Oct. 3 at the remote Combat Outpost Palace in the Panjwa'i district of Kandahar province in southern Afghanistan. The Army announced in late December that it had charged eight of his fellow soldiers in his death.

Elizabeth Ouyang, New York branch president of OCA, a national civil rights organization serving Asian Pacific Americans, also attended the meeting but declined to comment on what was said. The Chen family held a press conference Thursday afternoon to discuss some details of the briefing.

Chen's mother, Su Zhen, and father, Yan Tao, both 49, were briefed by representatives from the Criminal Investigation Command (CID), the Armed Forces Medical Examiner's office and Regional Command-South, among others.

"The Army informed Private Chen's family of the administrative investigation's findings pertaining to the cause and manner of Private Chen's death, and the current status of court-martial proceedings arising out of the administrative and ongoing criminal investigations," an Army spokeswoman, Lt. Col. Amy Hannah, said Wednesday in a statement.

The charged soldiers have been assigned to a different forward operating base in Afghanistan, removed from active duty and placed under increased supervision of senior non-commissioned officers, Sgt. 1^st Class Alan G. Davis, an Army spokesman, said in an email.

There were no other known suicides at Combat Outpost Palace, where Chen was stationed, prior to his death and the regional command has no other cases of charges relating to suicides. The outpost came under 16 attacks, but no soldiers died as a result, Davis said.

Five of the eight soldiers were charged with involuntary manslaughter and negligent homicide, apparently the first time such charges have been brought in this type of case, military legal and hazing experts said. "The charges relate to conduct that occurred in the time leading up to his death," Davis wrote.

The CID said Tuesday that it investigated all deaths as if they were homicides and their query into Chen's death was not complete. CID agents on the ground were deployed within minutes of his death to begin the investigation, which generally includes interviews, toxicology reports and autopsies, said Chris Grey, chief of public affairs at USA Criminal Investigation Division.

“I know they (the Army spokesmen in Afghanistan) used the words 'apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound,' but our case is still ongoing," Grey said. "Seeing the nature of what’s going on with the soldiers being charged, etc., it did cause a little bit of confusion, but I can guarantee that our investigation is ongoing."

Abuse at base in Afghanistan
The death of their only child has taken a toll on the Chens, immigrants from Taishan in southern China.

A portrait of their son in uniform stood on a foldout table in their living room last week. Incense burned in front of the makeshift shrine illuminated by candles and his favorite foods had been placed on a paper plate: a chocolate chip cookie, a bag of Skittles, some Doritos and a Cup of Noodles with a fork placed in the soggy ramen. Alongside lay his military medals and the American flag that was draped over his casket.

His mother said that when she leaves the apartment in a towering lower Manhattan housing project, she stands in front of the shrine to tell her son that she'll be back.

"I tried to reason with Danny that it's very difficult in the Army, but Danny says, yeah he knows the difficulty in the service," said Su Zhen, trembling and tearful, as Gee translated from the Chinese dialect of her hometown. "If he got killed in the line of duty at the front line, that's different. But under the circumstances, I feel extremely sad because it was a suicide -- but driven to suicide."

When Chen enlisted in the Army, he saw it as the first step to achieving his dream of one day becoming a New York City police officer, his parents said. But some ten months after joining, the 6' 3" bespectacled Army private was dead.

The Chens said they had been informed in fits and starts about the circumstances of their son’s death and alleged hazing by his fellow soldiers.

Two soldiers and a chaplain came to the Chens' apartment on Oct. 3 to tell them that their son had died but not how. Three days later, they got a call from Army investigators informing them that their son had been subject to some abuse for not having turned off the hot water heater in the shower. They eventually were told that two instances of abuse were when he was dragged out of his bed and made to crawl on the ground while rocks were thrown at his back, and he was forced to do chin-ups while holding liquid in his mouth that he was not allowed to swallow or spit out.

Chen's father, Yan Tao, a cook, said it was difficult for them to comprehend what happened.

"Initially, there was a great shock when we found out that Danny got killed, but when this came out, we felt extra sad that it happened that particular way," he said, also speaking through a translator. "Things like that should not happen in the Army. I think they should have better control over the condition, or the atmosphere, at the base."

