Akbar Guilty
April 21st, 2005 by GoldFalcon
CNN.com - Soldier guilty of premeditated murder in deadly Kuwait grenade attack - Apr 21, 2005
I try not to relate my military experience to the experience of fighting the GWOT because they are apples and oranges. The nearly eight years I served were in a flux period that wasn’t the Cold War and wasn’t the GWOT. It was what it was and I am fiercely proud of my time served, but it wasn’t war.
That said, I have kept an eye on this story for personal reasons.
On October 27th 1995 my battalion, 4/325th, had been alerted to be the first combat unit to deploy to the former Yugoslavia. Our Task Force was set and we were doing a Task Force run (a tradition when a brigade assumes DRB -Division Ready Brigade- in the 82nd Airborne Division.) The run was set to kick off at 0600 so by 0500 we were all lined up on Deglopper Field ready to march over and join the rest of the brigade and slice elements in the Towle Stadium staging area.
We marched across Ardennes Street and down into the man-made basin that was Towle Stadium Like every other ’stadium’ on every other Army post Towle was dug into the earth with the bleachers built into the hill side. This was done, I am sure, in order to conserve costs, it’s easier to dig a hole in the ground than to build a stadium. The result was a thirty degree slope fifty meters high on three sides with a gravel parking lot and a similar wooded slope on the fourth side.
We marched through the gravel lot and over to the far right (facing Ardennes St -the main ‘drag’ through the Division area) This was 180 degrees off of the Normal line-up for Task Force runs, but it was the new Brigade commander and he wanted us to face the Division water tower and not XVIII Abn Corps headquarters. Besides, there was a nifty little speaking platform he could use if we lined up facing the bleachers instead of the parking lot.
He said his thing as a fog started to roll in. By the time he was done talking ten minutes later we couldn’t see out of the basin, largely due to the glare of the stadium floodlights on the fog.
We got the order to ‘column left’ and moved out at just a bit past 0600. As we pulled abreast of the 82nd MP’s at the opposite end of the field we were marching past our normal position. THe MP’s wore unit PT shirts that were remarkably similar to ours: Black and Gold with a circular medallion on the front, whereas ours were black and gold with a gold falcon on the front.
I am sure that to anyone looking from above it would have been nearly impossible to tell the two units apart. As soon as we started to pass the 82nd MP’s a starter pistol was heard. Someone joked ’sniper’ and laughter trickled up and down the ranks, though the starter pistol was a bit odd; I had never been in a unit run where one was used before.
At the ’sniper’ joke my First Sergeant, 1SG Rangel, looked back over his shoulder and grinned. I noticed someone taking a PT test just off the track I could just make him out because the 1SG had turned his head. There were two more shots, the guy stretching for the PT test dropped like a sack of cement and everybody started running.
It wasn’t a starter pistol.
The pace of fire became very rapid and I spotted a little staircase that led up to the Field House and bee-lined for it, hoping to get a covered position on the opposite side from the firing, which I could tell now was coming from the wooded hill above the field. I could only tell this by sound since the fog was still pretty thick inside the basin.
By the time I got to the staircase, 1SG Rangel and the CO were already behind it. I woulda bet one guy couldn’t fit behing those half-dozen cinder blocks but both of them were squeezed in there so tight it looked like a skyscraper. Of course it could looked that big because I now desperately wanted to be behind it. I could hear people screaming on my left. 1SG Rangel was screaming at me.
“Find some fucking cover Airborne!!”
“First sergeant, you’ve got the only cover!” I shot back.
I low crawled over to a group of about fifty troops that were just laying in the grass in a dark corner by a small tin shed. No cover, but it was dark so maybe he wouldn’t spot us. I snuggled up next to the concrete retaining wall -too bad I was on the wrong side of it. I heard some guys I didn’t know behind me talking:
“It’s that goddamned Kreutzer! I fuckin’ told’em !”
I looked up. They were laying on top of the retaining wall, taking advantage of about four inches of wall that was sticking up above ground level. I looked out in the direction of the fire. He had switched weapons I was sure. The report was louder, and now he had tracers. I watched several guys in 82nd MP rolling around, bloody. My buddy Julian was over there somewhere.
