Widow: Fragging death not Army’s fault
By Russ Bynum - The Associated Press
Posted : Wednesday Oct 15, 2008 15:33:36 EDT
FORT STEWART, Ga. — A month after the Army told Brandi Durbin her husband was killed in Iraq by a soldier in his own unit, she carries a framed photo of him everywhere she goes. It’s one way of keeping him close to soothe her grief.
“People think I’m crazy, because I have to take it out of my purse to get my wallet,” Durbin said Wednesday. “But it does the job for me.”
Durbin met with reporters Wednesday at Fort Stewart to speak about her husband, Sgt. Wesley Durbin, for the first time since he was fatally shot Sept. 14 along with his squad leader, Sgt. Darris Dawson, at their patrol base south of Baghdad.
The Army has charged Sgt. Joseph Bozicevich, who served under Dawson and alongside Durbin, with killing them both with a rifle.
Brandi Durbin, who lives in Springfield, Ga., said she’s been told little about the case, but doesn’t blame the Army.
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http://www.armytimes.com/news/2008/10/ap_durbin_wife_101508/
Showing posts with label fragging. Show all posts
Showing posts with label fragging. Show all posts
Wednesday, October 15, 2008
Saturday, August 23, 2008
Soldier pleads not guilty in fragging case
Soldier pleads not guilty in fragging case
By Suzan Clarke • The Journal News • August 23, 2008
A soldier accused of killing two superior officers in Iraq, one of whom was from Suffern, pleaded not guilty yesterday.
Army Staff Sgt. Alberto Martinez entered the plea during an Article 39(a) proceeding - the equivalent of a civilian court's pretrial hearing - at Fort Bragg, N.C.
Martinez, 40, of Troy, N.Y., is charged with two counts of premeditated murder in the June 2005 deaths of Capt. Phillip Esposito, 30, of Suffern, his company commander, and 1st Lt. Louis E. Allen, 34, of Milford, Pa., second in command of the 42nd Infantry Division's headquarters support company in Tikrit, Iraq.
Martinez is accused of rigging and detonating a claymore mine on Esposito's window the night of June 7, 2005. Allen was in the room with Esposito. Both men died of their injuries the next day.
Military judge Col. Stephen Henley made a number of rulings during yesterday's hearing.
Among them, he deferred to a defense request that Martinez be moved from his current holding facility to another location, but left the final decision up to the facility commander.
The defense had argued that the suspect's current confinement location was "suppressive," according to a Fort Bragg media release detailing the results of the hearing.
The Fayetteville (N.C.) Observer reported that Martinez's attorneys argued their client's solitary confinement at Camp Lejeune in Jacksonville, N.C., was unduly stressful.
go here for more
http://lohud.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=2008808230357
By Suzan Clarke • The Journal News • August 23, 2008
A soldier accused of killing two superior officers in Iraq, one of whom was from Suffern, pleaded not guilty yesterday.
Army Staff Sgt. Alberto Martinez entered the plea during an Article 39(a) proceeding - the equivalent of a civilian court's pretrial hearing - at Fort Bragg, N.C.
Martinez, 40, of Troy, N.Y., is charged with two counts of premeditated murder in the June 2005 deaths of Capt. Phillip Esposito, 30, of Suffern, his company commander, and 1st Lt. Louis E. Allen, 34, of Milford, Pa., second in command of the 42nd Infantry Division's headquarters support company in Tikrit, Iraq.
Martinez is accused of rigging and detonating a claymore mine on Esposito's window the night of June 7, 2005. Allen was in the room with Esposito. Both men died of their injuries the next day.
Military judge Col. Stephen Henley made a number of rulings during yesterday's hearing.
Among them, he deferred to a defense request that Martinez be moved from his current holding facility to another location, but left the final decision up to the facility commander.
The defense had argued that the suspect's current confinement location was "suppressive," according to a Fort Bragg media release detailing the results of the hearing.
The Fayetteville (N.C.) Observer reported that Martinez's attorneys argued their client's solitary confinement at Camp Lejeune in Jacksonville, N.C., was unduly stressful.
go here for more
http://lohud.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=2008808230357
Tuesday, June 17, 2008
When a Soldier Attacks a Comrade
When a Soldier Attacks a Comrade
By PAUL von ZIELBAUER
Published: June 15, 2008
Fragging. The term sounds like some medieval form of punishment, but actually is quite modern. A fragging is an attack on one soldier by another, most commonly an enlisted man turning on his commanding officer. The weapon most frequently used in such attacks has been a fragmentation grenade, hence the term.
Once an unfortunately routine occurrence in Vietnam, the attacks have been rare during the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. But this summer, Staff Sgt. Alberto Martinez, of the New York National Guard, is expected to face court-martial on charges that he murdered two members of his unit, Capt. Phillip Esposito and First Lt. Lou Allen , only the second such episode recorded during this war.
To understand the history and psychology of such attacks, we asked Paul J. Springer, a history professor at the United States Military Academy at West Point, to address some questions on a topic he has long studied, including the Army's response to such attacks, the reasons for their decline and whether certain types of soldier-on-soldier attacks should qualify for the label. Here is an edited transcript of that conversation with Dr. Springer.
go here for more
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/15/nyregion/16guard.springer.html?_r=1&oref=slogin
By PAUL von ZIELBAUER
Published: June 15, 2008
Fragging. The term sounds like some medieval form of punishment, but actually is quite modern. A fragging is an attack on one soldier by another, most commonly an enlisted man turning on his commanding officer. The weapon most frequently used in such attacks has been a fragmentation grenade, hence the term.
Once an unfortunately routine occurrence in Vietnam, the attacks have been rare during the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. But this summer, Staff Sgt. Alberto Martinez, of the New York National Guard, is expected to face court-martial on charges that he murdered two members of his unit, Capt. Phillip Esposito and First Lt. Lou Allen , only the second such episode recorded during this war.
To understand the history and psychology of such attacks, we asked Paul J. Springer, a history professor at the United States Military Academy at West Point, to address some questions on a topic he has long studied, including the Army's response to such attacks, the reasons for their decline and whether certain types of soldier-on-soldier attacks should qualify for the label. Here is an edited transcript of that conversation with Dr. Springer.
go here for more
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/15/nyregion/16guard.springer.html?_r=1&oref=slogin
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