http://wvgazette.com/News/soldiers/200807150441
July 16, 2008
MIDLAND, TEXAS -- Pvt. 1st Class Steven D. Green, accused of raping a
14-year-old Iraqi girl and murdering her family, entered the Army
with a criminal record for minor offenses that included possession of
drug paraphernalia.
By McClatchy Newspapers
MIDLAND, TEXAS -- Pvt. 1st Class Steven D. Green, accused of raping a
14-year-old Iraqi girl and murdering her family, entered the Army
with a criminal record for minor offenses that included possession of
drug paraphernalia.
But a yearlong examination by The Sacramento Bee found that Green's
court record was not the worst among former and current Midland
residents applying for the military since the Iraq war began, and
he's not the only one to later be charged with committing offenses in
the military.
Unlike other courts approached by The Bee, the Midland Municipal
Court retained records of all military requests for searches --
requests that are routine when someone applies to join the military.
Those records provide a rare look at a microcosm of the more than
250,000 applicants for military service every year.
Of the 534 former and current Midland residents who applied to serve
between January 2003 and July 2007, The Bee found, 150 had histories
ranging from theft, traffic or alcohol offenses and failure to appear
in court to more serious offenses such as sexual assault. Of those
150, at least 50 entered the military. Others were offered positions
but did not enlist.
Among those who enlisted was a man with a history of inpatient
treatment for mental illness and others with records of drug
possession, assault, theft and illegally carrying weapons. At least
10 had outstanding charges, fines or sentences when they applied for
military service.
When Green applied for the Army in 2005, a court record noted that he
owed outstanding fines and "must contact court immediately." The
following year in Iraq, Green drank before going to a house he'd
previously visited, where he emerged from a room to tell fellow
soldiers, "I just killed them. All are dead," according to an
affidavit from an FBI agent.
Green was discharged from the Army "due to a personality disorder,"
the affidavit says. He subsequently was charged by a federal court in
Kentucky with murdering and sexually assaulting Abeer Kassem Hamza
Al-Janabi and killing her parents and sibling.
Two months ago, Green's attorneys notified prosecutors that they may
use insanity as a defense.
Texas produces more military recruits than any other state, and
Midland is as patriotic as a city can be, proud to be the childhood
home of President Bush. Midland, with a population slightly over
80,000, hosts an annual dinner to honor wounded war veterans from
across the country, and people in military uniforms frequently find
their restaurant tabs picked up by strangers.
"I go to pay my bill, and it's paid," said Sgt. 1st Class Shawn L.
Miller, station commander for the local Army recruiting office.
Still, Midland presents unique recruiting challenges. Well-paying,
entry-level oil field jobs are plentiful, so much so that the local
sheriff has trouble finding deputies for positions paying about $30,000.
And despite its patriotism and military foundation, the city is not
immune to the obstacles faced by recruiting offices everywhere as the
Iraq war continues. In the three-day period The Bee visited Midland,
another 10 Americans were reported killed in Iraq.
At the beginning of the war, Miller said, he needed a revolving door
to handle the seemingly endless line of applicants to the Army
recruiting station. These days, his job is much harder.
"It's been pretty challenging," he said.
More than 100 of the 150 Midland applicants identified by The Bee
with court and criminal records had drug or alcohol charges _ or both
_ and at least 35 were accepted anyway.
The Marine Corps Recruiting Information Support System-Recruiting
Station database shows that 64 Midland recruits applying between 2003
and 2007 required one or more waivers and that the largest number of
waivers, 43, were for marijuana use.
In 2001, Jonathan Lane Savage, 18, was arrested on a charge of being
a minor with alcohol. Eight months later, a Midland officer pulled
Savage over and found 13 bags of marijuana and two packages of
rolling papers inside a yellow cigar box in his car. He was found
guilty of misdemeanor marijuana possession.
