July 27, 2023 • 41 mins
Episode 6 of THE WAR WITHIN probes the controversial subjects of Traumatic Brain Injury and PTSD in the Armed Forces, in determining whether Staff Sergeant Bales was fit to deploy to a warzone for the fourth time. It also continues to follow up on the question of whether Bales' victims were associated with the Taliban insurgency.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
We haven't been vocal.
Speaker 2 (00:04):
We haven't said how can America, how can they release
the guys from Guantanamo Bay who have committed the same crimes,
if not worse, placing them back in the same environment
that they committed their crimes in.
Speaker 3 (00:25):
Since the start of the US Afghan War, roughly seven
hundred and eighty alleged war criminals have been held at
the American military prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Today, the
number of detainees is just below fifty. Meanwhile, back Stateside,
staff Sergeant Robert Bales is currently serving a life sentence
without parole.
Speaker 2 (00:46):
The part about the Gitmo that bothers me so much
is the legality versus the morality or the logic of it. Right,
so we legally there is an argument that these people
are being detained without trial. I understand that argument, and
I understand that I've had a trial. But what you're
saying is these people in Guantanamo Bay are innocent. That's
(01:09):
not the case. These are the worst people that we
detained over a fifteen year period that ended up in GITMO.
And I could sit in prison forever if we'd have
left the Guantanamo Bay. Guys stay down there because I
can understand. Look, that's justice. They're doing their time, but
you let them go. So now that you've let them go,
(01:30):
let us go. Give us the same damn clemency. Give
us the same opportunity of having a life outside of
here that you've already given the terrorists.
Speaker 3 (01:43):
Previously, on the War Within, staff Sergeant Robert Bales told
the military court his rampage was premeditated and without justification.
Speaker 2 (01:51):
In high school's cabinet, the football team, you take lots
of hits.
Speaker 1 (01:55):
Bob wanted to make sure everyone was protected. It's a
guerrilla war. How do you know who you're talking with?
Speaker 2 (02:00):
Haji Wazir, He's the gentleman with the Taliban fighter tattoo.
These are not innocent people to begin with.
Speaker 1 (02:07):
We have the.
Speaker 4 (02:07):
Evidence some of the Afghan witnesses left their fingerprints on
bomb parts.
Speaker 1 (02:12):
They took up to Disneyland.
Speaker 3 (02:14):
For God's sake, I'm Mike McGinnis. This is the War
within the Robert Bayles story. In the last episode, Robert
Bales and John Maher walked us through their belief that
(02:34):
some of Bales's victims were members of the Taliban in
their minds. This information completely changes the context of his case.
We also showed the Afghan families themselves passionately refuting these
Taliban connections. Many of the people we interviewed were not
convinced that the Afghans were guilty of anything. One of
(02:55):
their strongest defenders was Bales's prosecutor, Lieutenant Colonel J. Morse.
Speaker 5 (03:01):
We had the State Department, we had the Department of Defense,
we had the FBI, all on searches, and we found
no evidence that any of these guys were Taliban. I
mean they were literally all farmers. There was no evidence, literally,
not a single piece of evidence. There was nothing in
any of these houses that could be construed as even
having them be Taliban sympathizers. Bales was walking around for
(03:22):
five hours like shooting people. He wasn't opposed once. I
mean he literally was walking on open roads and nobody
confronted him once.
Speaker 3 (03:33):
Bailes was working with the same intel as everybody else.
Special Forces Captain Danny Fields, the commanding officer at the base,
doesn't think that this information was strong enough could draw
any conclusions.
Speaker 6 (03:45):
I think that's a convenient truth that helps fit that
narrative for him. But we being the team actually gathering
the intel on the ground. You know, I don't think
we had any specific intelligence that definitively said that any
of the people that he killed was a Taliban target.
We had some theories and assumptions at best. There was
(04:07):
no piece of evidence, even collectively, that we could gather
and say, hey, we should target this compound.
Speaker 5 (04:14):
I mean, even if.
Speaker 6 (04:15):
We gather all the intelligence, we couldn't have probably fit
that puzzle together.
Speaker 3 (04:19):
Fields and more spoth say variations of the same thing.
There was no evidence, but Baiales and his attorney John
Maher have pointed out specific pieces of evidence which to
then indicate Taliban connections and American collusion in covering them up.
Speaker 4 (04:35):
The United States, in my assessment, has had this position
where every Afghan is innocent, and I don't believe that
is in tune with what we know with our intelligence.
You can be a village eldern you can also be
a jihadist. They're not exclusive. And the whole idea in
(04:57):
these cases that I've handled in in variably the United
States has to biometric evidence, and it's in the register.
Speaker 7 (05:05):
Biometrics are the most basic understanding that all of us
have of It is like fingerprints, facial images, iris, scans
and DNA. Those are all your body metrics.
Speaker 3 (05:19):
American journalist Annie Jacobsen researched biometrics extensively for her book,
First Platoon and the Process. She learned that it was
actually quite common for Afghans, Taliban or otherwise to have
their DNA enrolled in what is called the bats and
Hides system.
Speaker 7 (05:36):
The goal of the United States Defense Department was to
create a massive biometric catalog of eighty five percent of
the population of Afghanistan. Everyone in there was either a
good guy or a bad guy in air quotes right.
The conceit of the Defense Department was, if we know
who everyone is, and we have a platoon out there
walking into a dangerous area, and some one comes across
(06:01):
our path and we want to make sure he doesn't
kill us, let's stop him, take his IRIS scans, and
have this small machine tell us whether he's friend or Oh,
how much can go wrong within that system? We can
talk about that for powers.
Speaker 3 (06:22):
Jacobson is a vocal critic of relying on biometric evidence
during wartime. She considers the methodology to be imprecise.
Speaker 7 (06:31):
Biometric systems are significant and powerful in a country whereby
rule of law and a justice system is working in
a democratic manner, and biometric systems. In a country like Afghanistan,
where there is no state, it's just simply anarchy. It's
(06:53):
impossible to even begin to try and use science and
technology tools to promote justice because the very fundamentals of
justice don't exist.
Speaker 3 (07:08):
Ever.
Speaker 7 (07:08):
See an FBI crime scene, you know that yellow tape,
you know, all the scientists with gloves. Why because they
must preserve the evidence.
Speaker 2 (07:19):
So the very idea that you could be.
Speaker 7 (07:20):
Running around a warth here being shot at and also
trying to use these tools that are fundamentally based in
preserving a crime scene, it just opens the door for
so many problems.
Speaker 3 (07:35):
I mean, Andy, Like just from my own personal experience,
you know, we had a guy blow himself up with
an ID and they told us just to go out
and get a finger. You know that only had like
half the tip left, and that's what they ran through
bats and hides, right, And.
Speaker 7 (07:48):
I hate to be so graphic, but how do you
know that's the finger of the guy who blew himself up?
What if it's the finger of a nearby farmer who
got caught in the crossfire.
Speaker 3 (08:00):
More, even if the biometric information is gathered properly, it
might be used incorrectly later on, especially when dealing with
common names.
Speaker 7 (08:09):
In every culture, there are names that are incredibly similar
John Smith, right if you use the example of John Smith.
If I take the biometrics of John Smith, and we
know who he is at a cellular level, and we
just say, okay, John Smith stand right there, and you
have another individual across the country whose name happens to
(08:32):
be John Smith. When you have crafty defense attorneys, it's
a bit like you know the old games at the carnivals,
where someone's moving the cups of the ball underneath. They're
just simply moving John Smith number one to John Smith
number two and calling them john Smith.
Speaker 3 (08:48):
Consider that premise of names intentionally or accidentally being switched around.
As Robert Bales reads a biometric report he obtained on Rofiula,
a villager of Alakosi who served as a weakness in
the trial whose voice you've heard in this podcast, Rafiula
doesn't have.
Speaker 1 (09:05):
A last name.
Speaker 2 (09:07):
Rafiuola was enrolled in the biometrics system on nine March,
when number Bravo to Juliet Kilo mic Hotell eighty three.
An idea even occurred on twenty eight October in Panduak.
The idea event has references twelve thirty five thirty eight
The Army Master Rafula this event four days after his
enrollment thirteen March. But you were bringing him into the
(09:28):
country to testify against me.
Speaker 7 (09:31):
Well, you always have to take people on a case
by case basis. But the challenge with biometrics is that
most people in the Western world, they have been educated
to perceive science and technology as impeccable, as flawless, even
(09:54):
many people have watched too many episodes of CSI.
Speaker 3 (10:00):
Asked Attorney John Maher about Annie Jacobson's work and inquired
about just how conclusive his allegations against the Afghan villagers
could be given the possible limitations of the bats and
hide system.
Speaker 4 (10:12):
Detractors are not off putting to me at all. Detractors
I don't think understand biometrics. I read Annie Jacobson's book,
I gave her interviews, and she just came out with
what she believes the story should be. Now, she may
have found misspellings or last names incorrectly, but you know what,
I believe that's one person. And I sat with her
(10:35):
and I disagreed. I said, Annie, I don't think you
have an understanding of this. One of the things I
don't think any may have fully and intellectually flexibly embraced
was this technology. It's as simple as fingerprints.
