https://www.stripes.com/news/h....477809#.WWl2c3j3arV

VICENZA, Italy — The 173rd Airborne Brigade soldier charged in connection with the spectacular destruction last year of three Humvees that slipped free from their parachutes during a drop and plummeted to earth is not a parachute rigger. He is a Germany-based scout who’d been assigned to assist the brigade’s Italy-based parachute riggers during the exercise, authorities said.

Already punished in connection with the incident is a soldier who was heard laughing and cursing as he shot video of the falling Humvees on April 11, 2016, at the Hohenfels training area. He has been reprimanded, Christian Marquardt, a 7th Army Training Command spokesman, said Thursday.

More serious consequences face Sgt. John Skipper, a scout with the Germany-based 1st Squadron, 91st Cavalry Regiment (Airborne). Skipper, who had been detailed to assist the 173rd’s 601st Quartermaster Company, based at Aviano Air Base, was charged in May with several counts of destruction of government property and making a false official statement

A Humvee is air dropped out of a C-130 Hercules over Hohenfels Training Area, Germany, April 11, 2016. A sergeant with the 173rd Airborne Brigade has been charged in connection with the destruction of three Humvees that plummeted to the ground that day.

Andrew J. Park/U.S. Air Force<br>Andrew J. Park/U.S. Air Force
Soldier charged in Humvees’ free-fall
A video screen grab shows a parachute training exercise in which three Humvees detached from their parachutes after being dropped from a passing C-130 and plummeted to the ground in Hohenfels, Germany.<br>YouTube
Humvees plummet to ground in Hohenfels parachute drop fiasco

Brig. Gen. Tony Aguto, 7th ATC commander, will decide whether the case proceeds to court-martial.

The charge of destruction of government property falls under Article 108 of the Unified Code of Military Justice, which prohibits damage, destruction, or loss, either “willfully caused by the accused” or as a result of negligence. The maximum punishments for each vary considerably. Destroying property valued at more than $500 through neglect carries a maximum punishment of a year in prison, a bad-conduct discharge and forfeiture of all pay and allowances.

Willful destruction carries a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison, a dishonorable discharge and forfeiture of all pay and allowances.

A Humvee can cost up to $220,000.

Marquardt declined to say whether the government was alleging Skipper had acted willfully or negligently.

A video of the incident has been viewed more than a million times on YouTube.

The soldier who made the video is a sergeant assigned to the the 7th ATC’s Joint Multinational Readiness Center as an “observer trainer coach.” His administrative letter of reprimand came from the JMRC commander, Marquardt said.

“The reprimand addressed the unprofessional comments the soldier made during the video, and the fact that he shared the video with others, which resulted in it being posted to social media by an unknown individual,” Marquardt said in an email.

How does a Sergeant rig three different vehicles, on three different aircraft without someone inspecting the work? Worse, he is not qualified as a rigger. It makes no sense.
If he'd been part of a detail that rigged the vehicles, an NCO was in charge and made the final inspection.

Sounds to me like they are making him the scapegoat for someone else's fuckup. You mean to tell me they let this guy rig all those vehicles and he's not even a certified, trained rigger?

It did bother me how gleeful they seemed to be at the destruction of property the rest of us sweat and sacrifice to pay for.

quote:

Originally posted by darthfuster:
It did bother me how gleeful they seemed to be at the destruction of property the rest of us sweat and sacrifice to pay for.

Yeah me a little bit too...

quote:

It did bother me how gleeful they seemed to be at the destruction of property the rest of us sweat and sacrifice to pay for.

Well they are probably kids. Where I fault them is that they posted this to social media. That was stupid. What annoys me is the bureaucrats who spend millions on military hardware that is overpriced and does not work.

quote:

Originally posted by Icabod:
How does a Sergeant rig three different vehicles, on three different aircraft without someone inspecting the work? Worse, he is not qualified as a rigger. It makes no sense.
If he'd been part of a detail that rigged the vehicles, an NCO was in charge and made the final inspection.

Exactly.

There's a whole lot of inspections that go into these type of EX's. Three separate rigs, on three separate aircraft, resulting in three destroyed humvee's..seems rather dubious that a single, non-qualified, non-com is the fault of this.

Sounds fishy to me.

quote:

Originally posted by DoctorSolo:

quote:

Originally posted by darthfuster:
It did bother me how gleeful they seemed to be at the destruction of property the rest of us sweat and sacrifice to pay for.

Yeah me a little bit too...

gallows humor or what else can he do type of thing. I'm sure his reaction would have been different if there were some injury or death involved.

quote:

Originally posted by corsair:

quote:

Originally posted by Icabod:
How does a Sergeant rig three different vehicles, on three different aircraft without someone inspecting the work? Worse, he is not qualified as a rigger. It makes no sense.
If he'd been part of a detail that rigged the vehicles, an NCO was in charge and made the final inspection.