Three years later, after being charged with failing to complete
community service and failing to appear in Midland court, Savage
surfaced in Enid, Okla., where security guards found him sleeping
near the entrance to a long-term care hospital just after 3 a.m.
"I detected a strong odor of an intoxicating beverage," an Enid
police officer wrote. "I also observed Jonathan to have bloodshot,
watery eyes, slurred speech and very unsteady balance."
Less than three months later, in August 2005, Enid officers were
dispatched to a Wal-Mart to investigate a report of two men near
collapse from intoxication. Savage was cited a second time on a
charge of public intoxication.
Three months later, the Army processed his application and it was accepted.
Following a 15-month tour in Iraq, Savage is stationed at Fort Bragg,
N.C. He told The Bee he joined the Army to help pay off his student
loans. He said he received a $15,000 signing bonus for joining and
required waivers for his criminal history.
He attributed his record to partying as a young man.
"All I did was smoke a little pot," he said.
At the Marine Corps office, a recruiter introduced Eduardo Cardenas,
who was flopped on a couch in front of a television. Cardenas had
been hanging around the office since his junior year in high school.
"I wanted to be a Marine since I was 7," said Cardenas, 18, who had
become a father a month earlier. "You can be part of a brotherhood."
Cardenas worked for a local recycling company after graduating from
Midland High School in 2007. A visit to the county courthouse
downtown revealed Cardenas' other activities since high school.
Five months earlier, Midland police responded to a report about two
men dressed in black T-shirts and camouflage pants pulling on vehicle
door handles and then running across a street. Officers said they
found Cardenas trying to hide a dagger behind a tree as they
approached, and both men had electrical tape on their fingertips,
apparently to disguise their fingerprints.
The other man, wearing a knife in a sheath on his hip, was carrying
marijuana and an iPod reported stolen from a Ford Explorer, and the
driver of another car told officers someone had just taken stereo
equipment out of her Mazda.
Cardenas was charged with two counts of misdemeanor vehicle burglary
and one count of unlawfully carrying a weapon. He was convicted of
reduced charges of disorderly conduct and paid $449 in fines and court costs.
The Bee called the recruiting office in March to find out what had
happened to Cardenas' military dreams.
"He's in boot camp in San Diego," a recruiter said.
The Marine Corps worked to waive Ethan Duncan Arguello's criminal
history even before it had it all.
"I have been working on getting this waiver together," says a 2003
letter received by the Midland Municipal Court from a Marine
sergeant, requesting court records on Arguello. "The information we
are requesting will be used to submit for a waiver for Ethan to
enlist in the United States Marine Corps."
He had eight traffic citations dating back to when he was 16, but his
record of more serious offenses began on Sept. 20, 2001, when a
Midland officer saw a white Chevrolet pickup abruptly swerve to
another lane, then back without signaling. Arguello, then 18, was
charged with consumption of alcohol by a minor. Seven months later,
another Midland officer stopped a Mazda Miata speeding through a
residential neighborhood.
"I contacted the driver, and I was overwhelmed by the odor of
marijuana coming from him," the officer wrote in a report.
Arguello was convicted of possession of drug paraphernalia, and a
Texas judge denied his request for a new trial, citing rolling papers
found near the driver's seat. Another judge denied his request to
expunge the drug conviction from his record.
Fourteen months after the drug arrest and hundreds of miles away,
Austin police officers observed two vehicles moving suspiciously
through an apartment complex parking lot, appearing to be part of a
"narcotics transaction." Officer Sandra Benningfield decided to move
in after noticing the driver of one of the vehicles, later identified
as Arguello, was bending down.
"As I was walking up to the vehicle, I observed a clear plastic
baggie containing green leafy substance on the driver's floor board,"
she wrote.
The officers arrested Arguello on charges of marijuana possession.
Four months later, the Marines processed his application. He is
stationed at Twentynine Palms, Calif., having served two tours in Iraq.
Arguello was among at least 16 Midland applicants with criminal
records in other courts, but there likely were many more. The Bee
checked the histories of fewer than 40 of the 534 Midland applicants'
names in other jurisdictions.