"We want the truth to come out, so if it turns out to be something even worse ... we are willing to accept that," he added.

In a book from the memorial service held for him on Oct. 6 in Afghanistan, one soldier described Chen like any member new to the unit -- timid and shy, while another recalled him as cheerful, laughing at all jokes, and reading his "ranger hand book and learning the different movement formations." Yet another recalled that he was a needed replacement, and took up the rifleman post.

"From what I heard about him Danny never complained and always kept a smile on his face," wrote Cpt. Allred in a tribute to Chen. "He was a determined member of the team who sought to find his place among the battle hardened platoon living in a relatively austere environment."

Final care package
Chen's parents don't accept that their son killed himself. His father pointed to a cardboard box encircled by priority mail tape sitting on the floor. It was the last care package they sent to him, which he asked for in his third phone call to them from Afghanistan on Sept. 27, six days before his death.

"In the latest telephone call, he still asked his mom to send all of this good stuff and there's no indication ... that he would do it," Yan Tao said.

Su Zhen also said her son had no history of depression. In their last talk, when she asked him how the other soldiers were treating him, he said it was nothing that she should be concerned about, "the normal stuff." She said he hadn't mentioned any problems and had never spoken of any trouble with his fellow GIs.

But a cousin, Banny Chen, 18, said that Chen had complained in a Feb. 27 letter sent while he was at basic training in Georgia that he had been picked on because of his ethnicity.

"Since I'm the only Chinese person here, everyone knows me by Chen," the letter said. "They ask if I'm from China like a few times a day. They also call out my name, Chen, in a goat-like voice sometimes for no reason. No idea how it started but its just best to ignore it, I still respond though to amuse them. People crack jokes about Chinese people all the time. I'm running out of jokes to comeback (sic) at them."

At the time, Banny said he "didn't think it was really a big deal because I thought he would be used to ... racist jokes."

The pair kept in touch on Facebook while Chen was in Afghanistan. There didn't seem to be any problems and he just asked for junk food and updates on the family. He did seem homesick, Banny said, and he shared a Facebook message from Chen that read "its hard work, but its what i signed up for (sic)."

"None of this was really expected," Banny said, noting the aftermath was "stressful because of all the mystery behind what really happened."

'Happy-go-lucky'
Chen spoke English, Cantonese and his parents' dialect, liked to play handball and video games and embraced Chinese culture, his father said, laughing at the memory of his son praying at Chinese New Year that his mother wouldn't get upset with him for the bad things he may do in the coming year. Yan Tao described his son as a bit mischievous at times, getting into small, inconsequential troubles, but his mother noted that he was "happy-go-lucky" and a good student.

A photo album he made in grade school showed him playing around with two cousins, including Banny. Other pictures from after completing basic training in Georgia showed him goofing around with relatives, putting "rabbit ears" on one of them.

"He was like the comic relief of the ... family," Banny said. "He used to get the class clown awards in elementary school."

Chen decided he wanted to become a police officer after being the victim of an attack following the family's move into the housing project on the Lower East Side several years ago from Chinatown -- the bustling, busy playground of his youth. Some boys chased him for blocks, calling him "Chinese." During the attack, he was punched in the head and his glasses were broken. A bystander intervened and called the police, but Danny said he did not want to press charges.

"Danny said ... (they're) very young so maybe it's very bad for them" in the future if they have a record, his aunt, Lucy Chen, recalled him saying. Tapping her chest, she said of Chen: "The heart is very good."

As the Chinese New Year approaches -- it is the last week in January, kicking off the Year of the Dragon -- the Chens have no plans to celebrate what is seen as the "renewal of life."

"I don't have the desire to do any of the ceremony that is normally associated with the Chinese New Year," Su Zhen said through sobs, noting the painful absence of her son's voice. "I'm too sad to participate."

Chen is buried at a cemetery in the New York suburbs. His parents have bought the plots next to his, so they can be together in death. Despite their loss, they said they hope that what happened to him will force the Army to make changes to prevent other deaths.

"Hopefully that's the case," Su Zhen said, "that he would not die in vain."

