ISBN: 978-0-615-18113-4
Price: $16.95
About the Book
In the blink of an eye, 44 soldiers were dead. This wasn't the battlefield. This was peacetime. And yet, 44 soldiers had been killed due to the carelessness of others. It started on Monday with the crash of an army UH-1 Helicopter, the army's work horse. Twelve National Guardsman were dead including the pilot and co-pilot. Drugs had been found on one of the soldiers but by the time I arrived at the office, word had made it to the news media that the drugs had been found on the pilot. After correcting this misnomer, I went about identifying the dead for CID Headquarters and the soldiers families.
In the middle of the night on Wednesday, that same week, a soldier operating an M-60A3 tank with Thermal Sights that apparently had some maintenance issues killed 25 soldiers by firing one round at what he thought was an enemy "tango", an enemy tank, in army jargon during a training exercise. The soldier ran but was later arrested at his home, intoxicated after hearing reports of what he had done with a fierce weapon of our military arsenal. Convicted of manslaughter he received a probated sentence for his crime. I was shocked at the leniency he received, but I was always a fact finder and not a prosecutor.
Murphy's Law was not finished with the National Guard yet. On Friday of that same week, an Armored Personnel Carrier operated by an intoxicated soldier attempted to forge a raging river and sank killing ten men including the driver. One man managed to escape. The remaining soldiers died an incredibly painful way due to the negligence of one man.
This book is a sympathetic yet objective portrait of the most feared organization in the United States Army, the CID, the Army's FBI, and the aftermath of serious crimes committed against the army, its soldiers, and their families.
Click here to read an excerpt from the book!