Darwin D. Cavil's record in Midland Municipal Court indicated he had
eight traffic citations.
But that was only a small part of his full court record.
Cavil, 32 when he entered the Texas National Guard in 2003, said
during an interview that he was kicked out of the Navy in 1991 for
being a discipline problem -- once for falling asleep on duty --
after serving less than two years. Cavil blamed part of his Navy
troubles on racial discrimination by a commanding officer.
In 1992, a woman in neighboring Ector County accused him of punching
her in the face. He was found guilty. The following year, he was
found guilty again, this time of carrying a pistol. A year later, he
was charged with evading officers after he fled from a vehicle that
contained alcohol and at least one juvenile girl. Then he was found
guilty of unlawfully carrying a 9 mm Luger pistol after a couple
complained that a group of men had tried to break into their house.
"One put his foot in the door, and I pushed him as hard as I could,"
Sally Borens told The Bee, adding that she watched through the window
as one of them smashed the windshield on her husband's vehicle. "I
was hollering and screaming for my husband."
Cavil told The Bee that he tried to force his way past Borens on
behalf of an acquaintance who wanted to "settle a score" with her
husband. Cavil said the woman he punched had punched him first, and
he blamed the evading charge on a police officer who used a racial slur.
In 2002, the mother of Cavil's children accused him of beating her
and of threatening to kill her on "several occasions."
"I feel that he will come after me if he finds me, and he will kill
me," she wrote in an affidavit filed in Ector County.
Cavil said he tried to join the Marine Corps and Army prior to the
Iraq war but was rejected. After the war started, he said, recruiters
seemed to have no problem with his criminal record.
"He [the recruiter] said as long as you don't have any felonies,"
Cavil said, adding that he required a waiver for his discharge from
the Navy but didn't recall if he required one for his criminal
record. The recruiter, Cavil said, told him: "I've seen a lot worse."
Military studies indicate that recruits with questionable
qualifications -- including those with criminal records -- are more
likely to leave before their enlistment is up, and at least three
Midland recruits with criminal records who were part of The Bee
examination were discharged early.
Between 1998 and 2003, when Alexander Michael Bird entered the Army,
he was charged with seven offenses in Midland, including drunken
driving as a minor and other traffic offenses. After he failed to
attend court-ordered alcohol sessions and perform community service,
he lost his driver's license.
Seven months after Bird entered boot camp, he was discharged. Bird
told The Bee he had required a waiver to enter the military because
of his record, but was kicked out for medical reasons: He had
concealed his diabetes, which was discovered when he was caught
hiding insulin in his socks.
Robert Christopher-Eugene Brown was sent home after only a month in
Marine Corps boot camp in Southern California.
Yet a year before the Marine Corps had submitted the first of six
requests for a records check on Brown, Midland police officers,
concerned he was suicidal, confronted him for the second time in one day.
"He continually made excuses for his suicidal statements," an officer
wrote in a court affidavit. The officer decided to commit him "to
prevent Brown from doing harm to himself."
While searching Brown, the officer said, he found marijuana in his
pocket, and Brown later was convicted of drug possession. The
previous year, Brown, who also had a history of traffic citations,
pleaded no contest to possessing drug paraphernalia. Two years before
that he was charged with drunken driving.
"I liked to smoke pot," Brown said during an interview. "That's the
trouble I got into."
Brown said the alleged suicidal incident was caused by a painful
breakup with his girlfriend. A separate mental health problem, he
said, got him kicked out of the Marines.
"I was treated for bipolar disorder when I was a teenager," Brown
said, explaining that he was an inpatient during at least part of
that treatment. "I was about 13. I think I was treated for about a month."
A recruiter encouraged him not to include his mental history on his
application, he said, and no one would have found out had he not
gotten pneumonia and collapsed at boot camp. Medical personnel who
rushed to check his medical history, found the record of his previous
mental problems.