Speaker 3 (10:51):
And blood and skin. That's all it is. Robert Bayles
and John Mayer had more to their case than just
the bats and hides data. Baals also pulled one hundred
and sixty pounds VIDs out of Haiji Mohammad Wazir's home,
a major reason why Bales targeted Wazir. On March eleventh,
(11:13):
twenty twelve, Your wife Satal, an Afghan journalist working in
concert with our production, uncovered the following information when he
interviewed a villager from Ala Kozai, Haji Mohammed Naim.
Speaker 8 (11:26):
No Tlulu, most of us had enemies in our villages.
One of Haji Wazir's farmers placed a mine under a
mulberry tree.
Speaker 3 (11:37):
Presumably that's the same mind that blew off an American
soldier's leg several days before the attack.
Speaker 8 (11:46):
These enemies told the American forces that it was actually
Haji Wazir's son who planted the mine.
Speaker 9 (11:54):
So these enemies were giving false reports to the Americans.
Speaker 8 (11:58):
Yes, they gave the American forces the wrong person. After that,
the American troops attacked our villages. Now eleven people from
Hadji Wazir's family have been martyred. He no longer has
young sons.
Speaker 3 (12:16):
According to Naim, the insinuation is this Baals used incomplete
information to deduce that Wazir was working with the enemy.
There might have been bombs in Wazir's house, but they
didn't belong to him. However, Wazir is also notable for
supposedly having a Taliban tattoo on his hand, another important
piece of evidence. Here's Lieutenant Colonel Moorese on that point.
Speaker 5 (12:40):
The last guy with the hand tattoo. This is the
guy who had over ten of his family members were murdered.
He had three or four tattoos on his hands, and
we asked about him. There was no evidence. Again, we
did our research. We worked with both the FBI and
the State Department, and nobody had any problems with that
guy's tattoos.
Speaker 3 (12:59):
Morse also had as an explanation for what another potentially
suspicious Afghan, Mulla Baran, might have been doing to land
himself in a detention center in Parwan.
Speaker 5 (13:09):
One of the witnesses was held up in customs in
the US because he came through as having spent a
day in one of the prisons in Afghanistan, and he
had been brought in with about sixty other people because
they were harvesting one of the poppy fields, and so
he spent a day in there and left. That was it.
Speaker 3 (13:30):
If Afghan civilians like Mulla Baran and Hadji Wazir were Taliban,
then flying them to the United States on commercial airlines
to testify against an American soldier is a decision that
can certainly be scrutinized.
Speaker 4 (13:46):
If people knew that the Taliban was sitting in an
American courtroom, or terrorists or you know, jihadis or bomb makers,
I think that they might have had a little bit
of a different view of the prosecution. How dare you
flew Herman Goring into an America courtroom? I don't think
we played like that.
Speaker 3 (14:03):
But if the Afghans are telling the truth and these
supposed Taliban ties aren't legit, then their travel itinerary becomes
somewhat of a non issue. We broached that subject with Morse.
The Afghans they flew commercial correct.
Speaker 5 (14:17):
Oh yeah, we flew commercial the whole way.
Speaker 3 (14:19):
Were they able to travel around the United States, And
like one report had them going to like disney World
or SeaWorld or something like that while they were here.
Speaker 5 (14:26):
So the Disney World issue was when we had the
youngest girl who was injured shot in the head. I
thought she was going to die. She went to San
Diego Naval Hospital. One of the times she was there,
someone escorted her and her father to I don't think
it was Disneyland. I think it was one of the
(14:47):
other parks down there. It wasn't US, and it wasn't
the government. They paid for it with their own money.
But the only reason anyone knows that is because I
had our team disclose it to make sure that the
defense knew that this had happened.
Speaker 3 (15:00):
Morest vehemently denies the implication that any of the victims
who he brought to the United States were allied with
the enemy, but it's hard to blame Bales for asking
the question. In a place like Panjue, parsing the difference
between friend and foe was a challenge, As Private James
Alexander explained in Episode one, the soldiers at VSP Bellumbai
(15:20):
had troubled tracking the complicated allegiances many villagers. Back in
twenty twelve, the.
Speaker 10 (15:26):
Guy that lived near us was called peg leg Right,
And for the longest time, we're thinking this guy is
like a friendly dude, and come to find out he
actually was like giving information to the Taliban. We hired
workers onto our base to help build stairs.
Speaker 1 (15:41):
Two brothers.
Speaker 10 (15:42):
Turns out they were Taliban, right, and so it's like
it's like, Okay, these dudes are all around us and
we can't even figure out who is right who is wrong.
Speaker 3 (15:53):
It is conceivable that a Taliban operative was among those
killed on March eleventh, twenty twelve, but the women children,
at least they were innocent. There was no clear military
reason for them to die.
Speaker 5 (16:07):
If any of these guys were Taliban, it wouldn't be
relevant to me, and it wouldn't be relevant to the
law or the case either. Even if somebody came back
later and said, Hey, actually this guy was Taliban or
this guy's uncle or brother or whatever it was Taliban,
I would still say that that has nothing to do
with Bail's actions. That presents no viable defense.
Speaker 3 (16:26):
Curdisgrace has experienced fighting in Panshwe he agrees with Morse.
Speaker 11 (16:31):
That changes nothing for me. These are non combatants, They're unarmed,
they're not presently engaged with you. You went, you hunted
them down.
Speaker 1 (16:37):
And you shot them.
Speaker 11 (16:38):
Bobby Bails didn't have the power and decision making authority
to put bullets in their heads.
Speaker 3 (16:43):
In the US military, the chain of command is sacred.
In our interview with John Mayer, when it Bails's fiercest advocates,
we asked whether Baals even had the authority to take
on this self imposed mission. Let's say, at among the
victims there were Taliban members, there were bomb makers. Bales
(17:06):
would still have to get you know, I had to
call an approval for fires. You know, as a weapon
squad leader, Bals would have to do the same thing.
So why is that a sticking point or why is
that something you kind of bring up is that they
had these connections. But even though he still kind of
went around, you know, that approval to engage the enemy like.
Speaker 4 (17:25):
That, I think it's fine question. Even though they might
be Tailorman, they're sleeping in their house, Bales was went
out with guns and AMMO, and the killings arguably were
not justified killings, were murders.
Speaker 3 (17:40):
Bales and Marr want the public to know about the
possible links between the victims and the Taliban. However, when
it comes to getting a new trial, it can't be
at the core of their legal defense. Mar said it
himself the killings were murders. As a result, the defense
attorneys determined to shift the focus to Robert Bales's brain.
Speaker 4 (18:02):
Where the justification comes in is this, Bales was in
one of the houses and a kid came from behind
a door and smashed him in the head with a shovel.
Bales was nonplus, just turn around, shot him in the face. Now,
you're tough guy, Mike, I know that. And Bales is
too taking a blow to the head you know, a shovel.
I mean, are you really in your right mind? Bales
(18:26):
would very much like us to candidly proceed with the
war crime stuff rather than the mental health stuff, because
that's his sense of ego, of identity. He is not
the guy who's going to be looking to be characterized
or portrayed as a.
Speaker 3 (18:43):
Victim traumatic brain injury TBI. It's a common diagnosis for
soldiers who have seen combat. We spoke to the directors
of Bringing Injury Research and Medicine from Mount Sinai Hospital
in New York City. To learn more about these pervasive
injuries that are plaguing US military veterans, here doctors Miguel
(19:05):
Escalonne and Kristen Damse O'Connor.
Speaker 9 (19:08):
A traumatic brain injury can happen when there is an
external force to the head, face, or neck that results
in either a loss of consciousness or an alteration and
mental status.
Speaker 12 (19:25):
It could be from me falling and hitting my head.
It could be from somebody punching me. It could be
from a projectile that would be like a bullet or
a knife. Basically anything outside of my body. Any force
that causes my brain to get bruised directly or punctured
or jostled around in my head would be a traumatic
brain injury.
Speaker 9 (19:45):
Some of the acute symptoms that could be noticeable after
a traumatic brain injury can include things like disorientation, confusion,
changes with vision, difficulty with.
Speaker 12 (20:00):
Balance, trouble sleeping, memory, agitation, maybe nightmares. Patients have dysregulation
and mood. They might snap at people and do things
like that that are out of the ordinary.
Speaker 9 (20:13):
And it's the milder injuries that pose much greater challenge
to clinicians attempting to diagnose them.
Speaker 3 (20:21):
TBIs often go unrecognized and untreated in the military because,
unlike with external injuries, it's extremely hard to tell when
you've gotten more. As doctor Escalone explains.
Speaker 12 (20:34):
I call it an invisible disability. If I said somebody
took a baseball bat to your knee, and then I said, well,
guess what, your knee's not going to work. You're gonna
lamp and it's going to be pained the rest of
your life, you'd say, Okay, that makes sense. But if
I say the same about a brain injury, it doesn't
compute the same way, but it's the same idea. You know,
like your brain just can't. It's not built to take
(20:56):
that kind of punishment.
Speaker 3 (21:00):
The doctors from Mount Sinai have never met Bails, Even so,
their experience suggests that his brain have spent a lifetime
taking serious punishment. After all, long before the staff sergeant
enlisted in the Armed Forces, he spent much of his
childhood playing tackle football.
