Fort Sill Drill Sergeant Convicted Of Bribery, Other Counts

http://www.kotv.com/main/home/stories.asp?whichpage=1&id=75958


FORT SILL, Okla. (AP) -- A Fort Sill drill sergeant has been found guilty of charges ranging from bribery and assault to conspiracy.

Sergeant First Class Larry Jones was convicted on charges of selling "insurance" to guarantee recruits would pass their final basic training tests. He was also found guilty of selling items such as candy and tobacco, which are prohibited during basic training.

Jones sentenced to five years in prison, a reduction to the lowest rank, a reduction in pay and allowances and a dishonorable discharge.

Military prosecutors asked for the maximum penalty of 84 years in prison, saying Jones sent untrained soldiers into the Army while lining his pockets with their money.

Sounds like he's a member of the BFEE.

Using this reasoning..shouldn't shrub be his cellmate??? Surely poorly armed/protected falls into a similiar category..and God knows the pocket lining fits, too!

...but you have misrepresented what happened in your subject header. It wasn't bribery, he sold them insurance on something that was guaranteed to happen anyway. This is not to say that he did not do anything illegal because he did. Drills are very powerful figures to the people under them and get away with an amazing amount of things because the recruits don't know who to complain to or what to complain about. I advised against reporting what a drill did once to an initial entry soldier. The soldier asked me how to file a formal complaint and I advised him how to do it. Then I asked him why he was complaining and he told me that it was because the drill didn't have the authority to make him do what he had told him to do. I told him he was right. but did he mind doing it? He said no but that that was not the point. I agreed with him but then asked him if there were things that he could make him do that would be unpleasant? He answered of course there was. I told him to plan on doing those things if he followed through on his complaint. The soldier decided against complaining.

That's the headline on the link, and LBN rules are that you have to use that headline. Any difficulties you have with it should probably be more properly addressed to the news outlet that wrote it.

...I was responding to rainbow.

If I had changed it, I would have gotten a note from the mods that I had to adjust my post...it's the LBN posting rules.

...I went to the link provided and did not see
"sent untrained soldiers into the Army while lining his pockets"

Perhaps you can hook me up with the link that says that?

If you look at the original posting of mine, I used the article's heading (per the LBN rules). The post you refer to had me using a quote from the article itself as a subject heading. It was a follow up post, so I could make the subject heading whatever I wanted. It was sarcasm comparing them accusing the soldiers of poorly training the troops with chimps' poorly equipping the soldiers.
It came from the following paragraph in the article:

http://www.kotv.com/main/home/stories.asp?whichpage=1&id=75958


Military prosecutors asked for the maximum penalty of 84 years in prison, saying Jones sent untrained soldiers into the Army while lining his pockets with their money.

...that the statement is wrong on its face. The prosecutors are using it to bolster their position. The tests they take to pass out of basic training, with the exception of the rifle marksmanship test, are given orally and an incorrect answer is responded with an "are you sure?" so you know if you got it wrong and you have a chance to correct yourself. The questions are also along the line of what rank does this rank insignia identify? and which way do you face during the playing of the national anthem. The prosecutors have framed the arguement much the same way that the GOP likes to do. Make no mistake, if true the drill deserves some jail time but his offence was a con against the individual soldier, not an offence against the American people.

He may become a high-ranking oil company official in the next decade.