Wednesday, March 21, 2012

A soldier's plight? A grifter's doom?

In today's Daily News Corky Siemaszko's page 8 column reveals troubling allegations that Ssgt Robert Bales and his Stock broker colleagues had been previously found to have engaged in fraud, breach of feduciary duty, churning, unauthorized trading and unsuitable investments by federal financial regulators.
It is fairly certain his time spent in combat only served to further erode his sense of propriety to the point where the tragedy he participated in and caused was made evident.
My father was in the U.S. Army infantry, I was in the U.S. Air force, my Nephew was in the U.S. Marine Corps. We all served and got honorable discharges. None of us were disgraced stockbrokers before or since. Wouldn't such career paths be mutually exclusive? I remember seeing clippings of young men, who having done punishable offences were instead offered stints in the military to "straighten them out" by Judges who meant well. Perhaps this is yet ANOTHER ISOLATED INCIDENT involving an unbalanced grifter who never should have worn a military uniform? Or is he just the latest surviving casualty in a war gone wrong?