Felonies and domestic violence crimes were up in 2011 compared with the previous year but were down significantly compared with 2008.
The statistics reflect crimes committed on and off base.
The local numbers are not dramatically different than Armywide trends, although the Army last year did see a small decline in total misdemeanor offenses after a six-year high.
Commanders are reluctant to draw conclusions from the local numbers because Lewis-McChord has more active-duty soldiers than it’s had in recent memory. Its 34,000 active-duty soldiers represent 15,000 more service members than were stationed here in 2003.
“We did not see any increase in crime that we do not normally attribute to the increase in population,” Col. Bob Taradash, Lewis-McChord’s top military police officer, said in an interview before his latest deployment to Afghanistan.
However, the consequences of those crimes appear to be increasing, as the military enters a time of reducing its forces and tightens its standards for staying in uniform.
FEW COMBAT DEATHS
More South Sound soldiers died last year by suicide or in accidents at home than were killed in combat, a shift that foreshadows the Army’s challenges as it unwinds from two long wars.
Lewis-McChord’s war casualties were especially low in 2011 – nine died in Afghanistan and none in Iraq – because the base’s largest units spent much of the year at home following major deployments in 2009-10.
It’s those periods of “dwell time” at home when military officials naturally expect more soldiers will commit crimes and react to stress in other ways.
Twelve soldiers took their own lives at home and four were killed riding motorcycles at high speeds in Pierce and Thurston counties.
To civilians who live around the base, those deaths – and two high-profile homicides – were the most visible signs of stress in the active-duty Army.
They fed a perception that the Army was out of control here, an image that built on a Star and Stripes article in late 2010 that referred to Lewis-McChord as the nation’s “most troubled base.” Later, an anti-war veterans groups labeled Lewis-McChord a “base on the brink” as it drew attention to post-traumatic stress and military suicides.
Lewis-McChord is still struggling to shake off the moniker from Stars and Stripes. It resurfaces in national media whenever a veteran commits a sensational crime, such as when former Lewis-McChord soldier Pfc. Brandon Barnes shot and killed Mount Rainer National Park ranger Margaret Anderson this month.
Barnes served in Iraq with a Lewis-McChord Stryker brigade and his ex-girlfriend believed he suffered from post-traumatic stress. The Army later said it did not appear Barnes came under fire during his deployment. He was discharged in 2009 following two DUI arrests.
The “troubled base” label has roots in a string of headline-grabbing crimes that took place in 2010. A Lewis-McChord soldier shot a Salt Lake City police officer before being gunned down by another cop. Five Stryker brigade soldiers were charged with murdering three Afghan civilians during patrols.
Commanders contend those crimes were anomalies that gained attention because they were shocking.
“When you talk about ‘most troubled base,’ we take offense to that,” said Col. Steve Bullimore, chief of staff for the I Corps at Lewis-McChord. “We see ourselves as intrinsic members of the community.
“We are of and from this community and everybody who serves here is somebody’s son or daughter,” Bullimore said.
BASE IN TRANSITION
The crime data the Army released to The News Tribune reveals a more complicated picture than labels can convey. It shows a base turning its focus from perennial deployments to an Army that likely will spend more time at home.
•Last year, Lewis-McChord recorded 4,874 misdemeanor offenses, up from 3,812 in 2010 and the previous high of 4,181 in 2008 just after the base’s large infantry brigades returned from intense fighting during the Iraq surge. This number reflects an increasing number of soldiers coming up positive in routine drug tests.
•Felony offenses increased slightly, to 319 from 310. That’s well below the peak of 413 felonies in 2008.
•Domestic violence reports also are down from 2008. The base recorded 402 domestic incidents in the 2011 fiscal year, down from 501 just after hard fighting in Iraq in 2008. Domestic assaults declined from 413 to 328 in that period.
•Incidents of driving while under the influence of alcohol or drugs rose to 391, up from 366 last year. That’s a relatively small increase given that thousands more soldiers were at Lewis-McChord in 2011 than in 2010 because of deployment cycles. Alcohol counselors at the base say they’re seeing fewer soldiers drink and drive, but some soldiers are binge drinking more heavily than in the past.
Fewer soldiers will be home in 2012 as Lewis-McChord enters a new deployment cycle. One Stryker brigade recently went to Afghanistan. Another has trained for an Afghanistan deployment and awaits its orders.