Speaker 9 (21:16):
There is research to suggest that, especially if a person
starts playing full contact football early in life, that the
risk for later life functional decline is greater. Football tends
to involve repetitive exposure to head trauma, and even when
(21:37):
those repetitive hits to the head never result in a
clinically diagnosed concussion, the risk for development of later life
clinical symptoms appears to increase.
Speaker 3 (21:53):
Our collective understanding of concussions and their effects is much
better today than it used to be. Back when Bales
was playing high school football in Norwood, Ohio, We're taking
and delivering big hits was just part.
Speaker 1 (22:04):
Of the game.
Speaker 2 (22:06):
The best I had in eighth grade, I'll never forget
it was screen pass and I very much knocked the
kid out and I was knocked out to I walked
to the wrong huddle. I got up, staggered back to
the wrong huddle, you know, kind of get turned around.
You know. We kept playing and my bells run, you know.
Late eighties, early nineties, I don't think it was as
(22:26):
much of a concern that now looking back, and I
think I had a few concussions, but at the time,
nobody knew about it.
Speaker 3 (22:34):
Growing up, they all spent seven years playing organized football.
Then after nine to eleven, he spent another decade in
the Army. During his service, Bob was exposed to numerous
ied plasts as his wife Carrie can a test.
Speaker 13 (22:52):
He told me that he had been blown up nine
times in a striker vehicle. I never got a call home,
but he'd been blown up. But he didn't get any
purple hearts because he survived. There are many people that
got purple hearts for TBI right for being in a
striker vehicle that blew up. But he's like, no, I
didn't sign up for it because I survived and it
was just part of the job.
Speaker 3 (23:14):
An explosion doesn't have to kill or dismember in order
to be physically devastating. David Wesley served with Bales on
two deployments in Iraq during the mid two thousands.
Speaker 14 (23:27):
On our first employment, I was on the truck that
drove Bob, so every time I got hit, he got hit.
Those are our fun experiences, man. I'll tell you what
I remember. I was getting hit by an ID and
it felt like I got hit with a baseball bat
in my face. I've never been hit harder than that.
It knocked all the air out of me. You could
(23:50):
feel the heat, but you're dizzy. It's just it's bad.
Speaker 3 (23:55):
The pressure from an ID blast is overwhelming. I've been
exposed a few times myself. It feels like you've been
wrapped in a mattress and then dropped off of the
Empire State building. Doctor Escalone breaks down just how these
blasts to deliver serious trauma to the brain.
Speaker 12 (24:13):
So the first thing is just like a result from
the pressure wave of the bomb. So if you imagine
a bomb going off like underwater and the waves it
would create, those waves go through your body, they'll shake
your brain and they'll shake your internal organs. You can
get injury to your stomach, your liver, your spleen, your lungs,
and your brain is no different. Then you can have
(24:35):
secondary blast injuries, which are from projectiles, so like shrapnel.
Tertiary blast injury would be kind of like almost being
in a car accident where your head goes back and
forth and your brain jostles within. So one blast in
theory could be three brain injuries. So if every blast
is a brain injury and you had nine, you could
have had like twenty seven.
Speaker 3 (24:55):
Before long, such a high level of blast exposure seems
to have added up for Robert Bay.
Speaker 2 (25:00):
So I started having headaches after my second tour, migraines.
So there was an explosion as we were heading into
Solder City in two thousand and seven, and after that
I got sick, start throwing up, So I'm pretty sure
you know I had a concussion from that.
Speaker 3 (25:17):
TBIs aren't simply painful or disorienting. The resulting trauma can
change you persons basic ability to function and alter their personality.
Speaker 12 (25:27):
You kind of lose parts of yourself and you become
really disinhibited. Whereas if you and I get in an argument,
we might yell, but after some blast injuries, I'll just
maybe I'll just punch you without even yelling, and so
you kind of lose your ability to regulate and think clearly.
From a practical purpose, it's a lot like a form
(25:49):
of dementia. I mean, basically, your brain can only take
so much.
Speaker 2 (25:58):
I should have got some help, and I tried, you know,
I went a couple of times. But in the same token,
your coward if you do that. So let's say I
go and I get help and I don't deploy, right,
So now I leave all those guys that are in
my platoon count on me.
Speaker 1 (26:17):
Man, I couldn't do that.
Speaker 3 (26:21):
TBI can be a serious disability by itself, but after
multiple deployments, Bales also began showing signs of post traumatic
stress disorder, or PTSD. As doctor Damse O'Connor asserts, TBI
and PTSD often go hand in hand for Army veterans.
Speaker 9 (26:40):
In military service members in particular, TBI and PTSD are
very commonly co occurring, and these two distinct conditions can
have implications on behavior that are mutually exacerbated. If you
(27:01):
have both, it can be harder to function than if
you had only one. Certainly, hypervigilance would be considered a
common symptom of PTSD. My understanding is that this individual
was tasked with protecting people, and so being hyper vigilant
(27:23):
to the possibility of a threat was adaptive for the
task that he was assigned.
Speaker 3 (27:30):
Nine times out of ten, hypervigilance is a positive attribute
and a warrior. For Bales, his attention to detail would
help his squadifate perilous areas on patrol.
Speaker 2 (27:43):
We were getting id'd heavily in two thousand and six
and seven and they were devastating. So on the next deployment,
my thought was, how do we stop that? And so
the idea was I would take video of routes and
things like that, and I would compare those video like
(28:04):
you would compare a football tape. You're looking for tendencies,
you're looking for formations, so you see things that are different. Right,
So if you watch the route five different times, all
of a sudden that you see a car that's there
at seven o'clock in the morning, why is.
Speaker 1 (28:17):
That car there?
Speaker 2 (28:18):
And so later on you know that was one of
the things that the doctors used to say, you're paranoid
to the point that you're doing something that no one
else in the army is doing.
Speaker 3 (28:28):
Robert Bales's vigilance remained consistent. He regularly cleared houses in combat,
moving through each room to ensure that the enemy wasn't
hiding anywhere. After returning home to his family, he found
himself repeating the process, even though civilian life in Seattle
doesn't present the same dangers as Arolla Rock. Bob's wife, Kerrie,
recounts these incidents.
Speaker 13 (28:50):
Why would wake up with night terrors where I thought
it was a recurring dream where I thought someone was
in the house.
Speaker 3 (28:55):
This is something I.
Speaker 13 (28:55):
Had, you know, before getting married, but being married to Bob,
he he would wake up and really think that someone
was in the house. We had a gun right for protection,
had a handgun, and he would clear the house with
it to make sure that there was no one that
shouldn't have been in the house. And he would also
clear the perimeter so if he actually went outside and
make sure there was nobody on our property where you lived.
Speaker 2 (29:18):
I had like, you know, weapons stashed throughout the house
so I could fight my way to get to a
point where you get people out of house. People don't
do that, you know, I mean, logical thinking people don't
do that.
Speaker 13 (29:28):
I didn't think to like tell anybody. I just thought, Oh,
I'm a warrior's wife, right, That's just what they do,
That's what they're trained to do, and of course they're
going to protect their family people. In hindsight, everyone's like, well,
why didn't you, like, I don't know, get help for him.
That's obviously PTSD.
Speaker 2 (29:43):
Harry, Well, you know you're screwed up, right, Like when
you can't sleep and you clear your house with a
pistol on a weekly basis, and how many people work
out a way to get your family out of the
house during somebody breaking in.
Speaker 13 (29:55):
Well, at the time, first of all, PTSD wasn't a thing, right,
wasn't thought of as anything. The army didn't said it
wasn't a thing, and if you said it was, like
Bob would tell you, if you ask for help or whatever,
you were seen as weak and it would impact your career.
Speaker 3 (30:12):
Even though Bales had begun displaying unusual behavior, he kept
it under wraps from his employer, the US Army. For starters,
TBI wasn't a well understood condition at the time in
the military community. Here's doctor Damse O'Connor.
Speaker 9 (30:29):
Many veterans, first of all, struggle to get an official
diagnosis of traumatic brain injury. Whether that is because the
clinicians to whom they have access are unable to accurately
diagnose traumatic brain injury, or because soldiers choose not to
disclose symptoms.
Speaker 2 (30:49):
Nobody gives two shits about PTSD. I don't know what
the numbers are, but I know they're crazy, Like eighty
percent of the military claim some type of PTSD, even
only ten percent have ever been fired at, you know,
have actually shot their weapon in combat. And that's why
I'm very hesitant to seek treatment.
Speaker 9 (31:07):
There is a tendency to push through a person who
signs up to risk his or her life to defend
his or her country, and in this case, to protect
Afghan civilian families. These are individuals who are willing to
put themselves at risk.
Speaker 3 (31:28):
Every soldier has a different level of tolerance, not just
for risk, but for physical and mental trauma. After David
Wesley's two tours, he decided that enough was enough.
Speaker 14 (31:41):
It was clear and apparent that we were going to
continue to deploy, and we were going to keep deploying
at a rapid rate. Basically, my wife was like, you
need to take a break because even after the first employment,
waking up and looking for my rifle, you know, second one,
same thing, and these bad have they're getting even worse.
(32:01):
I remember going and seeing the infantryman and seeing how
much more they were on that razor's edge than I was,
and I decided I wasn't going to go back.