 

 

Army prosecutors will be in a tough spot pursuing charges of negligent homicide and involuntary manslaughter against five soldiers in connection with the death of an Asian-American GI whose family and advocates say was the victim of racial taunting, bullying and hazing, according to military law experts.

Pvt. Danny Chen, 19, of New York, was found dead in a guard tower in southern Afghanistan from an apparent self-inflicted gunshot on Oct. 3, according to Army investigators.

Eight soldiers, including an officer, were charged Wednesday in connection with Chen's death, and five were accused of the most serious charges -- involuntary manslaughter to negligent homicide. They “relate to conduct that occurred in the time leading up to his death,” Dave Connolly, chief public affairs officer for Regional Command South in Afghanistan, wrote in an email, declining to provide further detail.

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Chen, the son of immigrants from southern China, was not depressed but had suffered emotional and physical abuse in the military: He was dragged from his bed and made to crawl while rocks were thrown at his back and was forced to hold liquid in his mouth while doing chin-ups during his two months in Afghanistan, according to accounts from his family, who said they got the information from Army investigators. He also endured racial taunting, including having his last name said in a goat-like voice and other soldiers calling him Jackie Chan, while undergoing training in Georgia, according to letters he wrote to his family and diary entries, said Elizabeth OuYang, New York branch president of OCA, a national civil rights organization serving Asian Pacific Americans.

At the time of his death, Chen had been in the military for seven months; he had deployed to Afghanistan in August.

The negligent homicide and involuntary manslaughter charges in  cases of hazing leading to suicide in the U.S. military appear to be a first, said Grover Baxley, a former member of the U.S. Air Force Judge Advocate General (JAG) Corps, and Hank Nuwer, who has done decades of research on hazing in schools and the military.

“It’s interesting that they’re making -- as I see it -- a leap from hazing to being criminally responsible for a self-inflicted gunshot death,” said Baxley.

He said that in similar cases where the government had gotten hazing convictions, prosecutors could argue in the sentencing phase that hazing was an aggravating factor contributing to death.

“In the Army case, they've taken it a step further and they're actually charging them with criminal responsibility for … Private Chen’s death, and that’s a big distinction,” he said.

Prosecutors still must present their evidence at an “Article 32” hearing – the equivalent of a grand jury in civilian law – after which an investigating officer will determine whether to sustain the charges.

Negligent homicide is defined in military law as "the killing of another person through simple negligence," Baxley said. The US Legal website defines involuntary manslaughter as "manslaughter without any malice or intention," it said.

Under the negligent homicide charge, the government must show that Chen’s death not only resulted from a negligent act by the soldiers but was the “proximate cause” of it, said Baxley, who now has a private practice, JAG Defense.

“That is, that Pvt. Chen’s death was the natural and probable result of the soldiers’ negligent acts,” he wrote in an email. “While I have not seen the evidence in this case … if repeated acts of hazing by numerous individuals are the ‘negligent acts’ that form the basis for the charge, it’s going to be difficult to demonstrate that any one particular soldier’s behavior was the proximate cause of Pvt. Chen’s self-inflicted gunshot wound.”

Greg Rinckey, a former attorney with the U.S. Army JAG Corps, said he agreed with that assessment and noted that the defense would likely try to find evidence, for example, that Chen was fragile, had previously been suicidal or didn’t want to deploy. “They’re going to look at all these things to try and shift the blame from these soldiers are the proximate cause as to, ‘No, the proximate cause was he was predisposed really to suicide,’” he said.

The most serious charges also could be a way of trying to pressure one or more of the defendants into cooperating with prosecutors in exchange for lesser charges or immunity, Rinckey said.

Little is known about the Army's case at this point, but prosecutors "might have a hard time proving this. What could very well happen in a case like this is there could be a plea,” said Rinckey, managing partner of Tully Rinckey PLLC.

“It’s the first person that comes forward is usually the one that gets the sweetest deal,” he added.

A combination of factors – racial, political, a military superior focused on ending hazing – could have also led the Army to impose the rare charges, said Nuwer, an author of several books on the issue.

