That's quite a claim since you have to beat out Jeffrey Daumer, Ted Kozinski, Timothy McVeigh and a whole range of sordid serial killers over our long national history. My candidate is Pfc. Steven D. Green. He has not been tried, much less convicted, so all of my comments are based on allegations yet to be proven, even though there is considerable corroboration of the facts from eye witnesses and collaborators.
Heres what happened, from an article in the San Diego Union Tribune.
On March 12, 2006, Iraqi police reported a break-in at the home of a family in Mahmudiya, about 20 miles from Baghdad. The intruders shot and killed the father, mother and two young daughters. The older girl, 14-year-old Abeer Qassim al-Janabi, was raped and her body set afire.
The Army believes Green and four other soldiers are responsible. One of them has confessed and provided information to prosecutors; in testimony at his court-martial, the soldier identified Green as the ringleader.
Loathsome, reprehensible, yet if I were on the jury I would be torn over my decision.
Continued:
As soon as this case surfaced it was reported that Pvt. Green had "personality problems that lead to his discharge unrelated to the alleged crime." Only now is the specificity of these problems being made public:
January 10, 2007
FORT CAMPBELL, Ky. – An Army private charged with the slaughter of an Iraqi family was diagnosed as a homicidal threat by a military mental health team three months before the attack.
Pfc. Steven D. Green was found to have "homicidal ideations" after seeking help from an Army Combat Stress Team in Iraq on Dec. 21, 2005. Green said he was angry about the war, desperate to avenge the death of comrades and driven to kill Iraqi citizens, according to an investigation by The Associated Press.
So who is the most culpable here? The individual who commits an atrocity, or a system that when hearing of his uncontrollable urges, responded, not by giving him help, but by leaving him in a setting where he could act on these impulses. I've never been in a combat zone. I've never had a gun fired at me in anger. But I have been mugged, many many decades ago. I remember for weeks afterward, whenever anyone would walk up behind me, even in broad daylight on a city street, I would react like like I was being attacked, swiveling defensively to protect myself--- from what usually was a shocked and surprised stroller.
I really can't imagine what it could do to someone to face sudden random death on a regular basis; to see friends blown to bits right next to you. Danger is all around, from an entire people. There can be no discrimination when you don't even speak the language or understand the subtle clues that separate friend from foe. This experience transforms even those of us with healthy psyches, so what does it do to a Pvt. Green. Just how much pain must he have felt to have acknowledged his failings, that he was not up to the challenge. What was the cost of appearing less than a man among his fellow soldiers and those whom he would be spending the rest of his life?
But it didn't matter to those who made the decision to send him back to patrolling the streets, bolstered by his similarly traumatized buddies and his rapid fire rifle. Perhaps "homicidal ideation," rather than being an exclusionary personality criteria, is a necessary component of those who are willing to do what those fighting in Iraq must do.
Perhaps a degree of distorted thinking is a characteristic of those who join our volunteer military, only to be exacerbated by their experience. This may explain how a recent Zogby poll showed that among the military serving in Iraq an amazing 85% said the U.S. mission is mainly "to retaliate for Saddam’s role in the 9-11 attacks." So Private Green may not have been so far from the norm to have been singled out for immediate removal from combat.
We are about to increase the numbers of combat troops in this cauldron of violence that is barely understood by those who fire the weapons and feel the sting of death. Will there be more Private Greens among these new recruits? As the probability of maiming or death increases will we have to ignore more personality quirks such as his to fill the larger quota?
The answer, and its inevitable tragic consequences, is all too clear.