Speaker 1 (32:15):
I was done after that. I think a third one
would ruined me.
Speaker 3 (32:22):
Bails and David Wesley were on the same two deployments.
They had both been exposed to a similar level of
ID blasts, but while Wesley was looking to make changes
to his life, Baials was trying to push through all
the while, the commulative effects of many sustained TBIs were
beginning to present themselves. Bob tells a story about an
(32:45):
encounter during a night out in Seattle in two thousand and.
Speaker 2 (32:48):
Eight the bowling alley.
Speaker 13 (32:51):
Think.
Speaker 2 (32:52):
So, we had just come back from our second tour
and we're at a bowling A whole bunch of us
were there all together. Dudes are going out back and
smoke him. I don't smoke. I was going out to
hand out with the guys. So there's this biker. He's
a bigger dude. He's literally blocking the door making out
with his chick. So I'm just trying to brush by
a high five dude. Right, she catches my hand and
(33:15):
she like swats my hand down, ended up hitting her
on the ass.
Speaker 1 (33:18):
Right. The dude comes.
Speaker 2 (33:20):
Out and he must have thought I was a pussy
or whatever. I don't know. And I'm like, looks her,
you know, I apologize. I meant nothing to buy it,
you know, let me let me, let me.
Speaker 1 (33:30):
Buy a beer.
Speaker 2 (33:31):
And then he shoves me, and I'm like, looks her,
I don't want any problem.
Speaker 1 (33:36):
I got my family inside there.
Speaker 2 (33:38):
I don't want any problems.
Speaker 1 (33:39):
Anyway.
Speaker 2 (33:40):
He pushes me one more time, and so I just
kind of just forward tripped on. He had his long
hand so wrapped his hand up my left hand and
I'm just I don't even this dude. So bouncers come out,
the police came, and that's why it's on a police file.
But at that time, I didn't want any problem with
that cat, you know what I mean, I like tried
to walk away. You know, I'm looking for this stuff, man.
(34:02):
It just sort of happens.
Speaker 3 (34:06):
Although doctor Escalone never personally examined Bales, he does contend
that the Bowling Alley incident aligns with what he's seen
from people laboring under the symptoms of traumatic brain injury.
Speaker 12 (34:18):
I've had patients get into fights even knowing that they've
had brain injuries, and me explaining to them, like, you
can't just go get into bar fights because you're just
going to get another brain injury. You know, I can't
put myself in their exact frame of mind, but it
seems like like they can't help it. People totally change,
and you have people's family say like, this was not
the same person.
Speaker 13 (34:36):
It's an interesting thing because hindsight would be like, well,
why didn't you see it that way? You know, he
was obviously having issues after the second deployment. He would
also like sit out on the porch, listening to loud music,
with a cigar, sit out, maybe with a shadow whiskey
or whatever, you know, just kind of zone out and
be in his own place. I think the war was
definitely with him all the time. I don't think you
(34:57):
can leave it behind.
Speaker 3 (35:02):
In two thousand and nine, Robert Bales deployed to Iraq
for the third time. When he came home to his
family twelve months later, he figured that something had to
be wrong with the way he was feeling.
Speaker 2 (35:15):
I was home and I was washing the dishes, and
my daughter come in and I was just pissed at
her for no reason, like, you know, she's bothering me
washing dishes. And I realized, man, you know, I probably
needed to go get some help. So, uh, in twenty ten,
I went to a mental health clinic k at Fort Lewis.
I went to it because it was confidential, so I wasn't,
(35:36):
you know, because if you you know, you have these
PTSD problems, you're not gonna you know, I surely wouldn't
have been the sniper section sergeant, right. So I go
and I do these kind of things with this guy
for a couple of days, and I really didn't really
believe in PTSD. I just think I thought of his weakness.
I fill out this survey and this whole PTSD checklist.
Speaker 1 (35:56):
I'm like, man, this is exactly me.
Speaker 3 (35:58):
Before Staff Sergeant Bales ever did, deployed to Afghanistan, the
Army identified that he had brain injuries. They put him
in treatment for PTSD, but at no point did they
tell him that he was unfit to take on a
fourth toward duty at that time.
Speaker 13 (36:14):
I think Bob knew they did an MRI, but I
don't think that they told them what they found. I
don't think they ever said, hey, you have a TBI.
They diagnosed him with PTSD as well, but they didn't
do anything about it. They didn't tell him, they didn't
tell his commanders, they didn't tell anybody. This only came
out after all of this happened that it was in
his medical record.
Speaker 3 (36:33):
With this diagnosis, Bals couldn't have taken the trip to
VESP Bellumby unless he had been clear for combat by
Army medical which raises the question what were the Army
standards for physical and mental capacity as it pertained to redeployment.
Were they rigorous enough?
Speaker 12 (36:50):
If you have a concussion related to blast injury. You
need to be evaluated, you need to be cleared medically, right,
and then if there's something particularly cognitive or mental about
your job, all right, I have to understand strategy or
I'm leading this team, so I have to make sure
I make the right decision so I don't lead us
all into danger. So you have to be put in
all those scenarios before you should be cleared to go back.
(37:12):
So in this case for Bails, if that clearance wasn't done,
then it was a mistake to send them.
Speaker 3 (37:18):
Back, making matters worse. There are some scars from combat
that don't appear on medical records. David Wesley, Bob's former
colleague and friend, has first hand experience with the myriad
ways that the horrors of war can permeate everyday life.
Speaker 1 (37:36):
We already know the dangers of PTSD.
Speaker 14 (37:39):
You cannot see a person get blown up into chunks,
spread across the street and people walking around picking them up,
putting them in pretty much grocery bags and be okay.
You don't get when you smell burning flesh, there's something
different about it. It makes barbecues different for the rest
of your life. It's not like the army didn't tell
(38:03):
us or at least pushed out the stigma that if
we needed help, we was Pauls.
Speaker 1 (38:09):
They most definitely did.
Speaker 14 (38:10):
Hell if you didn't, if your bone wasn't sticking out,
are you really hurt?
Speaker 3 (38:18):
It bears repeating many of the Americans who served in
Iraq and Afghanistan, Bob bails myself. We saw more combat
than almost any soldier from World War Two. Doctor Damse
O'Connor points out the inherent issues with keeping the same
soldiers on the front lines for years on end.
Speaker 9 (38:39):
How much is too much? We invest so heavily in
training our service members, individuals are being redeployed more times
than the individual was hoping for, and more redeployments than
were initially planned. Exposure begins to increase a person's risk
(39:03):
for long term brain damage.
Speaker 13 (39:07):
We definitely talked about it back and forth. You know,
I just wanted to be together as a family. Finally,
you know, here we are. Haven't you done enough? However,
we also have the conversation of look, Carrie, I'm the
only one going back with these people that have never
been to Ward. They're all new, none of them have experience.
If I don't go and share my knowledge, bad things
are going to happen to them, you know, basically they're
(39:28):
all gonna die. Is what he took upon himself in
a lot of ways, right hindsight twenty twenty. For me,
I would probably shoot him in the foot, shoot him
in the hand, do whatever I could to make it
so that he didn't qualify, let alone TBI and PTSD
making and disqualify, you know.
Speaker 2 (39:42):
A guy I described it one time. Everybody has a cup,
and I think my cup was just over full. Man,
I don't think I could take anymore.
Speaker 1 (39:51):
And I.
Speaker 2 (39:52):
Regret not getting help before. I regret not staying in
treatment for the PTSD.
Speaker 1 (39:59):
I regret you know it, just it fell apart.
Speaker 3 (40:08):
Coming up on the war within what you.
Speaker 9 (40:10):
Have described here sounds like a recipe for disaster.
Speaker 1 (40:14):
Dog is a drinker?
Speaker 10 (40:15):
Are you parting a lot?
Speaker 1 (40:16):
Did that shoot your weapon?
Speaker 10 (40:17):
You're effect We had a med shit where you had
all kinds of shit. Bales could get whatever the hell
he wanted.
Speaker 3 (40:24):
Bils beat the shit out of that jingle truck driver.
Speaker 4 (40:26):
The government should have disclosed the debilitating effects of a
boy's and name.
Speaker 1 (40:30):
Ethically, we took here once a week.
Speaker 2 (40:32):
Nobody really thinks that anything is going to happen long term.
Speaker 1 (40:35):
The drug is fundamentally defective. It should have been abandoned.
Speaker 3 (40:48):
The War Within the Robert Bailes Story is production of
Bungalow Media and Entertainment Checkpoint Productions in Mosquito Park Pictures,
in partnership with iHeart Podcasts. The series was created by
executive producers Paul Plowski and David check Executive producers for
Bungalow Media and Entertainment are Robert Friedman and Mike Powers.
(41:09):
The podcast was written and produced by Max Nelson and
hosted by me Mike McGinnis.
Speaker 1 (41:14):
Editing was done.
Speaker 3 (41:15):
By Anna Hoverman, sound design and mix by John Gardner.
Teddy Gannon was an archival producer, Leila Ahmadzai was an
associate producer, and Peter Solataroff was production assistant. Special thanks
to Liz Yelle Marsh, Nicole Rubin, Marcy Barkin, Zach Burpy,
and Meerwi Satah, as well as all of the people
(41:38):
who were interviewed for the podcast. Listen and subscribe to
The War Within on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or
wherever you get your podcasts.
