In late February 2010, I was finally about to be sentenced in a military court martial for my role in the death of my friend, PFC Luke Brown. It had been nearly two years since that one night in July of '08 outside of the Ugly Stick Saloon near Fort Bragg, NC. By the end of that night, my buddy Brown kicked off a frantic chain of events that would see him dead and seven other soldiers charged with involuntary manslaughter. Back to court.....
Despite the ominous and discouraging placard outside of the courtroom stating "United States v. SGT Ryan Sullivan", I was fairly confident the judge would be lenient. I opted for a judge-alone trial as opposed to relying on a jury (you can do that in the military....I'd rather count on one guy who deals with the law for a living than a panel of morons with an agenda). So, I was counting on a light sentence. This level of optimism was commonplace throughout most of this case since day one...sometimes more blindly than others. Normally, it is just in my nature to try and remain positive regardless of circumstance or logic. The main reason for my optimism on that day was the fact that neither I, nor any of the other seven soliders charged in this case, were responsible for Brown's death.
I'll run that back one more time for clarity....we didn't kill anybody.
On July 20th, 2008, my usual crew rallied up for a night out. Myself along with sergeants Justin Boyle (J), Chris Mignocchi (Migz), and Kyle Saltz (...Saltz) all piled into Migz's truck and rolled out to the Ugly Stick for a typical Saturday night in Fayetteville (minus the strip-joints). Upon our arrival, we recognized a few other members of our platoon were also at the bar that night; among them was Brown. We socialized sporadically between drink-runs, but decided to stick primarily to our own circle that night; myself in particular (I needed to continue hitting on the bartender).
Following last-call, we started to head inside to pay our tabs when J and I saw Brown arguing with a bouncer. We wedged in, walked Brown outside, then finished forking over the money we should probably be saving somewhere else. Once outside, we started discussing our beer-pong options for the night (I struck out with the bartender). That's when one of the soldiers who accompanied Brown that night came running up to us.
Apparently, after his group tried to leave, Brown threw one of his guys into a truck-bed and tore off running into the adjacent parking lot behind a CVS. This would normally sound hilarious except we were told he was freaking out, saying weird things and refusing to leave. Being the helpful chaps that we are, we went looking for Brown to try to get him to go back.
We tried talking to him...while running circles around a parking lot. He tried climbing over the fence a few timesbut I kept pulling him off before he got snagged by the barb-wire. He eventually crawled under one section of chain-link and crawled into the woodline. I followed under the wire, although not completely by choice. Give me a break, the guy was 6'2" 260lbs. I had a grip on his leg to keep him from climbing again...and all of a sudden I'm cut the fuck up and in the woods. Brown was still going, so I followed him deeper into the dark-ass, north cackalacky, bullshit patch of forest. I caught Brown a few times by myself, each time him managing to wrestle away from me. The last of these collisions tumbled us around for a bit, but ended up with Brown's forearm on my throat. I tried out some logic by telling him, "Bro, you're fuckin' choking me.", to which he replied, "I know, Sully. I'm sorry."...and then continued the choke. Well....fuck.
Luckily, J and Migz were close enough to hear the scuffle in the dark. They rushed in and pulled him off of me. Once up, Brown cracked J in the face, so Migz and I tackled him to the ground again. The rest of the guys from our unit eventually entered the woodline, joining a prolonged struggle to restrain the 6'2" 260 pound Brown from injuring himself, or more realistically, the rest of us. Among the soldiers present in the woodline was myself, J, Migz, the other four soldiers eventually accused in this case, and the newly-promoted sergeant... who had invited Brown to the bar that night; Mitchell Lafortune. Remember that last part.
So after an hour+ of chasing and restraining Brown through the woods, we sent a guy to get zip-ties from the bouncer at the bar. Once he was secure, all of us carried him out of the woods to where we had the cars parked and returned to post. It only took about 15-20 minutes to arrive in front of our barracks. We pulled up and started getting out of the cars, but Brown was unresponsive and no longer breathing.
Migz called 911 while J performed CPR. I chased down an MP squad car in the street. Eventually, an ambulance arrived on-scene. Once the EMS took over on CPR, the entire lot of us were detained and corralled by military police while Brown was loaded into the ambulance and driven away. We remained on display in front of our barracks while Lafortune requested to speak privately to the on-scene C.I.D. agent. (That happened. We later found out it was because he decided he wanted to "implicate people in the commission of a crime."...I have multiple statements concerning that bullshit in my files....amazing.) So after sitting in silence for a few hours, 8 a.m. rolled around and the Criminal Investigation Division building on Fort Bragg was finally open. We didn't leave until 21:30 (9:30pm) on Sunday.
In addition to the previous 36+ hour ordeal we had just endured, the situation continued to escalate. Over the course of the next week, most of us would submit to another round of interrogation by C.I.D., all become "flagged" by our commander, have our top-secret security clearances suspended, as well as become completely abandoned by our unit and its leaders. (Note: I get it. It's bitchmade, but I get it. They knew something went down, and in the military, everything goes down with it. So the usual cowards create a ton of distance between them and whatever the problem may be. It just sucks when you're the problem.)
A soldier was dead. There needed to be an investigation to figure out what happened. I understood all of that. What I failed to understand at the time was why only myself and five other soldiers from that night were being treated so harshly....and not the rest that were involved. Why not all of us? The air was quickly feeling a little shady around us, so we decided to call in the lawdogs. That is when we discovered SGT Mitchell Lafortune was the answer to that question.
