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‘He Should Never Have Gone to Iraq’
Dietrich pined to be a Marine—his grandfather had been one—but failed the aptitude test. He then contacted an Army recruiter and said he wanted to serve as a base fireman, having been a volunteer in Marysville's fire department. Somehow, at the Army's enlistment office, Dietrich managed to pass the same standardized military-recruitment test he'd failed in the Marine office. When he showed up alone to sign his contract, he was offered a $19,000 bonus to be a scout and to ship out within weeks, according to Army records.
The Raisners are careful not to badmouth the Army. Their own son is in Air Force ROTC, and they describe themselves as firmly pro-military. But the recruitment process troubled them. "I was angry because I knew he was not scout material," Jean says. When Dietrich came over that night and told them excitedly about the bonus, Craig replied: "What good will that do you if you die in Iraq?" Craig says the next morning he phoned the recruiter, who assured him he would look after Dietrich. But the Army was missing a key bit of information that Dietrich apparently withheld from his application. Frank Shaffery, the Army's deputy director of recruiting operations, says Dietrich never mentioned his mental-health problems, including his turn at Philhaven. "There is nothing here that would have disqualified him or would have caused us to ask for additional information," he said, thumbing through Dietrich's file during an interview at his office.
At boot camp, certainly, Dietrich's problems were out in the open. Berg says he was often getting himself and the men around him in trouble. Though he was given individual instruction at the rifle range and hundreds of extra rounds for practice, he still missed his targets. When the rest of the troop graduated in July 2006, Dietrich was kept back for more training. Jean Raisner says he phoned one day and talked about shooting himself in the foot if he wasn't allowed to go home. A month later, Dietrich passed his basic rifle marksmanship test, according to an Army spokesman, and was told he would be heading to Germany and on to Iraq.
In phone calls from Ramadi, Dietrich complained to the Raisners that for weeks all he did was fill sandbags at the base while others conducted missions. He also said that in Germany, doctors had given him antidepressants and medication for attention-deficit disorder. Jean and Craig thought his commanding officers did not want him on operations. But just before Christmas, Dietrich told them he'd been on his first mission outside the forward operating base. His second mission—the one on which he was killed—followed days later. Spc. Brendan Burkhardt says team members positioned themselves in an abandoned building and took turns watching the area furtively from open windows. Burkhardt said he thought Dietrich performed much like the other soldiers that day but with tragic results: he was shot dead a few minutes after starting his shift at one of the windows. Burkhardt said the men put him on a stretcher, ran with him for about a half mile and loaded him on a vehicle. By the time Dietrich reached the base, he was dead.
The Army promoted Dietrich to private first class after he was killed and gave him a bronze-star medal for meritorious service, praising his "duty, performance and selfless service." When Berg heard from a buddy about Dietrich's death, he felt ill. "There's a bit of guilt associated with what happened," he said by phone recently from Fort Hood, Texas, where he serves. "He should not have been a scout, should not have gone to Iraq, should not have been killed." On his arm, Berg had a tattoo made with Dietrich's name, the date and place he was shot and the letters KIA.
With Daniel Stone in Washington
© 2008
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Member Comments
Posted By: RetiredNCO @ 09/03/2008 2:08:48 PM
Comment: How is it that service members today are still sent to war and even allowed into the military. We can put a 2,000 lb guided bomb in an air shaft in Ramadi to deal with a much wanted killer yet we can't bring forward our mentally ill soldiers for treatment and seperation from service. Hmmm, okay how about this....The numbers of suicides are through the roof and off the charts in todays military. PTSD is off the charts in todays military. Mental issues are at the headlines in major papers and magazines and no one in this soldiers command had enough backbone to use their right to take this case higher until a competent leader could remove him from service? Something tells me that this dead soldiers leaders received medals for their leadership and performance while they should be investigated and brought onto the legal carpet. Unless of course this isn't wanted because it would expose too many more cases with similar results. The recruiter that recruited him, the drill sergeant that trained him, the instructor that qualified him and the unit leaders that allowed him on the plane to the Middle East....well, hats off to each of you. You have certainly raised the level of incompetence to a whole new bar. Sleep well and eat well. In the meantime, consider your options next time when another David Dietrich enters your radars. That is if you have them turned on and know how to read them.
Posted By: RetiredNCO @ 09/03/2008 1:36:13 PM
Comment: First and foremost, this story was very well written. As a retired military leader that served and was wounded and disabled in the Iraq War in 2005, this is not something new in the United States Army from my experience. Sadly, this soldier lost his life. Who fired the shot remains a question in my mind but, that is a whole other issue. My experiences while serving in my career found multiple cases where soldiers were a threat to themselves and many others in the line of their duties. This responsibility lies solely in the laps of Private Dietrichs' chain of command from his squad leader to his BN Commander. It is the daily responsibility of leaders in todays Armed Forces to see to it that the welfare and health of their soldiers are monitored and reported effectively AND immediately through the most senior leaders overseeing such said soldiers. That said, most can argue that Private Dietrich lied on his entrance exams when joining the Army. Case point here is that he was enlisting into Combat Arms and everyone knows where they end up in the battle field. Next, as a former Combat Arms soldier who served in combat training combat arms soldiers as a qualified FT Knox Instructor, not only did Private Dietrichs' leaders fail, so too did his instructors at Ft Knox and Kuwait that recertify 90% of U.S. Servicemembers before pushing north into enemy occupied Iraq.
Having a 19 Delta Qualified soldier stay behind in the rear to fill sandbags and pull meaningless details is not an acceptable form of handling a soldiers competence and capabilities when just over the wall lies the enemy. The fact that he made it through 19 Delta School at Ft Knox and then made it to a war zone is troubling and an open book for investigations by any competent law firm and all competent governments. This factual case DOES NOT PASS THE SMELL TEST at all corners and surely has the aroma of " our nation sent a mentally incompetent human being to war." Leaders at all levels are responsible for the failures and successes of the servicemembers in their chains of command period. Private Dietrichs' family needs more that a handfull of medals, and money and a flag. They need answers. Answers that far outweigh medals and money and yes, even this nations flag. Those answers needed are simply the truth because the truth far outweighs all things material.
I personally have seen the other side of mentally incompetent soldiers serving in a warzone. I know of two widows and 5 children that are without their loved one forever because leaders failed to remove such an obvious derelict. Private Dietrichs Bronze Star and Purple Heart were earned with a price that many have paid. I sense that many will continue to pay this price because of recruiting efforts that remain the toughest since the Cold War. My sincerest respects and sympathy to Private Dietrichs family and fellow soldiers.
Posted By: Ret 1SG @ 08/24/2008 9:25:54 PM
Comment: PaTriotDE - I agree with a lot of what you're saying except the part of the military only hated Clinton because of SOCOM. Served w/SOCOM, my problem was using the military as goodwill ambassadors to Samolia without adequate Intel assets, or correct TOE in case something went wrong. I went to school with Randy Shugart, and while not really close, considered him a friend. Seeing him and Gary Gordon drug thru the streets was Clinton's and Les Aspin's fault, period. He also had SEVERAL opportunities to nail Al Queda, and failed to act. He may have been a good president (I don't think so) but as CIC he was a disaster, and rates right up there with Jimmy Carter as worst CIC in the history of the US. If the Sha was still in Iran we wouldn't be having this conversation.
Also, as n96173 uses the word "military", you can bet it wasn't the Army or Marines.