We haven't been vocal.
Speaker 2 (00:04):
We haven't said how can America, how can they release
the guys from Guantanamo Bay who have committed the same crimes,
if not worse, placing them back in the same environment
that they committed their crimes in.
Speaker 3 (00:25):
Since the start of the US Afghan War, roughly seven
hundred and eighty alleged war criminals have been held at
the American military prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Today, the
number of detainees is just below fifty. Meanwhile, back Stateside,
staff Sergeant Robert Bales is currently serving a life sentence
without parole.
Speaker 2 (00:46):
The part about the Gitmo that bothers me so much
is the legality versus the morality or the logic of it. Right,
so we legally there is an argument that these people
are being detained without trial. I understand that argument, and
I understand that I've had a trial. But what you're
saying is these people in Guantanamo Bay are innocent. That's
(01:09):
not the case. These are the worst people that we
detained over a fifteen year period that ended up in GITMO.
And I could sit in prison forever if we'd have
left the Guantanamo Bay. Guys stay down there because I
can understand. Look, that's justice. They're doing their time, but
you let them go. So now that you've let them go,
(01:30):
let us go. Give us the same damn clemency. Give
us the same opportunity of having a life outside of
here that you've already given the terrorists.
Speaker 3 (01:43):
Previously, on the War Within, staff Sergeant Robert Bales told
the military court his rampage was premeditated and without justification.
Speaker 2 (01:51):
In high school's cabinet, the football team, you take lots
of hits.
Speaker 1 (01:55):
Bob wanted to make sure everyone was protected. It's a
guerrilla war. How do you know who you're talking with?
Speaker 2 (02:00):
Haji Wazir, He's the gentleman with the Taliban fighter tattoo.
These are not innocent people to begin with.
Speaker 1 (02:07):
We have the.
Speaker 4 (02:07):
Evidence some of the Afghan witnesses left their fingerprints on
bomb parts.
Speaker 1 (02:12):
They took up to Disneyland.
Speaker 3 (02:14):
For God's sake, I'm Mike McGinnis. This is the War
within the Robert Bayles story. In the last episode, Robert
Bales and John Maher walked us through their belief that
(02:34):
some of Bales's victims were members of the Taliban in
their minds. This information completely changes the context of his case.
We also showed the Afghan families themselves passionately refuting these
Taliban connections. Many of the people we interviewed were not
convinced that the Afghans were guilty of anything. One of
(02:55):
their strongest defenders was Bales's prosecutor, Lieutenant Colonel J. Morse.
Speaker 5 (03:01):
We had the State Department, we had the Department of Defense,
we had the FBI, all on searches, and we found
no evidence that any of these guys were Taliban. I
mean they were literally all farmers. There was no evidence, literally,
not a single piece of evidence. There was nothing in
any of these houses that could be construed as even
having them be Taliban sympathizers. Bales was walking around for
(03:22):
five hours like shooting people. He wasn't opposed once. I
mean he literally was walking on open roads and nobody
confronted him once.
Speaker 3 (03:33):
Bailes was working with the same intel as everybody else.
Special Forces Captain Danny Fields, the commanding officer at the base,
doesn't think that this information was strong enough could draw
any conclusions.
Speaker 6 (03:45):
I think that's a convenient truth that helps fit that
narrative for him. But we being the team actually gathering
the intel on the ground. You know, I don't think
we had any specific intelligence that definitively said that any
of the people that he killed was a Taliban target.
We had some theories and assumptions at best. There was
(04:07):
no piece of evidence, even collectively, that we could gather
and say, hey, we should target this compound.
Speaker 5 (04:14):
I mean, even if.
Speaker 6 (04:15):
We gather all the intelligence, we couldn't have probably fit
that puzzle together.
Speaker 3 (04:19):
Fields and more spoth say variations of the same thing.
There was no evidence, but Baiales and his attorney John
Maher have pointed out specific pieces of evidence which to
then indicate Taliban connections and American collusion in covering them up.
Speaker 4 (04:35):
The United States, in my assessment, has had this position
where every Afghan is innocent, and I don't believe that
is in tune with what we know with our intelligence.
You can be a village eldern you can also be
a jihadist. They're not exclusive. And the whole idea in
(04:57):
these cases that I've handled in in variably the United
States has to biometric evidence, and it's in the register.
Speaker 7 (05:05):
Biometrics are the most basic understanding that all of us
have of It is like fingerprints, facial images, iris, scans
and DNA. Those are all your body metrics.
Speaker 3 (05:19):
American journalist Annie Jacobsen researched biometrics extensively for her book,
First Platoon and the Process. She learned that it was
actually quite common for Afghans, Taliban or otherwise to have
their DNA enrolled in what is called the bats and
Hides system.
Speaker 7 (05:36):
The goal of the United States Defense Department was to
create a massive biometric catalog of eighty five percent of
the population of Afghanistan. Everyone in there was either a
good guy or a bad guy in air quotes right.
The conceit of the Defense Department was, if we know
who everyone is, and we have a platoon out there
walking into a dangerous area, and some one comes across
(06:01):
our path and we want to make sure he doesn't
kill us, let's stop him, take his IRIS scans, and
have this small machine tell us whether he's friend or Oh,
how much can go wrong within that system? We can
talk about that for powers.
Speaker 3 (06:22):
Jacobson is a vocal critic of relying on biometric evidence
during wartime. She considers the methodology to be imprecise.
Speaker 7 (06:31):
Biometric systems are significant and powerful in a country whereby
rule of law and a justice system is working in
a democratic manner, and biometric systems. In a country like Afghanistan,
where there is no state, it's just simply anarchy. It's
(06:53):
impossible to even begin to try and use science and
technology tools to promote justice because the very fundamentals of
justice don't exist.
Speaker 3 (07:08):
Ever.
Speaker 7 (07:08):
See an FBI crime scene, you know that yellow tape,
you know, all the scientists with gloves. Why because they
must preserve the evidence.
Speaker 2 (07:19):
So the very idea that you could be.
Speaker 7 (07:20):
Running around a warth here being shot at and also
trying to use these tools that are fundamentally based in
preserving a crime scene, it just opens the door for
so many problems.
Speaker 3 (07:35):
I mean, Andy, Like just from my own personal experience,
you know, we had a guy blow himself up with
an ID and they told us just to go out
and get a finger. You know that only had like
half the tip left, and that's what they ran through
bats and hides, right, And.
Speaker 7 (07:48):
I hate to be so graphic, but how do you
know that's the finger of the guy who blew himself up?
What if it's the finger of a nearby farmer who
got caught in the crossfire.
Speaker 3 (08:00):
More, even if the biometric information is gathered properly, it
might be used incorrectly later on, especially when dealing with
common names.
Speaker 7 (08:09):
In every culture, there are names that are incredibly similar
John Smith, right if you use the example of John Smith.
If I take the biometrics of John Smith, and we
know who he is at a cellular level, and we
just say, okay, John Smith stand right there, and you
have another individual across the country whose name happens to
(08:32):
be John Smith. When you have crafty defense attorneys, it's
a bit like you know the old games at the carnivals,
where someone's moving the cups of the ball underneath. They're
just simply moving John Smith number one to John Smith
number two and calling them john Smith.
Speaker 3 (08:48):
Consider that premise of names intentionally or accidentally being switched around.
As Robert Bales reads a biometric report he obtained on Rofiula,
a villager of Alakosi who served as a weakness in
the trial whose voice you've heard in this podcast, Rafiula
doesn't have.
Speaker 1 (09:05):
A last name.
Speaker 2 (09:07):
Rafiuola was enrolled in the biometrics system on nine March,
when number Bravo to Juliet Kilo mic Hotell eighty three.
An idea even occurred on twenty eight October in Panduak.
The idea event has references twelve thirty five thirty eight
The Army Master Rafula this event four days after his
enrollment thirteen March. But you were bringing him into the
(09:28):
country to testify against me.
Speaker 7 (09:31):
Well, you always have to take people on a case
by case basis. But the challenge with biometrics is that
most people in the Western world, they have been educated
to perceive science and technology as impeccable, as flawless, even
(09:54):
many people have watched too many episodes of CSI.
Speaker 3 (10:00):
Asked Attorney John Maher about Annie Jacobson's work and inquired
about just how conclusive his allegations against the Afghan villagers
could be given the possible limitations of the bats and
hide system.
Speaker 4 (10:12):
Detractors are not off putting to me at all. Detractors
I don't think understand biometrics. I read Annie Jacobson's book,
I gave her interviews, and she just came out with
what she believes the story should be. Now, she may
have found misspellings or last names incorrectly, but you know what,
I believe that's one person. And I sat with her
(10:35):
and I disagreed. I said, Annie, I don't think you
have an understanding of this. One of the things I
don't think any may have fully and intellectually flexibly embraced
was this technology. It's as simple as fingerprints.
