JBLM soldier suspected of Afghan killing spree

A soldier suspected of gunning down, killing and burning the bodies 16 Afghan civilians was based out of Joint Base Lewis-McChord and a member of the Stryker Brigade.

“This was a horrendous slaughter that happened in Kandahar,” said CBS’ Mandy Clark, speaking to 97.3 KIRO FM Seattle’s Morning News from Afghanistan. “What we understand is this soldier left around 3 a.m. from his remote base in Kandahar Province, and then he walked to two villages nearby and he went house to house shooting civilians.”

Listen to CBS’ Mandy Clark from Afghanistan

U.S. officials said the service member was being detained in Kandahar and the military was treating at least five wounded. One U.S. official said the soldier, an Army staff sergeant, was believed to have acted alone and said initial reports indicated he returned to the base after the shooting and turned himself in.

According to CBS, the family of the Army sergeant indicated in the shootings has been moved onto JBLM for their own safety.

The staff sergeant is now in custody and of the dead 16 Afghan civilians most of them were children. The name of the 38-year-old soldier has not yet been released because it would be “inappropriate” to do so before charges are filed, said Pentagon spokesman George Little.

The soldier was deployed to Afghanistan on Dec. 3 with the 2nd Battalion, 3rd Infantry Regiment of the 3rd Stryker Brigade, 2nd Infantry Division, based at Joint Base Lewis-McChord.

He was attached Feb. 1 to the village stability program in Belambai, a half-mile from one of the villages where the attack took place, a source of the Associated Press said.

The soldier, who has been in the military for 11 years, served three tours in Iraq and is married with two children, was being held in pretrial confinement in Kandahar by the U.S. military while Army officials review his complete deployment and medical history, according to the source.

The soldier reportedly suffered a mild traumatic brain injury in the past, according to ABC news sources, either from hitting his head on the hatch of a vehicle or in a car accident. He went through the advanced treatment at Fort Lewis and was deemed “fit for combat duty” when he was deployed to Afghanistan in December. Investigators are now looking into whether he suffered from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.

ABC news is also reported that when the soldier returned from his last deployment in Iraq he had difficulty reintegrating and had marital problems.

Villager Mohammad Zahir told how he watched the soldier enter his house and move through it methodically, checking each room.

“I heard a gunshot. When I came out of my room, somebody entered our house. He was in a NATO forces uniform. I didn’t see his face because it was dark,” he said.

Zahir, 26, said he quickly went to a part of the house where animals are penned.

“After that, I saw him moving to different areas of the house – like he was searching,” he said.

His father, unarmed, then took a few steps out of his bedroom, Zahir recalled.

“He was not holding anything – not even a cup of tea,” Zahir said. Then the soldier fired.

“I love my father, but I was sure that if I came out he would shoot me too. So I waited.” Zahir said. His mother started pulling his father into the room, and he helped cover his father’s bullet wound with a cloth. Zahir’s father survived.

After the gunman left, Zahir said he heard more gunshots near the house, and he stayed in hiding for a few minutes to make sure he was gone.

The shootings come at a particularly sensitive and critical time for the U.S., just as violence over the burning of Muslim holy books at a U.S. base was starting to calm down. Sunday’s incident could further fuel calls for a more rapid withdrawal of U.S. troops from Afghanistan.

“The Americans had been doing very well there converting the hearts and minds of the people, but again these kinds of situations make the situation change very quickly,” said CBS Military Analyst and retired Army Major Mike Lyons in an appearance on 97.3 KIRO FM Seattle’s Morning News.

President Barack Obama and Defense Secretary Leon Panetta both called Afghan President Hamid Karzai to express their condolences and vowed to hold those responsible accountable. Afghan officials reported that 16 people were killed including nine children and three women.

“This incident is tragic and shocking, and does not represent the exceptional character of our military and the respect that the United States has for the people of Afghanistan,” Obama said in a statement released by the White House.

Joint Base Lewis-McChord, home to about 100,000 military and civilian personnel, has seen its share of controversies and violence in the past few years.

They have suffered a spate of suicides among soldiers back from war. The Army is investigating whether doctors at Lewis-McChord’s Madigan Army Medical Center were urged to consider the cost of providing benefits when reviewing diagnoses of post-traumatic stress disorder. And most famously, four Lewis-McChord soldiers were convicted in the deliberate thrill killings of three Afghan civilians in 2010.

The military newspaper Stars and Stripes called it “the most troubled base in the military” that year.

“It’s another blow to this community,” said Spc. Jared Richardson, an engineer, as he stood outside a barbershop near the base Sunday. “This is definitely something we don’t need.”

“There is something obviously from a cultural perspective that’s taking place there. I think that people have got to take a second look and third look with regard to the command structure there,” said Lyons. “They’re going to look at everything I think going forward with regard to that base, this unit in particular where he came from, and them also this individual.”

Officials at JBLM have said that any community the size of the base is bound to have its problems, and its reputation has been tarred by “a small number of highly visible but isolated episodes” that don’t accurately reflect the remarkable accomplishments of its service members, including their work overseas and the creation of new programs to support returning soldiers.

The controversies have indeed been highly visible.

In 2010, a dozen soldiers from the base were arrested on a slew of charges that ranged from using drugs, beating up a whistleblower in their unit, and deliberately killing three Afghan civilians during patrols in Kandahar Province. Prosecutors at Lewis-McChord won convictions against four of the five who were charged in the killings.

There have been other episodes of violence involving the base’s soldiers or former soldiers. A former soldier shot and injured a Salt Lake City police officer in 2010; he died when police returned fire.

On Jan. 1, a 24-year-old Iraq war veteran shot and killed a Mount Rainier National Park ranger before succumbing to the cold and drowning in a creek.

Last year, Lewis-McChord saw more suicides than ever before, 12, up from 9 in each of the prior two years. The Army has seen more suicides at bases across the country since the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan began.

The toll at Lewis-McChord rose despite new efforts to counsel soldiers when they come home from war, including the creation of a suicide-prevention office.

In the past five years, about 300 patients at Madigan Army Medical Center at the base had their PTSD diagnoses reversed by a forensic psychiatry team, The Seattle Times reported this month. The Army is reviewing whether those doctors were influenced by how much a PTSD diagnosis can cost, in terms of a pension and other benefits.

At Coffee Strong, a coffee shop near the base that doubles as a resource center for soldiers seeking to leave the Army, executive director Jorge Gonzalez said he was not surprised the shooter was from the base.

Listen to Coffee Strong’s Jorge Gonzalez on Seattle’s Morning News

“It’s unfortunate that these things keeping ending up at Joint Base Lewis-McChord,” Richardson said. “I promise you, not even a percent of those people are like this, but unfortunately it keeps happening. Things like this will continue until there is no more war.”

(Copyright 2012 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.)