I started to get pissed, here this joker was shooting us up with God-only-knows-what and all I can do is lay here and wish I had something better than a Power Ranger belt (reflective belt used when PT’ing on post) to toss at this fucker. Someone was yelling for us to stay put but it was hard to not want to ‘do something’. What that something was I don’t know.
Apparently the guys behind me had similar thoughts. I recognized a couple of them now. Some musta been from Alpha, but at least two were from the Scout/Mortar platoon in my company. I heard a “let’s get this guy” and off they went “AHHHHHaaaahhh!” their howls getting smaller as they tried to flank the unseen gunman.
1SG Rangel saw them too and tried to stop anymore heroics by yelling “You guys stay the fuck down! You fucking stay right fucking there!” He used that word more than anyone else I have ever known. His admonitions were not neccessary, however, since mere seconds after they started out tracers started pouring out of the woodline and stopped the charge.
Despite this order, I have always felt guilty for not getting up and heading out with those guys, or for not rushing out into the middle of the field to cart off some wounded. It wasn’t a conscious decision, it just never even entered my mind. The 1SG said stay, I stayed. I wish I hadn’t now, but I did.
At any rate that charge must have drawn his eye in our direction because shots started ‘zzzppp’ ing over my head. I decided to try for the back of the tin shed to my left where several Lieutenants were gathered. I jumped up and dove over to it. I dunno if he saw me specifically or not, but as soon as I got there shots started punching holes through the shed. An LT said “shit” and we started crawling to any other place. I had just about made it back to my original position in the dark middle of nowhere. The ambulances were there –I could see the light flashing on the hillside–, and I noticed that the fog had lifted. Some minutes passed with no firing. There were still some guys from 82nd MP laying out there. I saw one of our medics checking an MP. I hoped it wasn’t Jules.
1SG Rangel yelled “Everybody up!!! Get back to the company area and get in formation!!” I turned and saw my buddy Giuhat making tracks up the long inclined hill behind me. I started up and for the first time I was petrified. I knew, as certainly as I have ever known anything in my life, that I was going to get shot in the back heading up that hill.
I didn’t.
I popped onto Ardennes Street and ran the 300 meters back to the company area. We got in formation. Some guys were shocked, others laughing, the stress bleeding out in all sorts of ways. They lined us up to draw weapons and ammo from the arms room, then thought better of it and fell us back in. Headcount showed we were all there, so they locked us down in the battalion area.
Turned out the shooter had been SGT William Kreutzer, and the A co soldier behind me had told ‘em. Kreutzer had told several people what he intended to do, and he had been marked as a crazy for a while. My PL used to say that Kreutzer was going to be the guy that shot up a McDonalds some day.
He had been targeting the 4th Bn and Bn. command structure. I know what he says today (that he was firing at random), but I also know that the unit that took the most casualties that day happened to be standing where we would normally be standing, wearing Unit T-Shirts remarkably similar to ours. My buddy Julian made it out OK, but a half dozen of his squadmates in 82nd MP got hit.
The 2nd Brigade S2 made it damn near to the woodline before Kreutzer killed him with a single shot to the head. Maj. Stephen Badger was worth ten of the guy who killed him. The soldier taking the PT test was a Warrant Officer who is now paralyzed. In all nineteen soldiers got hit that day, with -remarkably- one fatality. I will always say that the fog saved our asses. Well, the fog and some fella’s down the street from JFKSWCS (John F Kennedy Special Warfare Center and School, the Mecca of Special Forces). Two of the SF soldiers were injured in capturing Kreutzer.
When they convicted and sentanced Kreutzer there was a letter floating around that a lot of my unit signed requesting to serve as Kreutzer’s firing squad. I was told that a copy hung in the Bn Sergeant Major’s office until he took it down at the request of the Division SMAJ.
Of course Kreutzer’s death penalty was overturned. I doubt it’ll ever get re-instated. I hope for the sake of my brothers in the 101st that Akbar doesn’t get the same treatment.
Nothing can describe the sense of betrayal at having been a victim of one of your own.
*Update*: Looks like things have reached the sentencing phase. And, of course, Akbar is trying to avoid the death penalty, and the Left wants to help. I’m afraid he doesn’t need to fear, the Army hasn’t been in “Death Penalty” mode for a while and he’ll probably take a seat next to Kruetzer churning out prisonwidgets for the next 50 years at taxpayer expense.