Speaker 3 (10:51):
And blood and skin. That's all it is. Robert Bayles
and John Mayer had more to their case than just
the bats and hides data. Baals also pulled one hundred
and sixty pounds VIDs out of Haiji Mohammad Wazir's home,
a major reason why Bales targeted Wazir. On March eleventh,
(11:13):
twenty twelve, Your wife Satal, an Afghan journalist working in
concert with our production, uncovered the following information when he
interviewed a villager from Ala Kozai, Haji Mohammed Naim.
Speaker 8 (11:26):
No Tlulu, most of us had enemies in our villages.
One of Haji Wazir's farmers placed a mine under a
mulberry tree.
Speaker 3 (11:37):
Presumably that's the same mind that blew off an American
soldier's leg several days before the attack.
Speaker 8 (11:46):
These enemies told the American forces that it was actually
Haji Wazir's son who planted the mine.
Speaker 9 (11:54):
So these enemies were giving false reports to the Americans.
Speaker 8 (11:58):
Yes, they gave the American forces the wrong person. After that,
the American troops attacked our villages. Now eleven people from
Hadji Wazir's family have been martyred. He no longer has
young sons.
Speaker 3 (12:16):
According to Naim, the insinuation is this Baals used incomplete
information to deduce that Wazir was working with the enemy.
There might have been bombs in Wazir's house, but they
didn't belong to him. However, Wazir is also notable for
supposedly having a Taliban tattoo on his hand, another important
piece of evidence. Here's Lieutenant Colonel Moorese on that point.
Speaker 5 (12:40):
The last guy with the hand tattoo. This is the
guy who had over ten of his family members were murdered.
He had three or four tattoos on his hands, and
we asked about him. There was no evidence. Again, we
did our research. We worked with both the FBI and
the State Department, and nobody had any problems with that
guy's tattoos.
Speaker 3 (12:59):
Morse also had as an explanation for what another potentially
suspicious Afghan, Mulla Baran, might have been doing to land
himself in a detention center in Parwan.
Speaker 5 (13:09):
One of the witnesses was held up in customs in
the US because he came through as having spent a
day in one of the prisons in Afghanistan, and he
had been brought in with about sixty other people because
they were harvesting one of the poppy fields, and so
he spent a day in there and left. That was it.
Speaker 3 (13:30):
If Afghan civilians like Mulla Baran and Hadji Wazir were Taliban,
then flying them to the United States on commercial airlines
to testify against an American soldier is a decision that
can certainly be scrutinized.
Speaker 4 (13:46):
If people knew that the Taliban was sitting in an
American courtroom, or terrorists or you know, jihadis or bomb makers,
I think that they might have had a little bit
of a different view of the prosecution. How dare you
flew Herman Goring into an America courtroom? I don't think
we played like that.
Speaker 3 (14:03):
But if the Afghans are telling the truth and these
supposed Taliban ties aren't legit, then their travel itinerary becomes
somewhat of a non issue. We broached that subject with Morse.
The Afghans they flew commercial correct.
Speaker 5 (14:17):
Oh yeah, we flew commercial the whole way.
Speaker 3 (14:19):
Were they able to travel around the United States, And
like one report had them going to like disney World
or SeaWorld or something like that while they were here.
Speaker 5 (14:26):
So the Disney World issue was when we had the
youngest girl who was injured shot in the head. I
thought she was going to die. She went to San
Diego Naval Hospital. One of the times she was there,
someone escorted her and her father to I don't think
it was Disneyland. I think it was one of the
(14:47):
other parks down there. It wasn't US, and it wasn't
the government. They paid for it with their own money.
But the only reason anyone knows that is because I
had our team disclose it to make sure that the
defense knew that this had happened.
Speaker 3 (15:00):
Morest vehemently denies the implication that any of the victims
who he brought to the United States were allied with
the enemy, but it's hard to blame Bales for asking
the question. In a place like Panjue, parsing the difference
between friend and foe was a challenge, As Private James
Alexander explained in Episode one, the soldiers at VSP Bellumbai
(15:20):
had troubled tracking the complicated allegiances many villagers. Back in
twenty twelve, the.
Speaker 10 (15:26):
Guy that lived near us was called peg leg Right,
And for the longest time, we're thinking this guy is
like a friendly dude, and come to find out he
actually was like giving information to the Taliban. We hired
workers onto our base to help build stairs.
Speaker 1 (15:41):
Two brothers.
Speaker 10 (15:42):
Turns out they were Taliban, right, and so it's like
it's like, Okay, these dudes are all around us and
we can't even figure out who is right who is wrong.
Speaker 3 (15:53):
It is conceivable that a Taliban operative was among those
killed on March eleventh, twenty twelve, but the women children,
at least they were innocent. There was no clear military
reason for them to die.
Speaker 5 (16:07):
If any of these guys were Taliban, it wouldn't be
relevant to me, and it wouldn't be relevant to the
law or the case either. Even if somebody came back
later and said, Hey, actually this guy was Taliban or
this guy's uncle or brother or whatever it was Taliban,
I would still say that that has nothing to do
with Bail's actions. That presents no viable defense.
Speaker 3 (16:26):
Curdisgrace has experienced fighting in Panshwe he agrees with Morse.
Speaker 11 (16:31):
That changes nothing for me. These are non combatants, They're unarmed,
they're not presently engaged with you. You went, you hunted
them down.
Speaker 1 (16:37):
And you shot them.
Speaker 11 (16:38):
Bobby Bails didn't have the power and decision making authority
to put bullets in their heads.
Speaker 3 (16:43):
In the US military, the chain of command is sacred.
In our interview with John Mayer, when it Bails's fiercest advocates,
we asked whether Baals even had the authority to take
on this self imposed mission. Let's say, at among the
victims there were Taliban members, there were bomb makers. Bales
(17:06):
would still have to get you know, I had to
call an approval for fires. You know, as a weapon
squad leader, Bals would have to do the same thing.
So why is that a sticking point or why is
that something you kind of bring up is that they
had these connections. But even though he still kind of
went around, you know, that approval to engage the enemy like.
Speaker 4 (17:25):
That, I think it's fine question. Even though they might
be Tailorman, they're sleeping in their house, Bales was went
out with guns and AMMO, and the killings arguably were
not justified killings, were murders.
Speaker 3 (17:40):
Bales and Marr want the public to know about the
possible links between the victims and the Taliban. However, when
it comes to getting a new trial, it can't be
at the core of their legal defense. Mar said it
himself the killings were murders. As a result, the defense
attorneys determined to shift the focus to Robert Bales's brain.
Speaker 4 (18:02):
Where the justification comes in is this, Bales was in
one of the houses and a kid came from behind
a door and smashed him in the head with a shovel.
Bales was nonplus, just turn around, shot him in the face. Now,
you're tough guy, Mike, I know that. And Bales is
too taking a blow to the head you know, a shovel.
I mean, are you really in your right mind? Bales
(18:26):
would very much like us to candidly proceed with the
war crime stuff rather than the mental health stuff, because
that's his sense of ego, of identity. He is not
the guy who's going to be looking to be characterized
or portrayed as a.
Speaker 3 (18:43):
Victim traumatic brain injury TBI. It's a common diagnosis for
soldiers who have seen combat. We spoke to the directors
of Bringing Injury Research and Medicine from Mount Sinai Hospital
in New York City. To learn more about these pervasive
injuries that are plaguing US military veterans, here doctors Miguel
(19:05):
Escalonne and Kristen Damse O'Connor.
Speaker 9 (19:08):
A traumatic brain injury can happen when there is an
external force to the head, face, or neck that results
in either a loss of consciousness or an alteration and
mental status.
Speaker 12 (19:25):
It could be from me falling and hitting my head.
It could be from somebody punching me. It could be
from a projectile that would be like a bullet or
a knife. Basically anything outside of my body. Any force
that causes my brain to get bruised directly or punctured
or jostled around in my head would be a traumatic
brain injury.
Speaker 9 (19:45):
Some of the acute symptoms that could be noticeable after
a traumatic brain injury can include things like disorientation, confusion,
changes with vision, difficulty with.
Speaker 12 (20:00):
Balance, trouble sleeping, memory, agitation, maybe nightmares. Patients have dysregulation
and mood. They might snap at people and do things
like that that are out of the ordinary.
Speaker 9 (20:13):
And it's the milder injuries that pose much greater challenge
to clinicians attempting to diagnose them.
Speaker 3 (20:21):
TBIs often go unrecognized and untreated in the military because,
unlike with external injuries, it's extremely hard to tell when
you've gotten more. As doctor Escalone explains.
Speaker 12 (20:34):
I call it an invisible disability. If I said somebody
took a baseball bat to your knee, and then I said, well,
guess what, your knee's not going to work. You're gonna
lamp and it's going to be pained the rest of
your life, you'd say, Okay, that makes sense. But if
I say the same about a brain injury, it doesn't
compute the same way, but it's the same idea. You know,
like your brain just can't. It's not built to take
(20:56):
that kind of punishment.
Speaker 3 (21:00):
The doctors from Mount Sinai have never met Bails, Even so,
their experience suggests that his brain have spent a lifetime
taking serious punishment. After all, long before the staff sergeant
enlisted in the Armed Forces, he spent much of his
childhood playing tackle football.