"They came across it by accident," said Brown, who now drives a truck
in Midland.
Had he not gotten pneumonia, Brown said, "I'd be in Iraq right now."
The same year 21-year-old Devon Earl Karle applied for the Marine
Corps, the Texas Department of Public Safety published a new photo of
him on its sex offender registry, linking him to the aggravated
sexual assault of an 8-year-old girl when Karle was about 12 or 13.
Of the 150 applicants identified by The Bee with court and other
criminal histories, 100, like Karle, did not enter the military for
various reasons.
Christopher S. Langley said the Marine Corps refused to grant him a
waiver for his drug arrests, but the Army accepted him, sending him
via bus hundreds of miles to a processing station. Later he was
disqualified because of high blood pressure, he said, and when he
reapplied in better health, Army recruiters told him they had lost
his paperwork and refused to grant him a waiver for his criminal record.
Douglas E. Bowling's record included a charge of family violence.
"We got into a spat. It wasn't a big deal at all. The cops were
called because he hit me," said his wife, Jennifer Bowling. "He
applied right after he got out of jail."
"He [also] had two DWIs on his record, and the military said he
wasn't eligible. He just gave up."
Several were offered jobs but declined to enlist.
Jimmy J. Pearson's record included family violence, possession of
alcohol and drunken driving, but he said it was his bad ear that the
Army was most concerned with, telling him he'd require a 45-minute
procedure to correct it.
"I had a lot of arrests," Pearson said, adding that he also was
charged with assault at 16. "They were telling me that they had
people getting in with a lot worse records. They didn't seem
concerned with my background at all."
He gave up, Pearson said, after the Army claimed it lost his file
when his recruiter was transferred.
Of the more than 30 people the Army checked through the Midland
Municipal Court who did not enlist, at least two were allowed to sign
contracts but dropped out, and the others were disqualified for
excessive weight, medical issues or criminal histories, an Army
spokesman said. The Army found no records on seven, and The Bee found
others who apparently turned down military job offers.
Being rejected by one service doesn't mean another will do the same.
After being kicked out of the Marines for reasons he wouldn't
disclose, Michael James Pinkerton applied repeatedly to get back in.
When that didn't work he tried the Navy.
Then, the Army.
Pinkerton, the son of a Midland County sheriff's deputy, had joined
the Marines at 17 and headed to boot camp near San Diego, but he
didn't stay long.
"They sent me home," Pinkerton said. "It was something I did on my
own before I showed [up in California], and they found out about it
when I was there.
"The Marines told me they consider what I had done a bad mark on my integrity."
Though Pinkerton wouldn't elaborate, he acknowledged that he was
arrested on an unrelated juvenile felony charge for unlawfully
carrying a weapon, a Chinese sword, to school. He said the sword was
in his car from a martial arts contest.
Pinkerton insisted that was the only time he'd been arrested for
carrying a weapon, but the Marine Corps request about him to the
Midland Municipal Court indicated another arrest in May 1997 on
misdemeanor charges of possessing nunchuck fighting sticks and drug
paraphernalia.
After leaving the Marines, Pinkerton said, he worked as an
exterminator, a juvenile detention officer and a landscaper.
"I was still lost, hadn't found my way yet," he said. He made several
attempts to return to the Marines, he said, "and I went to the Navy.
The Navy was like: If the Marines won't take you, we're not going to take you."
Feeling a strong sense of patriotism when the Iraq war started, and
wanting to support his new wife and 6-month-old son, Pinkerton said
he applied to the Army, which accepted him. The Army gave him a
signing bonus of about $20,000, he said, and sent him to Iraq for 14
months as a machine gunner.
Pinkerton, now 29, said the Army has helped him pay off bills and
save money, but the long deployments have put a strain on his family.
"I've paid the price for my mistakes," Pinkerton said, explaining why
he was reluctant to disclose his full criminal history. "There's no
reason for me to go digging them up."
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