Report: Fort Bliss Brigade In Greater Danger At Home Than At War

The soldiers of the Fourth Brigade, First Armored Division, based at Fort Bliss have been home from Iraq for three months now, the danger of snipers and roadside bombs no longer a threat, the war for them over.

But the odds that some of them will die violent deaths continues, so just as he did when his battalion was operating in Iraq, Command Sgt. Maj. Sa’eed Mustafa constantly warns his soldiers about the perils of letting their guard down where they are supposed to be safest – in their own homes.

“We talk about the enemy here, which is different from the enemy downrange, but which is just as deadly,” he said, using the military term used for a combat zone.

In fact, given the brigade’s record at Fort Bliss of suicide, murder, assault, drunken driving and drug use, its troops are statistically at greater risk at home than while deployed in Iraq.

During the past year, only one of the unit’s soldiers died in combat, but in 2008, the last time the brigade was home from Iraq, seven soldiers were killed and six others committed crimes in which at least four civilians and soldiers from outside the brigade died in a little more than a year.

Drugs, including heroin and a methamphetamine lab, were discovered in the barracks, as was a homemade sex tape that had been circulating among soldiers and that featured one of the brigade’s female lieutenants and five male sergeants.

Read the full New York Times story here