• Soldier sentenced to life without parole for killing 5 at combat stress clinic in Iraq

    Jessica Rinaldi / Russell family via Reuters, file

    Sgt. John Russell was sentenced to life in prison without parole for killing five fellow service members at a base in Iraq in 2009.

    An Army sergeant was sentenced Thursday to life in prison without parole for the 2009 killings of five fellow service members at a combat stress clinic in Iraq.

    A military judge, Army Col. David Conn, found Sgt. John Russell guilty of premeditated murder on Monday and imposed the sentence Thursday morning. The only other possible penalty for Russell would have been life in prison with the possibility of release.

    Russell will be transferred within the next several days to Fort Leavenworth in Kansas, Army spokesman Lt. Col. Gary Dangerfield said late Thursday.

    The 14-year veteran from Sherman, Texas, had previously pleaded guilty to unpremeditated murder in exchange for prosecutors taking the death penalty off the table. Under the agreement, prosecutors were allowed to try to prove to an Army judge at Joint Base Lewis-McChord in Washington state that the killings were premeditated. A streamlined court-martial ended Saturday.

    The shooting was one of the worst instances of soldier-on-soldier violence in the Iraq war and raised questions about the mental stresses of serving repeated tours of duty.

    Killed in the 2009 shooting in Baghdad were Navy Cmdr. Charles Springle, of Wilmington, N.C., and four Army personnel: Pfc. Michael Edward Yates Jr., of Federalsburg, Md.; Dr. Matthew Houseal, of Amarillo, Texas; Sgt. Christian E. Bueno-Galdos, of Paterson, N.J.; and Spc. Jacob D. Barton, of Lenox, Mo.

    Russell's lawyers argued that he was deluded by depression and despair at the time. An Army mental health board found that Russell suffered from severe depression with psychotic features and post-combat stress.

    Russell had long sought help with sleep troubles and was stammering and crying for help in the days before the shooting. His commanders were so alarmed that they disarmed him and sent him for repeated visits to mental health clinics, said attorney James Culp.

    However, prosecutors argued that Russell was trying to paint himself as mentally ill in an attempt to win early retirement — just as he was facing a sexual harassment complaint that could derail his career and his benefits.

    The day before the killings, psychiatrist Michael Jones told him that a mental disability retirement would require "some kind of suicidal psychotic crisis," Maj. Daniel Mazzone said during closing arguments, according to the Los Angeles Times.

    But when Russell saw Jones again the next day, the psychiatrist said he had no intention of giving him "a golden ticket" out of the Army.

    When Russell returned about an hour later, prosecutors say, he was looking for Jones, but wound up killing two patients, a bystander and two other mental health workers, including Navy Cmdr. Springle, who had also briefly treated Russell in the days before the shootings. Jones escaped injury by jumping out a window.

    The Associated Press

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  • Some wounded vets shine on 'Alive Day,' others wear black

    Christopher Lee / Getty Images Europe

    Lt. Brad Snyder, blinded in Afghanistan after stepping on an IED, spent his first "Alive Day" winning gold at the 2012 Paralympic Games in London.

    By Bill Briggs, NBC News contributor

    One year to the day after Lt. Brad Snyder lost his vision to a bomb explosion in Afghanistan, he swam ferociously across a pool. Then he stood atop a podium at the London Paralympics, wore gold around his neck and beamed to the national anthem, savoring the moment but seeing none of it. 

    Exactly eight years after Tammy Duckworth lost her legs to a rocket-propelled grenade in Iraq, she met the Army medic who revived her inside a mangled helicopter. Amid that reunion, she had an extra reason to smile: Six days before, Duckworth had won a seat in the U.S. Congress.


    During the otherwise dark anniversaries of their devastating combat injuries, both veterans chose to cherish the warm light of survival on what has come to be known, throughout the military, as “Alive Day.”

    Their numbers are growing more slowly though still rising: Seventy American service members were wounded in Afghanistan during December, according to new Department of Defense figures. That made 2012 the third-bloodiest year of that war in terms of the tally of U.S. troops hurt in action — 2,951.