Speaker 9 (21:16):
There is research to suggest that, especially if a person
starts playing full contact football early in life, that the
risk for later life functional decline is greater. Football tends
to involve repetitive exposure to head trauma, and even when
(21:37):
those repetitive hits to the head never result in a
clinically diagnosed concussion, the risk for development of later life
clinical symptoms appears to increase.
Speaker 3 (21:53):
Our collective understanding of concussions and their effects is much
better today than it used to be. Back when Bales
was playing high school football in Norwood, Ohio, We're taking
and delivering big hits was just part.
Speaker 1 (22:04):
Of the game.
Speaker 2 (22:06):
The best I had in eighth grade, I'll never forget
it was screen pass and I very much knocked the
kid out and I was knocked out to I walked
to the wrong huddle. I got up, staggered back to
the wrong huddle, you know, kind of get turned around.
You know. We kept playing and my bells run, you know.
Late eighties, early nineties, I don't think it was as
(22:26):
much of a concern that now looking back, and I
think I had a few concussions, but at the time,
nobody knew about it.
Speaker 3 (22:34):
Growing up, they all spent seven years playing organized football.
Then after nine to eleven, he spent another decade in
the Army. During his service, Bob was exposed to numerous
ied plasts as his wife Carrie can a test.
Speaker 13 (22:52):
He told me that he had been blown up nine
times in a striker vehicle. I never got a call home,
but he'd been blown up. But he didn't get any
purple hearts because he survived. There are many people that
got purple hearts for TBI right for being in a
striker vehicle that blew up. But he's like, no, I
didn't sign up for it because I survived and it
was just part of the job.
Speaker 3 (23:14):
An explosion doesn't have to kill or dismember in order
to be physically devastating. David Wesley served with Bales on
two deployments in Iraq during the mid two thousands.
Speaker 14 (23:27):
On our first employment, I was on the truck that
drove Bob, so every time I got hit, he got hit.
Those are our fun experiences, man. I'll tell you what
I remember. I was getting hit by an ID and
it felt like I got hit with a baseball bat
in my face. I've never been hit harder than that.
It knocked all the air out of me. You could
(23:50):
feel the heat, but you're dizzy. It's just it's bad.
Speaker 3 (23:55):
The pressure from an ID blast is overwhelming. I've been
exposed a few times myself. It feels like you've been
wrapped in a mattress and then dropped off of the
Empire State building. Doctor Escalone breaks down just how these
blasts to deliver serious trauma to the brain.
Speaker 12 (24:13):
So the first thing is just like a result from
the pressure wave of the bomb. So if you imagine
a bomb going off like underwater and the waves it
would create, those waves go through your body, they'll shake
your brain and they'll shake your internal organs. You can
get injury to your stomach, your liver, your spleen, your lungs,
and your brain is no different. Then you can have
(24:35):
secondary blast injuries, which are from projectiles, so like shrapnel.
Tertiary blast injury would be kind of like almost being
in a car accident where your head goes back and
forth and your brain jostles within. So one blast in
theory could be three brain injuries. So if every blast
is a brain injury and you had nine, you could
have had like twenty seven.
Speaker 3 (24:55):
Before long, such a high level of blast exposure seems
to have added up for Robert Bay.
Speaker 2 (25:00):
So I started having headaches after my second tour, migraines.
So there was an explosion as we were heading into
Solder City in two thousand and seven, and after that
I got sick, start throwing up, So I'm pretty sure
you know I had a concussion from that.
Speaker 3 (25:17):
TBIs aren't simply painful or disorienting. The resulting trauma can
change you persons basic ability to function and alter their personality.
Speaker 12 (25:27):
You kind of lose parts of yourself and you become
really disinhibited. Whereas if you and I get in an argument,
we might yell, but after some blast injuries, I'll just
maybe I'll just punch you without even yelling, and so
you kind of lose your ability to regulate and think clearly.
From a practical purpose, it's a lot like a form
(25:49):
of dementia. I mean, basically, your brain can only take
so much.
Speaker 2 (25:58):
I should have got some help, and I tried, you know,
I went a couple of times. But in the same token,
your coward if you do that. So let's say I
go and I get help and I don't deploy, right,
So now I leave all those guys that are in
my platoon count on me.
Speaker 1 (26:17):
Man, I couldn't do that.
Speaker 3 (26:21):
TBI can be a serious disability by itself, but after
multiple deployments, Bales also began showing signs of post traumatic
stress disorder, or PTSD. As doctor Damse O'Connor asserts, TBI
and PTSD often go hand in hand for Army veterans.
Speaker 9 (26:40):
In military service members in particular, TBI and PTSD are
very commonly co occurring, and these two distinct conditions can
have implications on behavior that are mutually exacerbated. If you
(27:01):
have both, it can be harder to function than if
you had only one. Certainly, hypervigilance would be considered a
common symptom of PTSD. My understanding is that this individual
was tasked with protecting people, and so being hyper vigilant
(27:23):
to the possibility of a threat was adaptive for the
task that he was assigned.
Speaker 3 (27:30):
Nine times out of ten, hypervigilance is a positive attribute
and a warrior. For Bales, his attention to detail would
help his squadifate perilous areas on patrol.
Speaker 2 (27:43):
We were getting id'd heavily in two thousand and six
and seven and they were devastating. So on the next deployment,
my thought was, how do we stop that? And so
the idea was I would take video of routes and
things like that, and I would compare those video like
(28:04):
you would compare a football tape. You're looking for tendencies,
you're looking for formations, so you see things that are different. Right,
So if you watch the route five different times, all
of a sudden that you see a car that's there
at seven o'clock in the morning, why is.
Speaker 1 (28:17):
That car there?
Speaker 2 (28:18):
And so later on you know that was one of
the things that the doctors used to say, you're paranoid
to the point that you're doing something that no one
else in the army is doing.
Speaker 3 (28:28):
Robert Bales's vigilance remained consistent. He regularly cleared houses in combat,
moving through each room to ensure that the enemy wasn't
hiding anywhere. After returning home to his family, he found
himself repeating the process, even though civilian life in Seattle
doesn't present the same dangers as Arolla Rock. Bob's wife, Kerrie,
recounts these incidents.
Speaker 13 (28:50):
Why would wake up with night terrors where I thought
it was a recurring dream where I thought someone was
in the house.
Speaker 3 (28:55):
This is something I.
Speaker 13 (28:55):
Had, you know, before getting married, but being married to Bob,
he he would wake up and really think that someone
was in the house. We had a gun right for protection,
had a handgun, and he would clear the house with
it to make sure that there was no one that
shouldn't have been in the house. And he would also
clear the perimeter so if he actually went outside and
make sure there was nobody on our property where you lived.
Speaker 2 (29:18):
I had like, you know, weapons stashed throughout the house
so I could fight my way to get to a
point where you get people out of house. People don't
do that, you know, I mean, logical thinking people don't
do that.
Speaker 13 (29:28):
I didn't think to like tell anybody. I just thought, Oh,
I'm a warrior's wife, right, That's just what they do,
That's what they're trained to do, and of course they're
going to protect their family people. In hindsight, everyone's like, well,
why didn't you, like, I don't know, get help for him.
That's obviously PTSD.
Speaker 2 (29:43):
Harry, Well, you know you're screwed up, right, Like when
you can't sleep and you clear your house with a
pistol on a weekly basis, and how many people work
out a way to get your family out of the
house during somebody breaking in.
Speaker 13 (29:55):
Well, at the time, first of all, PTSD wasn't a thing, right,
wasn't thought of as anything. The army didn't said it
wasn't a thing, and if you said it was, like
Bob would tell you, if you ask for help or whatever,
you were seen as weak and it would impact your career.
Speaker 3 (30:12):
Even though Bales had begun displaying unusual behavior, he kept
it under wraps from his employer, the US Army. For starters,
TBI wasn't a well understood condition at the time in
the military community. Here's doctor Damse O'Connor.
Speaker 9 (30:29):
Many veterans, first of all, struggle to get an official
diagnosis of traumatic brain injury. Whether that is because the
clinicians to whom they have access are unable to accurately
diagnose traumatic brain injury, or because soldiers choose not to
disclose symptoms.
Speaker 2 (30:49):
Nobody gives two shits about PTSD. I don't know what
the numbers are, but I know they're crazy, Like eighty
percent of the military claim some type of PTSD, even
only ten percent have ever been fired at, you know,
have actually shot their weapon in combat. And that's why
I'm very hesitant to seek treatment.
Speaker 9 (31:07):
There is a tendency to push through a person who
signs up to risk his or her life to defend
his or her country, and in this case, to protect
Afghan civilian families. These are individuals who are willing to
put themselves at risk.
Speaker 3 (31:28):
Every soldier has a different level of tolerance, not just
for risk, but for physical and mental trauma. After David
Wesley's two tours, he decided that enough was enough.
Speaker 14 (31:41):
It was clear and apparent that we were going to
continue to deploy, and we were going to keep deploying
at a rapid rate. Basically, my wife was like, you
need to take a break because even after the first employment,
waking up and looking for my rifle, you know, second one,
same thing, and these bad have they're getting even worse.
(32:01):
I remember going and seeing the infantryman and seeing how
much more they were on that razor's edge than I was,
and I decided I wasn't going to go back.
Speaker 1 (32:15):
I was done after that. I think a third one
would ruined me.
Speaker 3 (32:22):
Bails and David Wesley were on the same two deployments.
