Volkonski wrote: ↑Thu May 06, 2021 1:57 pm
Army trainee arrested after hijacking SC school bus with gun; All 18 children, driver safe: Sheriff
The trainee has been charged with kidnapping. Will he also face a court-martial for leaving the base?
If he’s been charged by the State, it’s likely that the military will let the state handle it and won’t bother with “military-only” offenses like unauthorized absence or theft of military property, although court-martial is a theoretical possibility.
The path of least resistance for the Army is to put the guy out with an uncharacterized discharge (meaning, neither honorable or any of the other four characterizations available). They can kick out anyone for any reason in the first 180 days (according to the article, dude was in his third week of basic training). You’ll recall that’s what happened to Bowe Bergdahl - he got kicked out of the Coast Guard while still in boot camp, then he got a waiver to go into the Army.
To me, this is incredibly sad. It’s not all that unusual for recruits to go batty during boot camp. In fact, that’s what boot camp is for — in addition to assimilating people into the culture, it helps identify people who can’t handle the stress of the military. But it can be brutal if you’re vulnerable to the pressure.
I think there’s real potential for an insanity plea in this case. I’m not saying it will succeed, but I think most people understand that stress make people do weird stuff.
"Hey! We left this England place because it was bogus, and if we don't get some cool rules ourselves, pronto, we'll just be bogus too!" -- Thomas Jefferson