Exactly.

There's a whole lot of inspections that go into these type of EX's. Three separate rigs, on three separate aircraft, resulting in three destroyed humvee's..seems rather dubious that a single, non-qualified, non-com is the fault of this.

hopefully a member with direct experience with these type of thing will chime in.

quote:

The 173rd Airborne Brigade soldier charged in connection with the spectacular destruction last year of three Humvees that slipped free from their parachutes during a drop and plummeted to earth is not a parachute rigger.

If he's not qualified as a rigger he can't possibly be held responsible for a rigging error.

quote:

Marquardt declined to say whether the government was alleging Skipper had acted willfully or negligently.

It has to be willful. No possible way you can argue that non-qualified personnel were negligent.

quote:

.seems rather dubious that a single, non-qualified, non-com is the fault of this.

Yep. Unless he _deliberately_ did something to make it fail... but there should have been at LEAST two other qualified individuals checking each one. Why didn't they catch it?

quote:

It did bother me how gleeful they seemed to be at the destruction of property the rest of us sweat and sacrifice to pay for.

Willing to bet he's sweated more than you have. Missed more holidays than you have. Maybe even bled more than you have.

Gallows humor is how you get thru it and whatever commander filed those charges, against the guy making the video, is a dickhead.

quote:

Originally posted by msfzoe:
Sounds fishy to me.

You smell that too?

Unless they have proof that he intentionally did it, it is more likely to be negligence. And if he was untrained for the task at hand, then the person in charge that put him on the task has some explaining to do.

The whole thing smells rotten.

quote:

Originally posted by darthfuster:
It did bother me how gleeful they seemed to be at the destruction of property the rest of us sweat and sacrifice to pay for.

Be honest. Would you not have laughed your ass off if you witnessed it in person? I'm pretty sure the president himself, and the secretary of defense, and all the top brass in the military, would have been laughing their ass off had they been there and witnessed it in person.

Here's the part that got me. Listen to his comments, it appears he knows what's coming. Not that he hopes something interesting is going to happen but he sounds like he has knowledge that the event was going to occur.

Certainly not an admission of guilt but worth looking into how many people may have been in on this.

Posting it to social media, well that's just plain dumb. It is also the first reaction of this generation.

Looks like he was waiting for it to happen to me.

That easily could have jammed in the cargo door of the plane and sent the CG aft to a real tragedy.

That load should have been inspected before it was put on the plane.

quote:

Gallows humor is how you get thru it and whatever commander filed those charges, against the guy making the video, is a dickhead.

I've been in that drop zone, and if those had been my units, this matter would have been my case. From what I am seeing here, that command is spectacularly fucked up.

Tank pretty much nails it. It's a serial, cascading failure and they are blaming one, unqualified guy for it? That alone is a command failure, and no one in that unit will trust that command after this.

As for the guy who shot the video... Another fuckup. When anything "interesting" is going on a Hohenfels, the commands involved try to make sure that everyone who is available to see something cool has the chance to see something cool. They announce it, and want soldiers to see the Army doing Big Army stuff. They should assume it's being videoed now. Everyone has a camera, particularly the OCs. They are pissed that his video got out in the wild and made the Big Army look bad, so he gets a LOR in his file. Again, stupid. If those HMMWVs had landed perfectly, gleamed with golden light and shit out 1,000 bald eagles that raced off to kill ISIS, the command would have been thrilled.

Proper way to handle that would be for his commander to haul him into his office, and tell him "For the love of all that is holy, don't post shit that makes us look like idiots. Now go forth and sin no more." Don't fuck his career with a LOR in his file. That commander must be a raging asshole.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: ArtieS,

There's a massive failure of supervision and leadership here. Snuffy needs to pay a price here but so do the people who trained and supervised him, and who the hell checked his work?

I read that like they think maybe he undid something to sabotage the operation.

quote:

Originally posted by r0gue:
I read that like they think maybe he undid something to sabotage the operation.

That's how I read it too. As others have mentioned, it sounded as if those filming knew what was coming.

Tank for the win.

Tank's right. For the guys on the ground, they have been in the suck long enough to know something is gonna go wrong...it's inevitable. So they sit and wait, and gloriously it does!

I don't' fault the observer a bit.

Artie touched on how the issue should have been handled but again, the command wanted to step on the guy for letting everyone else see it. If they had kept it to just a few inside army guys-nothing would have happened to the observer.

As a former servicemember, I'm not mad at all.

As a taxpayer, I'd like to KNOW that a good investigation is going to get to the bottom and determine if someone is really at fault or if it was unintended. But again, I've been in, and I know someone is gonna get scapegoated for this.