“Look at the climate in the country. There is a lot of public outcry over the death of Robert Champion at Florida A&M … and it’s kind of outraged the country,” he said, referring to the hazing death of a university band member on Nov. 19. “The other is the hazing has gotten to a point where we’ve now had a death in a fraternity or athletic team or band in a college every year from 1970 to 2011, and sometimes more than that.”

Nuwer, who noted that he was unaware of any similar charges being filed in a civilian court, said that hazing and harassment are rarely aimed at causing death

The soldiers at Combat Outpost Palace in the Panjwa'i district of Kandahar province, where Chen was stationed, may have been trying to push him out of the service or giving him the chance to change his behavior, he said.

“It’s going to be very rare that somebody tries to drive somebody to suicide,” Nuwer said of the hazing. “There’s a theatrical aspect to it. The verbal abuse is often manufactured and escalated to put a lesson into the person, and in effect, the men are often acting for each other. ...

“Then you have a kind of group think that takes over, and a kind of group energy where the whole group together does things to the individual that all of them alone would not have done.”

The military has a "zero-tolerance" policy of hazing, but it still happens, experts say.

“It's a delicate balancing act, because it’s always been in the military and it’s always going to be,” Rinckey said. “It’s very hard for soldiers and sailors that are going to be going into combat together to not have initiation rituals.”

But, he noted: “I think the military is beginning to take hazing very seriously and I think this case is a highlight of that … to how serious they’ll take it, where they’ll charge soldiers with manslaughter and negligent homicide.”

One recent case was that of Lance Cpl. Harry Lew, who was hazed by fellow Marines, according to a U.S. military report on his April 3 death. The military accused three Marines of beating Lew hours before he killed himself and charged them with hazing. They face court martial, The San Jose Mercury News reported.

After a Wednesday morning press conference held in New York by Chen’s family and Asian-American advocates, a senior Pentagon official offered condolences to the soldier’s relatives.

“We treat each other with respect and dignity or we go home -- that’s it,” Navy Capt. John Kirby said, according to a Pentagon news service report. “The tolerance is absolutely zero and the system itself, because it works and works well, is in fact, a deterrent to future behavior.”

“Unfortunately, you’re never going to be 100 percent perfect in this. And there’s going to be those few who want to (flout) what the uniform stands for and what the regulations require … when that happens they’re going to be dealt with.”

Chen's family and advocates are not convinced that his death was a suicide, despite the initial finding that he died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound, and have asked forensic expert Henry Lee to conduct an independent autopsy. Chen's mother, Su Zhen, 49, said she had not wanted her only child to join the Army and at the  press conference said she “could not figure out why they (the soldiers) would do this to him."

OuYang, of the OCA, said her organization does not want the defendants to be allowed to plea bargain.

"It's one thing to charge them with high charges, but it means nothing if they plea bargain to something very low," she said. "... If they are responsible for his death they need to be charged and found guilty of that."

Updated at 2:00 p.m. ET

Eight U.S. soldiers have been charged in the death of 19-year-old Private Danny Chen, who was found shot to death in a guard tower in southern Afghanistan.

It was first thought to have been a suicide, but the military's investigation found that the Asian-American had been the target of ethnic slurs and physical attacks by his fellow soldiers.

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Chen was found dead Oct. 3 with a gunshot wound below the chin; it's not clear from the charges whether the eight soldiers are accused of killing him or whether officials are alleging that their mistreatment of Chen led him to take his own life.

The military said the soldiers from Chen's company face charges that include dereliction of duty, assault, negligent homicide and involuntary manslaughter.

Read more coverage on NBCNewYork.com

Chen's parents welcomed the charges Wednesday during an emotional news conference at the Chinese Consolidated Benevolent Association in New York's Chinatown, where their only child grew up and went to school.

"Over two months of agonizing over the loss, it is of some comfort and relief to learn that the Army is taking this seriously," Chen's mother, Su Zhen, 49, said through tears in Chinese as a family friend translated. "(We) hope that the truth will come out and hopefully that what happened will not happen again."

Zhen, who came to the United States in 1987 from Taishan in southern China, said she had not wanted her only child -- a good student who had a lot of friends -- to join the Army. She said she "could not figure out why they (the soldiers) would do this to him."

