It is well known that armed forces do play video games while overseas doing tours and active duty. Not all times call for such lax measures, however it is a good stress relief, recreation, and in some cases forms of communication with friends and family back home to hop on a PC or gaming console as well as play some video games such as Call of Duty.
However, some of the US soldiers in Afghanistan have taken it upon themselves to commit acts comparable to the "No Russian" mission in Modern Warfare 2 while on duty. Murdering friendlies and civilians (in an attempt to be covert and take an otherwise unseizable location) in what is being called a "Kill Team" operation, this crew brought their sport-like first person shooting out of the video game and into real life.
Their first victim was some one the soldiers described later as "friendly" around the age of 15 and "not a threat" according to the confessions of the troops. The Rolling Stone released shocking imagery and videos covering the story extensively in an 8-page report including quotes from Bravo Company's 3rd Platoon (5th Stryker Brigade).
The report reads, "Morlock and Holmes called to him in Pashto as he walked toward them, ordering him to stop. The boy did as he was told. He stood still.
The soldiers knelt down behind a mud-brick wall. Then Morlock tossed a grenade toward Mudin, using the wall as cover. As the grenade exploded, he and Holmes opened fire, shooting the boy repeatedly at close range with an M4 carbine and a machine gun.
Mudin buckled, went down face first onto the ground. His cap toppled off. A pool of blood congealed by his head.
The loud report of the guns echoed all around the sleepy farming village. The sound of such unexpected gunfire typically triggers an emergency response in other soldiers, sending them into full battle mode.
Yet when the shots rang out, some soldiers didn't seem especially alarmed, even when the radio began to squawk. It was Morlock, agitated, screaming that he had come under attack. On a nearby hill, Spc. Adam Winfield turned to his friend, Pfc. Ashton Moore, and explained that it probably wasn't a real combat situation.
It was more likely a staged killing, he said – a plan the guys had hatched to take out an unarmed Afghan without getting caught."
More reports pouring in shortly after suggest that officials higher up the chain of command had knowledge of these strategies and actions as well.
"It was an unlikely story: a lone Taliban fighter, armed with only a grenade, attempting to ambush a platoon in broad daylight, let alone in an area that offered no cover or concealment. Even the top officer on the scene, Capt. Patrick Mitchell, thought there was something strange about Morlock's story. “I just thought it was weird that someone would come up and throw a grenade at us,” Mitchell later told investigators.
"Adding insult to injury, Mitchell, believing Mudin could still be alive and thus a threat, ordered Staff Sgt. Kris Sprague to “make sure” the boy was dead. Sprague fired twice.At that point, a local elder approached the group of soldiers, accused Morlock and Holmes of killing Mudin, pointing out Morlock as the one who had thrown the grenade. He was ignored by the group."
"after identifying the body, using a portable biometric scanner, the kill team began photographing themselves with the dead body. At one point, the squad’s leader, Staff Sgt. Calvin Gibbs, using a pair of medic’s shears, allegedly sliced off Mudin’s pinky finger, handing it to Holmes as a trophy for his first Afghan kill.
Rolling Stone notes that fellow soldiers reported he began carrying the finger with him in a zip-lock bag. “He wanted to keep the finger forever and wanted to dry it out,” one of his friends later reported. “He was proud of his finger.”
Neither of the soldiers involved in the killing were disciplined or punished. After slaughtering Mudin, the kill team then went on a shooting spree, according to Rolling Stone. Within the next four months, they killed at least three more innocent civilians.The killings became public last summer and the Army took quick action to put the lid on it, attributing the work to a “rogue unit” operating on its own, without the knowledge of superiors.
Yet, after a review of investigative files and internal Army records obtained by Rolling Stone, indications are that the dozen members of the kill team operated out in the open, in clear sight of the rest of the company.
Staged killings became common knowledge, a topic of open conversation, and “pretty much the whole platoon” knew they were illegal, stated one soldier in a complaint. Pfc. Justin Stoner told the Army Criminal Investigation Command: “The platoon has a reputation. They have had a lot of practice staging killings and getting away with it,” Rolling Stone reports."
[Sources: RollingStone and DigitalJournal]
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