Dude,
Rule number one is never bring a knife to a gun fight, in PT gear all you have is your johnson and that gun don’t apply.
That was another sad, sorry day, maybe the nuttah is being molested in prison, I mean we can hope right?
Cordially,
Uncle J
Oh rationally I know that the best thing for me to do was to sit tight, 1SG Rangel knew it too that’s why he was telling us to hold in place. But there’s still that nagging little thing that says I shoulda been up and ‘doing something’.
It’s not a huge deal, doesn’t keep me up at night, just is.
At any rate, I kinda strayed off and talked more about me than I wanted to in that one, was supposed to be more of a “I know how ya feel.” to my boys in the One-Oh-One, anybody that feels like blowing off some steam about it can do it here.
As always, thanks for your comments Uncle J.
[…] few years back I remember an Army incident where someone went nuts with a gun. Turns out this guy was there, and relates the story to offer support to the poor guys who got stuc […]
LTC Guy LoFaro (may have been a Major then), my history of revolutionary warfare professor at West Point, was the Division or Brigade duty officer (or something to that extent) the day of the shooting. He got hit that day, and was actually pronounced dead for a few minutes (I want to say it was six minutes, but my memory fails me) before they were able to revive him and he miraculously recovered (amazingly, without any permanent damage).
He told us the story in class one day and what I will never forget about him was how excited (and almost amused) he was about the ordeal– he used to almost brag that if someone wanted to kill him, they better try something besides a bullet because: “That’s been tried before, baby, and it doesn’t work!”
Bobby,
Thanks so much for stopping by. He was indeed Maj. LoFaro. I can’t remember which section he worked at Brigade (he might have even been an XO somewhere), but I do seem to remember his name and remember that he and LTC Steve Fondacaro were mentioned often in the same breath by those of us in the ranks. That is no faint praise, as I don’t know a man who served in 4/325 AIR who would not have charged hell for LTC Fondacaro. I would have done so wearing a gasoline jock. Still would. That said, LoFaro was a fishook in my brain after you said the name, I’m sure you have read this:
http://www.globalspecialoperations.com/higherlesson.html
He relates several stories, including the sniper incident. Let me tell you two things that he leaves out. 1) To get within 10 meters of the sniper he had to traverse more than 150 meters of lighted football field and parking lot under constant fire, lit by spotlights, run up a dark wooded hill and attempt to assault the improved hasty position of the sniper who was dug in and camoflauged. 2) He did this wearing PT clothes and nothing else, likely seeing the body of Maj. Badger, if not having to step over or around it. And here’s a third point: if it hadn’t been for guys like LoFaro and Badger keeping the pressure on the sniper up close, more guys like me would have been getting drilled. He just made my short list of guys that I would charge hell for. Why? Cuz he did it for me once.
I will keep Maj. Stephen Badger in my thoughts.
I thank you for defending our country.
> Akbar is trying to avoid the death penalty, and the Left wants to help.
Please clarify.
In my opinion, a country that values life cannot execute a person, even a psychotic nut job like SGT Kreutzer.
I don’t believe this because I think he deserves pity or a life behind bars at taxpayer expense or anything at all.
A nation that values life should not end one.
Peace.
[…] ng my chickens until they are lethally injected, but kudos to the jury for voting death. Click here for my thoughts on the whole matter This entry was […]
[…] . And it was drilled home in one speech, and one cadence. My unit had just been through a particularly bad experience and a hero of mine, Lt Col Fondacaro, had called us all […]
was there when kreutzer went ape shit ! I was in A co. alpaholics 2nd plt. 4/325 and 3/325 . he was in 1st plt. the guy was also the key nco for our rooms. the chain of command knew they had a problem to ! they had a problem with him in the eygpt. he wrote a op order to kill the co and 1sgt.
that morning of the insident he was called out of ranks but his plt sgt. said screw him after his men in his plt. told him what kreutzer was planning and that kreutzer called the nite before and told some of the guys not to go to formation or the brigade run.
A great story and i’m surprised that my buddy still remembers that morning so vividly!
I appreciate the story given in detail. I was never told that my dad was shot while he was trying to find and stop the shooter. I am Maj Badger’s oldest daughter and I am looking for more information about what happened, now that the Army fucked up the trial I have to relive all this shit over again. If anyone has any more information I would appreciate it.