Chen's father, Yantao Chen, 49, a cook who moved to America from the same province in 1989, said through the family friend that while well wishing "gives them comfort … he realizes that Danny will never return, but it gives him hope."

The translating friend was Frank Gee, 72, an Army veteran, who said the family heard about the charges Tuesday from a lieutenant colonel in Afghanistan. He said they were expecting them, though Zhen cried when she heard the news.

"It's rather tough. ... The only child, especially (in a) Chinese family, a boy," Gee said. "They are learning to cope with it."

Chen was like "sunshine," said his aunt, Lucy Chen. "Danny (was) a very good boy ... We miss him."

Elizabeth OuYang, New York branch president of OCA, a national civil rights organization serving Asian Pacific Americans, said Chen was not depressed but had suffered emotional and physical abuse in the military: He was dragged from his bed and made to crawl while rocks were thrown at his back and was forced to hold liquid in his mouth while doing chin-ups during his two months in Afghanistan. He was deployed there in August and had been in the military just seven months.

"Whether suicide or homicide, those responsible for mistreating Danny caused his death, and they must be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law," OuYang said at the news conference, noting that forensic expert Henry Lee would conduct an independent autopsy.

She said she and community leaders had a meeting last week at the Pentagon to put forward reforms to prevent such abuse and that they have another one on Jan. 4, where the commanding officer's report would be shared with them. She said they were told that a separate report by the Army's Criminal Investigation Command would be finished by the end of February.

"Clearly the Army’s diversity training is not effective," she said. "It's not worth it (to serve) if we can't be protected from people who are supposed to be on our side."

Though the news of the charges was "amazing," she said it was only the beginning and that they did not want the soldiers to be able to plead to lesser charges, noting they wanted "a loud signal sent that our lives are not cheap."

Some 3,000 Asian Americans were recruited to serve in the U.S. military in 2009, OuYang wrote in October.

Rep. Nydia M. Velazquez, D-N.Y., called the day "bittersweet" and demanded a "clear accounting of the facts." She said minorities make up 35 percent of active duty forces.

"We need to know the whole truth," Velazquez said. "If there is a message to everyone in this country, especially to the armed forces, it's that racial intolerance and discrimination have no place in our military and we need to have that message clearly conveyed today."

Wellington Chen, executive director of Chinatown Partnership Local Development Corporation, cited a Chinese expression in saying the community could handle the truth and didn't want it to come out in bits and pieces: "If you have a fire, you cannot cover it with paper. The truth will come out."

Military's charges
According to an official statement from the military, 1st Lt. Daniel J. Schwartz, Staff Sgt. Blaine G. Dugas, Staff Sgt. Andrew J. Van Bockel, Sgt. Adam M. Holcomb, Sgt. Jeffrey T. Hurst, Spc. Thomas P. Curtis, Spc. Ryan J. Offutt and Sgt. Travis F. Carden, all of C Co., 3rd Battalion, 21st Infantry Regiment, 1st Stryker Brigade Combat Team, 25th Infantry Division were charged Wednesday in connection withthe death of Chen, an infantryman assigned to C Co. at Combat Outpost Palace.

According to the statement:

• Schwartz is charged with eight specifications of Article 92, UCMJ, dereliction of duty.
• Dugas is charged with one specification of Article 92, UCMJ, violation of a lawful general regulation, four specifications of Article 92, UCMJ, dereliction of duty, and one specification of Article 107, UCMJ, making a false official statement.
• VanBockel is charged with two specifications of Article 92, UCMJ, violation of a lawful general regulation, three specifications of Article 92, UCMJ, dereliction of duty, four specifications of Article 93, UCMJ, maltreatment, one specification of Article 119, UCMJ, involuntary manslaughter, one specification of Article 128, UCMJ, assault consummated by battery, one specification of Article 134, UCMJ, negligent homicide, and one specification of Article 134, UCMJ, reckless endangerment.
• Holcomb is charged with four specifications of Article 92, UCMJ, violation of a lawful general regulation, two specifications of Article 92, UCMJ, dereliction of duty, two specifications of Article 93,UCMJ, maltreatment, one specification of Article 108, UCMJ, destruction of military property, one specification of Article 119, UCMJ, involuntary manslaughter, two specifications of Article 128, UCMJ, assault consummated by battery, one specification of Article 134, UCMJ, negligent homicide, one specification of Article 134, UCMJ, reckless endangerment, and one specification of Article 134, UCMJ, communicating a threat.
• Hurst is charged with two specifications of Article 92, UCMJ, violation of a lawful general regulation, two specifications of Article 92, UCMJ, dereliction of duty, two specifications of Article 93, UCMJ, maltreatment, one specification of Article 119, UCMJ, involuntary manslaughter, one specification of Article 128, UCMJ, assault consummated by battery, one specification of Article 134, UCMJ, negligent homicide, and one specification of Article 134, UCMJ, reckless endangerment.
• Curtis is charged with two specifications of Article 92, UCMJ, violation of a lawful general regulation, one specification of Article 92, UCMJ, dereliction of duty, six specifications of Article 93, UCMJ, maltreatment, one specification of Article 119, involuntary manslaughter, four specifications of Article 128, UCMJ, assault consummated by battery, one specification of Article 134, UCMJ, negligent homicide, and one specification of Article 134, UCMJ, reckless endangerment.
• Offutt is charged with two specifications of Article 92, UCMJ, violation of a lawful general regulation, one specification of Art 92, UCMJ, dereliction of duty, four specifications of Article 93, UCMJ, maltreatment, one specification of Article 119, UCMJ, involuntary manslaughter, three specifications of Article 128, UCMJ, assault consummated by battery, one specification of Article 134, UCMJ, negligent homicide, and one specification of Article 134, UCMJ, reckless endangerment.
• Carden is charged with two specifications of Article 92, UCMJ, violation of a lawful general regulation, two specifications of Article 93, UCMJ, maltreatment, and one specification of Article 128, UCMJ, assault. 

The soldiers are still in Afghanistan but have been assigned to a different base, removed from their duty positions and placed under closer supervision, the military said.

An Army criminal investigation into the circumstances of Chen's death remains open, a spokesman for the U.S. Army's Criminal Investigation Command told Reuters.

"Aside from investigating the actual cause and manner of Private Chen's death, we are also investigating the circumstances leading up to his death," U.S.-based spokesman Chris Grey said in an email.

Pattern of abuse
Last week, hundreds of supporters held a vigil and demanded answers in Chen's death. A group of community leaders at the vigil said it had a meeting at the Pentagon recently about the treatment of Asian soldiers in the military, and wanted the commanding officers to be punished.

At the vigil last Thursday, the soldier's family ramped up pressure on investigators, reading aloud letters Chen had sent home, reflecting the state of isolation he was in from being harassed by his comrades and superiors.

"'Feb. 27, 2011: Since I am the only Chinese person here, everyone knows me by Chen,'" read his cousin Banny Chen. "'They ask if I'm from China a few times a day... They also call out my name Chen in a goat-like voice sometimes for no reason.'"

"'People crack jokes about Chinese people all the time. I'm running out of jokes to come back at them.'"

Chen's death is one of several recent cases of alleged hazing in the military, according to OCA.

One of those was Lance Cpl. Harry Lew, who was hazed by fellow Marines, according to a U.S. military report on his April 3 death. The military accused three Marines of beating Lew hours before he killed himself and charged them with hazing. They face court martial, The San Jose Mercury News reported.

"We clearly see this as a pattern, it doesn't take a genius to figure it out," Wellington Chen said. "To turn a human being into a killing machine, you need to condition them and sometimes once you unleash it, you may not be able to control it, that's the unfortunate part."

Lawyer Mathew B. Tully, an expert in military law and a former Army soldier, wrote in an article earlier this year that the "military’s zero-tolerance position on hazing has not completely eradicated the practice" of hazing.

"While some instances of hazing are as easy to identify as the marks they leave on victims, verbal or psychological offenses are not as black and white," he wrote. "For example, in 2007 three Marines based in Yorktown, Va., were charged with hazing subordinates after making them stand in formation for five hours and perform cleaning duties to the point of exhaustion, without food or sleep."

NBC New York and NBC News contributed to this report.