Aside from Lafortune, no one knew Brown had a drinking problem. Apparently, Brown had been enrolled in the Army Substance Abuse Program (A.S.A.P.) twice for alcohol-related incidents; once during his training in Arizona and once at Fort Bragg prior to my platoon returning from Afghanistan earlier that year. Despite all of this, the very recently promoted sergeant Lafortune knocked on Brown's door and invited him to hang out at the Ugly Stick. It didn't fix anything for us, but at least we knew why we were being treated like free-roaming criminals. (We were fortunate enough not to be placed in pre-trial confinement. Murder suspects? Yes. Dangerous flight-risks? Apparently not.)
Five months passed with no hint of progress in our case. Finally, on December 8th 2008, (two days prior to my military contract expiring) our battalion commander, LTC Christopher Eubanks, charged 7 of us with involuntary manslaughter and conspiracy to commit involuntary manslaughter. J and I also caught an extra one for communication of a threat. The third charge came by way of Lafortune's roomate's wife, SPC Rachel Boyle, alleging that I had wished to fight Lafortune if I saw him outside of the military. Of the three charges, that last one was the only one that made sense.
Following our charges, two article-32 hearings were scheduled for January 23rd-24th and February 27th-28th of 2009 in order to accomodate all of the accused soldiers and their legal council. Article-32 hearings (the military equivalent to a civilian grand-jury hearing) are the forum in which an appointed military judge listens to testimony and evaluates evidence pertinent to the case. He then recommends to the commander whether the case should be sent up to an actual court martial. Our hearings had not only revealed Lafortune to be self-serving by highlighting his numerous and ever-changing statements, but they also provided a substantial amount of medical evidence depicting Brown's death as a result of cardiac complications. After the hearings were concluded, we waited a few more months for the judge to release his report.
In his final report, the appointed military judge LTC Saunders stated, "I find there is insufficient evidence to believe that SGT Sullivan committed the offense of involuntary manslaughter."Unfortunately for me (and the rest of the "Magnificent 7"), this wonderful news was short-lived. Our unit was already too invested in backing Lafortune's statements, which facilitated making sure my co-accused and I were the ones held accountable for Luke Brown's death. Simply dropping the charges would be a black eye for the unit. Considering the fact that my contract with the military was involuntarily-extended because of this "case", not to mention the seven of us being completely railroaded. Therefore, despite the recommendations of a military judge, LTC Eubanks pushed forward for me to be tried in a general court martial to be held sometime in September (later rescheduled to February 2010).
We took the setback in stride, assuming that regardless of our unit's outlook, the facts would speak for themselves in an actual courtroom. That's the basis of "justice", right? That was until one of the co-accused and close friend of mine, Sergeant Justin Boyle, was found guilty during his court martial in October of 2009. In addition to a guilty verdict, the panel (jury) sentenced Boyle to 24 months in military prison; ten months longer than recommended by even the prosecution.
Before J's trial, my plan was to fight the good fight and let the facts do my talking. After watching one of my best friends literally dragged away in chains for a crime he didn't commit, I completely changed my optimistic demeanor. It was clear a fair trial was an impossible concept for me, so I abandoned my bravado and informed my laywer to start negotiating a deal.
I assumed I had at least some leverage to bargain with based on the results form the Artcle-32 hearings. I was appalled when my civilian-lawyer informed me that the best deal he could manage was an other-than-honorable (OTH) discharge from the military. Bullshit. After years of dedicated and honorable service in the Army, the only option offered to me would eliminate all of my VA benefits in addition to making sure I had difficulty finding work for pretty much the rest of my life. Did I mention we didn't fucking kill the guy?!?!
Careful and quiet opposition had wrongfully landed one of my best friends in prison... and put me on-course for a similar fate. Since conventional methods proved wholly ineffective, I lashed out in a slightly more abrasive fashion. I immediately scheduled an interview with John Ramsey of The Fayetteville Observer, who had been requesting an interview with one of the accused soldiers since news broke of Brown's death. If I were to be locked up, at least somebody outside of the military would know why. Then, against the advice of my father, friends, and military attorney; I fired my civilian-lawyer and hired a new one, Phillip Cave, as my new attorney.
Mr. Cave is good at what he does. After he rekindled negotiations, I had two new deals on the table. The first deal offered a general discharge, which would zap my VA benefits; but I would be able to leave as soon as I could packmy bags. Not bad. Still not great, but at least it was better than any of the previous deals I read. The other option allowed me to keep my honorable discharge and benefits, but I had to risk a maximum sentence of thirty days in jail. Yeah, I took option B.
So finally I was in my final courtroom appearance. In the end, the judge only sentenced me to thirty days of hard labor. This was mainly because I opted for a judge-alone court martial. Judge Brockington (also from J's court martial) had known our case intimately, but his hands were tied in J's trial because of the panel. I was confident he would at least try to do the right thing by me. However, since I pled guilty to simple-assault as part of my deal, he had to give me something.
My experience in the military and in combat had afforded me healthcare, home-loan capabilities, and an oppurtunity to continue my education; everything a decorated combat veteran deserves. All I had to do to secure these benefits was admit guilt in a crime I never committed. Following my trial, I was finally discharged honorably from the U.S. Army on July 14th 2010. A year and a half overdue, but at least I managed to salvage my future after the Army tried to take it from me completely.
(FYI: This is the extremely abridged version of this story. There are many little stories in between most of this timeline, but that's for another time. Manslaughter charges suck, but the amount of crazy you experience when faced with certain levels of corruption can get fairly entertaining. More to follow.)