    “Choice — that word means a lot here,” said Snyder, 28, a former Navy bomb-disposal expert. “‘Choice’ puts everything on a level playing field. Each of us faces a plethora of daily choices — when to get up, what to eat for breakfast, what to say to your family before leaving for work. You can choose to be positive. Or you can choose to be a victim.

    “You can choose to move forward with grace. Or you can choose to succumb to negativity.”

    How Snyder capped his initial Alive Day made some people cry, including his mother who watched from poolside. It made thousands more cheer at London’s Olympic Aquatics Centre. Twelve months after stepping on an IED, he dove blindly into water for the 400-meter freestyle Paralympics final. He won by nearly six seconds — an eternity in competitive racing.

    Slideshow: Blinded warrior has visions of gold

    Lt. Brad Snyder lost his sight in an IED explosion in Afghanistan in 2011. In September, the Navy officer once again represented the U.S., this time at the London 2012 Paralympics.

    Launch slideshow

    “Every (survivor of severe combat wounds) flirts potentially with a much more dismal outcome,” said Snyder, one of more than 50,000 U.S. troops wounded in Iraq and Afghanistan. “To be in a situation where you can still do something great, that’s the way I look at Alive Day.”

    But the concept isn’t an easy mental fit for every disabled veteran, admitted Snyder, who lives in Baltimore and who will remain a Naval officer for a while longer. During a recent public-speaking event, he chatted with former service members and discovered that “some of them just don’t even acknowledge Alive Day exists. Some look at this as a day when they only wear black, mope around and think about how miserable they want to be.”

    The notion of trying to transform the anniversary of a nearly-fatal battle injury into an annual day of triumph was hatched before the Vietnam War, said Dr. Sydney Savion, a retired military officer, applied behavioral scientist and author of “Camouflage to Pinstripes: Learning to Thrive in Civilian Culture.” She is based in Texas.

    Alive Day, Savion said, is “on some level, mind over matter." But she believes the concept serves as an effective mental-health salve and can be part of a path to lasting recovery.

    “One of the most important things a veteran can learn to do in life is to reframe negative events that have happened to them. This is not to deny the close escape from death or the permanent wounds, sanitize them or hide them,” Savion said. “Instead, look at them like creating a piece of art. Michaelangelo once said, ‘I saw the angel in the marble and carved until I set it free.’ Even the ugliest events, when looked at with fresh eyes, (can carry) newfound meaning, opportunities and answers.”

    Many veterans try, through reunions, phone calls, emails and letters, to retain the tight camaraderie they formed with their unit buddies. Alive Day, Savion added, offers another way “to rekindle that connection.” 

    “If things are going to turn out well for any veteran, one thing (that) is paramount is redefining who one is and repurposing one’s life,” she said. “One must mentally and emotionally surrender the old situation and experiment with new ways of being, doing, (and) thinking.”

    Duckworth, a former Army chopper pilot, this week took that advice to Capitol Hill. In her second bid for Congress, she won a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives on Nov. 6, serving the suburbs north of Chicago. She was sworn in Thursday.

    Getty Images

    Newly elected Congressional freshmen Tammy Duckworth, D-Ill., arrives to pose for a class picture with other new members of the 113th Congress on the steps of the U.S. Capitol on Nov. 15, 2012, in Washington D.C.

    The Monday after her election victory — her most recent Alive Day — Duckworth met the man who pulled her back to consciousness after she and her co-pilot managed to land their damaged, smoking Black Hawk helicopter in 2004.

    “I don’t remember being in the ER. I just met the flight medic who revived me in the helicopter. We just spent Alive Day together,” Duckworth told NBC News in a recent interview. “He said, ‘You looked up at me. You were completely calm.’ ”

    Duckworth often spends her Alive Day with the five men who were aboard the chopper with her in 2004 as they skimmed treetops in Iraq at about 135 miles per hour. The group has sometimes gathered in St. Louis. She sees that anniversary, she said, as a “celebration” — and a moment when she can show appreciation to those who helped save her life.