LOWERED DISCIPLINE
Discipline declines in infantry units that have to adjust from constant readiness for deployments to longer periods at home.
Col. Mike Getchell, commander of the 4,200 soldiers in Lewis-McChord’s 4th Brigade, 2nd Infantry Division, asked his soldiers to view undisciplined peers as they would view potential improvised explosive devices – the enemy’s signature weapon of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Both are able to disrupt a unit.
“Our soldiers are not trained to defuse IEDs in Iraq,” Getchell said. “What they’re trained to do is see something that looks different, secure the area, cordon it and call the experts in. That resonated with the leaders because they just came back from Iraq” in the fall of 2010.
He has drawn attention to drunk-driving violations by publishing tallies for subordinate units. He’s also encouraged the brigade’s top leaders to treat soldiers who can be helped and start proceedings that could result in early separations from the Army for those who don’t reform their ways.
Bullimore leads biweekly meetings at the base where active-duty commanders discuss crime and health trends with military law enforcement officers and social services representatives.
Their sessions were established in the summer of 2010 as Lewis-McChord prepared for its major Iraq and Afghanistan homecomings. They’re intended to help soldiers access the more than 200 financial, family, health and recreational programs that could help them at the base, Bullimore said.
Ideally, a commander or noncommissioned officer will be able to connect a troubled soldier with the right sort of help based on information shared during those meetings, Bullimore said.
OUTSIDE HELP WELCOME
Meanwhile, Lewis-McChord police officers are collaborating with local law enforcement agencies to head off crimes committed by soldiers.
“They’re real open to having us out there,” said Washington State Patrol spokesman Trooper Guy Gill, who was alarmed by the four high-speed, fatal motorcycle accidents involving Lewis-McChord soldiers last summer. Gill visits the base to discuss traffic laws and the consequences of drunken driving.
Every weekend, two crews of Army noncommissioned officers put on their uniforms and visit popular clubs in Tacoma and Lakewood to look for soldiers who might drink too much and get out of hand.
Those “courtesy patrols” are modeled after programs the Army uses at its foreign bases, such as in South Korea. Commanders put them in place here two years ago.
Tacoma police Lt. Dan Still said the courtesy patrols are effective. He commands Tacoma’s North End district, which includes the nightlife spots on 6th Avenue. Soldiers make up a small percentage of the troublemakers who wind up arrested there, he said.
“I attribute that to soldiers looking out for each other,” he said.
The Army has declined to let The News Tribune follow a courtesy patrol in order to protect the privacy of service members who might be picked up before they commit an offense.
STRESS AND EXPANSION
Stepping back, Army commanders at the Pentagon attribute the rise in crimes committed by soldiers across the country both to the stress of the past 10 years of war and to the Army’s rapid expansion.
Those days of growth are coming to an end as the Defense Department seeks to cut the Army’s ranks by some 80,000 soldiers in coming years. It’s unclear how many, if any, of those cuts will fall at Lewis-McChord.
The Army relaxed recruiting standards during the peak of the Iraq war and eased up on disciplinary separations, according to an Armywide report on high-risk behavior released this month.
Army recruiters handed out 11,766 waivers for drug and alcohol violations and bad conduct in 2007. That number dropped to 2,217 last year.
Career-ending disciplinary actions hit their low in 2006 when 11,705 soldiers were forced out of the Army. That was down from more than 20,000 in 2002. Last year, early separations were back up to 17,510.
The Armywide report on discipline uses blunt language to assess the shift. It says commanders have an opportunity to retain their best soldiers and “de-select” ones who are not up to rising standards.
That shift sounds callous to soldiers who view the change as selective discipline for unwanted veterans.
“In a way, the Army created this problem,” said a Stryker soldier who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he is still in uniform. “These are stresses way beyond the maturity level of most 20-year-olds.”
Bullimore has gone through similar downsizing efforts twice in his 28-year Army career. He said the soldiers let into the Army during the war met the recruitment standards of the period, but more will be expected of the ones who want to stay in the military.
“In the last 10 years of persistent conflict, we’ve had to keep up numbers,” Bullimore said. “The shoe’s on the other foot now, and if you want to reenlist, it has to be earned.”
Adam Ashton: 253-597-8646
adam.ashton@thenewstribune.com