They had both been exposed to a similar level of
ID blasts, but while Wesley was looking to make changes
to his life, Baials was trying to push through all
the while, the commulative effects of many sustained TBIs were
beginning to present themselves. Bob tells a story about an
(32:45):
encounter during a night out in Seattle in two thousand and.
Speaker 2 (32:48):
Eight the bowling alley.
Speaker 13 (32:51):
Think.
Speaker 2 (32:52):
So, we had just come back from our second tour
and we're at a bowling A whole bunch of us
were there all together. Dudes are going out back and
smoke him. I don't smoke. I was going out to
hand out with the guys. So there's this biker. He's
a bigger dude. He's literally blocking the door making out
with his chick. So I'm just trying to brush by
a high five dude. Right, she catches my hand and
(33:15):
she like swats my hand down, ended up hitting her
on the ass.
Speaker 1 (33:18):
Right. The dude comes.
Speaker 2 (33:20):
Out and he must have thought I was a pussy
or whatever. I don't know. And I'm like, looks her,
you know, I apologize. I meant nothing to buy it,
you know, let me let me, let me.
Speaker 1 (33:30):
Buy a beer.
Speaker 2 (33:31):
And then he shoves me, and I'm like, looks her,
I don't want any problem.
Speaker 1 (33:36):
I got my family inside there.
Speaker 2 (33:38):
I don't want any problems.
Speaker 1 (33:39):
Anyway.
Speaker 2 (33:40):
He pushes me one more time, and so I just
kind of just forward tripped on. He had his long
hand so wrapped his hand up my left hand and
I'm just I don't even this dude. So bouncers come out,
the police came, and that's why it's on a police file.
But at that time, I didn't want any problem with
that cat, you know what I mean, I like tried
to walk away. You know, I'm looking for this stuff, man.
(34:02):
It just sort of happens.
Speaker 3 (34:06):
Although doctor Escalone never personally examined Bales, he does contend
that the Bowling Alley incident aligns with what he's seen
from people laboring under the symptoms of traumatic brain injury.
Speaker 12 (34:18):
I've had patients get into fights even knowing that they've
had brain injuries, and me explaining to them, like, you
can't just go get into bar fights because you're just
going to get another brain injury. You know, I can't
put myself in their exact frame of mind, but it
seems like like they can't help it. People totally change,
and you have people's family say like, this was not
the same person.
Speaker 13 (34:36):
It's an interesting thing because hindsight would be like, well,
why didn't you see it that way? You know, he
was obviously having issues after the second deployment. He would
also like sit out on the porch, listening to loud music,
with a cigar, sit out, maybe with a shadow whiskey
or whatever, you know, just kind of zone out and
be in his own place. I think the war was
definitely with him all the time. I don't think you
(34:57):
can leave it behind.
Speaker 3 (35:02):
In two thousand and nine, Robert Bales deployed to Iraq
for the third time. When he came home to his
family twelve months later, he figured that something had to
be wrong with the way he was feeling.
Speaker 2 (35:15):
I was home and I was washing the dishes, and
my daughter come in and I was just pissed at
her for no reason, like, you know, she's bothering me
washing dishes. And I realized, man, you know, I probably
needed to go get some help. So, uh, in twenty ten,
I went to a mental health clinic k at Fort Lewis.
I went to it because it was confidential, so I wasn't,
(35:36):
you know, because if you you know, you have these
PTSD problems, you're not gonna you know, I surely wouldn't
have been the sniper section sergeant, right. So I go
and I do these kind of things with this guy
for a couple of days, and I really didn't really
believe in PTSD. I just think I thought of his weakness.
I fill out this survey and this whole PTSD checklist.
Speaker 1 (35:56):
I'm like, man, this is exactly me.
Speaker 3 (35:58):
Before Staff Sergeant Bales ever did, deployed to Afghanistan, the
Army identified that he had brain injuries. They put him
in treatment for PTSD, but at no point did they
tell him that he was unfit to take on a
fourth toward duty at that time.
Speaker 13 (36:14):
I think Bob knew they did an MRI, but I
don't think that they told them what they found. I
don't think they ever said, hey, you have a TBI.
They diagnosed him with PTSD as well, but they didn't
do anything about it. They didn't tell him, they didn't
tell his commanders, they didn't tell anybody. This only came
out after all of this happened that it was in
his medical record.
Speaker 3 (36:33):
With this diagnosis, Bals couldn't have taken the trip to
VESP Bellumby unless he had been clear for combat by
Army medical which raises the question what were the Army
standards for physical and mental capacity as it pertained to redeployment.
Were they rigorous enough?
Speaker 12 (36:50):
If you have a concussion related to blast injury. You
need to be evaluated, you need to be cleared medically, right,
and then if there's something particularly cognitive or mental about
your job, all right, I have to understand strategy or
I'm leading this team, so I have to make sure
I make the right decision so I don't lead us
all into danger. So you have to be put in
all those scenarios before you should be cleared to go back.
(37:12):
So in this case for Bails, if that clearance wasn't done,
then it was a mistake to send them.
Speaker 3 (37:18):
Back, making matters worse. There are some scars from combat
that don't appear on medical records. David Wesley, Bob's former
colleague and friend, has first hand experience with the myriad
ways that the horrors of war can permeate everyday life.
Speaker 1 (37:36):
We already know the dangers of PTSD.
Speaker 14 (37:39):
You cannot see a person get blown up into chunks,
spread across the street and people walking around picking them up,
putting them in pretty much grocery bags and be okay.
You don't get when you smell burning flesh, there's something
different about it. It makes barbecues different for the rest
of your life. It's not like the army didn't tell
(38:03):
us or at least pushed out the stigma that if
we needed help, we was Pauls.
Speaker 1 (38:09):
They most definitely did.
Speaker 14 (38:10):
Hell if you didn't, if your bone wasn't sticking out,
are you really hurt?
Speaker 3 (38:18):
It bears repeating many of the Americans who served in
Iraq and Afghanistan, Bob bails myself. We saw more combat
than almost any soldier from World War Two. Doctor Damse
O'Connor points out the inherent issues with keeping the same
soldiers on the front lines for years on end.
Speaker 9 (38:39):
How much is too much? We invest so heavily in
training our service members, individuals are being redeployed more times
than the individual was hoping for, and more redeployments than
were initially planned. Exposure begins to increase a person's risk
(39:03):
for long term brain damage.
Speaker 13 (39:07):
We definitely talked about it back and forth. You know,
I just wanted to be together as a family. Finally,
you know, here we are. Haven't you done enough? However,
we also have the conversation of look, Carrie, I'm the
only one going back with these people that have never
been to Ward. They're all new, none of them have experience.
If I don't go and share my knowledge, bad things
are going to happen to them, you know, basically they're
(39:28):
all gonna die. Is what he took upon himself in
a lot of ways, right hindsight twenty twenty. For me,
I would probably shoot him in the foot, shoot him
in the hand, do whatever I could to make it
so that he didn't qualify, let alone TBI and PTSD
making and disqualify, you know.
Speaker 2 (39:42):
A guy I described it one time. Everybody has a cup,
and I think my cup was just over full. Man,
I don't think I could take anymore.
Speaker 1 (39:51):
And I.
Speaker 2 (39:52):
Regret not getting help before. I regret not staying in
treatment for the PTSD.
Speaker 1 (39:59):
I regret you know it, just it fell apart.
Speaker 3 (40:08):
Coming up on the war within what you.
Speaker 9 (40:10):
Have described here sounds like a recipe for disaster.
Speaker 1 (40:14):
Dog is a drinker?
Speaker 10 (40:15):
Are you parting a lot?
Speaker 1 (40:16):
Did that shoot your weapon?
Speaker 10 (40:17):
You're effect We had a med shit where you had
all kinds of shit. Bales could get whatever the hell
he wanted.
Speaker 3 (40:24):
Bils beat the shit out of that jingle truck driver.
Speaker 4 (40:26):
The government should have disclosed the debilitating effects of a
boy's and name.
Speaker 1 (40:30):
Ethically, we took here once a week.
Speaker 2 (40:32):
Nobody really thinks that anything is going to happen long term.
Speaker 1 (40:35):
The drug is fundamentally defective. It should have been abandoned.
Speaker 3 (40:48):
The War Within the Robert Bailes Story is production of
Bungalow Media and Entertainment Checkpoint Productions in Mosquito Park Pictures,
in partnership with iHeart Podcasts. The series was created by
executive producers Paul Plowski and David check Executive producers for
Bungalow Media and Entertainment are Robert Friedman and Mike Powers.
(41:09):
The podcast was written and produced by Max Nelson and
hosted by me Mike McGinnis.
Speaker 1 (41:14):
Editing was done.
Speaker 3 (41:15):
By Anna Hoverman, sound design and mix by John Gardner.
Teddy Gannon was an archival producer, Leila Ahmadzai was an
associate producer, and Peter Solataroff was production assistant. Special thanks
to Liz Yelle Marsh, Nicole Rubin, Marcy Barkin, Zach Burpy,
and Meerwi Satah, as well as all of the people
(41:38):
who were interviewed for the podcast. Listen and subscribe to
The War Within on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or
wherever you get your podcasts.
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