    But Alive Day also provides veterans with a unique bond, she added. After a photo shoot of Congressional freshmen snapped last November, Duckworth met a new lawmaker from California, Paul Cook, who was wounded in Vietnam.

    “There’s a subset of us who have seen combat action,” Duckworth said. “That’s the reason I was able to talk to this man. He started talking about walking into a trip wire in Vietnam and wanted to know what hit me, what that was like.’ When you’ve actually not just been deployed, when you’ve both seen combat action, you have this common place.”

    Duckworth’s 2013 Alive Day likely will be spent in the House of Representatives. It falls on a Tuesday.

    Snyder’s 2013 Alive Day comes on a Saturday. He has resolved to “raise the bar” on the feat he pulled off last Sept. 7. But he knows that will not be easy.

    “I want to do something that’s more outstanding or more ridiculous,” Snyder said. “Maybe I’ll climb a mountain or jump out of an aircraft. We’ll see. Certainly, it will be a day about moving forward. I’ll try to make the most of the fact that I’m still here. I’ll enjoy life to its fullest. That’s something I try to do every day — but especially on that day.”

    Archival video: Lt. Brad Snyder, blinded by an IED explosion in Afghanistan, is now training for the London 2012 Paralympics.

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  • Military cancels Ted Nugent show citing anti-Obama comments

    Steve Marcus / Reuters

    By Paul Bond, The Hollywood Reporter

    Citing inflammatory language while expressing his displeasure with President Barack Obama, the military has uninvited rock star and conservative political activist Ted Nugent from performing at Fort Knox in Kentucky, according to the U.S. Army post’s Facebook page.

    “After learning of opening act Ted Nugent’s recent public comments about the president of the United States, Fort Knox leadership decided to cancel his performance on the installation," it's Facebook posting says.

    So far, the June 23 concert remains on the Fort Knox schedule, with REO Speedwagon and Styx listed as “co-headliners,” but army personnel said they will grant requests for refunds in light of their decision to nix the opening act.

    PHOTOS: 10 Entertainers Republicans and Democrats Love to Hate

    The cancellation is the latest wrinkle in a controversy that has engulfed Nugent since last weekend when, speaking at an NRA convention, the rocker said that he would be “dead or in jail” if Obama is reelected in November.

    Also referring to Obama and Democratic candidates in general, he told the NRA faithful: “We need to ride into that battlefield and chop their heads off in November.”

    Use of the violent metaphors earned Nugent a visit from Secret Service agents on Thursday. He said Friday on his website that he had with them a “good, solid professional meeting concluding that I have never made any threats of violence toward anyone.”

    A spokesman for Fort Knox told TheBlaze.com that having Nugent perform “would be a conflict of interest since the military has the obligation to be apolitical.”

    Such a claim, though, seems dubious when it comes to choosing entertainers, who oftentimes show their partisanship. At its website, for example, Fort Knox is touting an appearance this month by comedian Jay Phillips who is supportive of Obama through his Twitter activities. And Ludacris has performed at U.S. Army bases even after the 2008 release of his pro-Obama song “Politics As Usual,” which calls Hillary Clinton, who was running against Obama at the time, a “bitch” who is “irrelevant.” The ultra-partisan song also called President George W. Bush “mentally handicapped” and says that Sen. John McCain "don't belong in any chair unless he’s paralyzed.”

    Nugent: Secret Service meeting 'couldn't have gone better'


    Fort Knox personnel did not return calls or emails requesting clarification on their “obligation to be apolitical” in their entertainment selections.

    Comments at the Fort Knox Facebook page have been running about 3-1 against the decision to boot Nugent from the concert.  

    “He is such a supporter of the troops. Such a shame that he was canceled for expressing his freedom of speech. This is America, if you have not forgot,” one commenter wrote.

    “I thought that freedom of speech was one of the very same things that our military fought for. When Obama said he was going to change the military, he did. He made them cowards. Shame on you Fort Knox,” said another.

    And on the flip side: “Anyone who threatens a U.S. president like that should not be allowed on a military installation. No matter which party he affiliates himself with. Good decision.”

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