Left dead or dying on the clinic floor were Army Maj. Matthew Houseal, 54, a psychiatrist from Amarillo, Texas; Navy Cmdr. Charles Springle,52, of Wilmington, N.C.; Sgt. Christian E. Bueno-Galdos, 25, of Paterson, N.J.; Spc. Jacob D. Barton, 20, of Lenox, Mo; and Pfc. Michael Edward Yates Jr., 19, of Federalsburg, Md. According to military and press reports, Dr. Springle, married with two children, served 21 years and began his military career with the Navy in the Aleutian Islands. Dr. Houseal, who earlier had worked at Amarillo's Texas Panhandle Mental Health and Mental Retardation clinic, northwest of Russell's hometown of Sherman, was married and had seven children.
One of the three soldiers, Bueno-Galdos, was born in Peru, and also left a widow behind. "If my son had died in war, we would be able to handle that," his father, Carlos Bueno, told a reporter. Another of the soldiers, Barton, followed his older sister into the Army; he died trying to shield another man from the shooting as he attempted to talk Russell into putting down his gun, officials said. The third dead soldier, Yates, had been struggling to adjust to service in Iraq.
Joseph Laney
Russell complained of being treated dismissively by Army psychiatric staff.
Related Content
More About
"He went through a lot of emotions," said his stepfather, Richard Van Blargan. "He went to the program to help him not be so stressed out."
Today, accused shooter Russell is receiving unspecified drugs, likely antipsychotics used to stabilize mental patients, in anticipation of standing trial on charges of murder and aggravated assault. Like Hasan, he could employ an insanity defense.
"He's being held in the federal prison in Butler [N.C.]," says Pentagon spokesperson Hall. "He has currently been determined not fit to stand trial. As of now, a date for the Fort Lewis hearing won't be set until he's found to be fit."
Among the more recent questionable non-combat deaths involving Fort Lewis personnel was that of Staff Sgt. Amy Tirador, 29, an Arabic-speaking interrogator with the 209th Military Intelligence Company. Tirador, who hailed from Albany, N.Y., and whose husband Mickey is also serving in Iraq, was killed November 4 by a "non-hostile" shot to the back of the head in Diyala Province, Iraq.
"Non-hostile" is a military term similar to "friendly fire"; the latter indicates a death caused by fellow troops in combat, the former a death caused by a fellow troop or troops in a non-combat situation. One of the more notorious friendly-fire deaths was that of ex-football star and Fort Lewis Ranger Pat Tillman, whose case cast doubt on the Army's commitment to getting to the bottom of questionable deaths. The Bush administration and the Pentagon were accused of lying about the facts, at first saying Tillman's 2004 death was from enemy fire. Subsequent probes still have not cleared up his family's concerns about how he was shot by his own soldiers, and whether he might have been murdered on the battlefield.
Staff Sgt. Tirador's mother, Colleen Murphy, is apparently now experiencing those kinds of doubts. She thinks her daughter's death was a murder. From what she has learned, she told the Albany Times-Union, Tirador was shot "execution-style" in the head. She feared it might have to do with Tirador being "a female soldier in a man's world," she said. At the sergeant's funeral, the paper reports, her grandfather, Thomas Murphy, said: "Whoever did this crime, I hope they rot in hell."
The Army says it does not yet know if Tirador's death was accidental, a suicide, or a homicide, but that it is investigating. "Every suicide is investigated as a homicide first," says Pentagon spokesperson Hall.
Last year, Fort Lewis–based Cpl. Timothy Ayers, 21, was sentenced to 28 months in prison for the 2007 involuntary manslaughter of his platoon sergeant in Baghdad. Originally charged with murder, Ayers agreed to a plea deal, claiming the shot was an accident. But he was never able to fully explain exactly why he pointed his gun at his sergeant and pulled the trigger. "I don't know," he told a judge.
Awaiting court-martial for murder is another Fort Lewis soldier, Spc. Ivette Gonzalez Davila, 23, accused of a double Tacoma homicide last year. After shooting Timothy Miller, 27, and Randi Miller, 25, a military couple stationed at the fort, Davila allegedly poured acid on their faces and kidnapped their child.
Davila, according to court papers, thought Randi Miller was in a relationship with a fourth soldier, Davila's ex-boyfriend, and supposedly killed the Millers in a jealous rage. But a friend, Lisa Howell, told SW that the only thing Davila was jealous of was the Millers' loving, successful life together ("Dial M for Mistaken," SW, Aug. 6, 2008).
"It was everything [Davila] didn't have," said Howell. Fort Lewis spokesperson Joe Kubistek says Davila's Article 32 hearing—similar to a pretrial hearing—has finally been scheduled for this week at the fort, running Monday through Wednesday. After completion, the fort's commander will determine whether she'll face the death penalty at her later court-martial.
Baughman, the San Diego neurologist, says military death probes are often complicated by drugs given to soldiers. Medications are increasingly used to keep soldiers battle-ready, in part because of troop shortages. A 2006 report by the Hartford Courant found more mentally troubled service members were being treated with potent psychotropic medications to retain them in the service. There was little monitoring, and sometimes minimal counseling, of drugged soldiers, the paper reported, and doctors treating combat-stress symptoms were sending some soldiers back to the front lines after brief rests and three-day drug regimens.
