Army officer’s suicide fed by shattered vision
By T. Christian Miller
Los Angeles Times
WASHINGTON – One hot, dusty day last June, Col. Ted Westhusing was found dead in a trailer at a military base near the Baghdad, Iraq, airport, a single gunshot wound to the head.
The Army would conclude that he committed suicide with his service pistol. At the time, he was the highest-ranking officer to die in Iraq.
The Army closed its case. But the questions surrounding Westhusing’s death continue.
Westhusing, 44, was no ordinary officer. He was one of the Army’s leading scholars of military ethics, a full professor at West Point who volunteered to serve in Iraq to be able to teach his students better. He had a doctorate in philosophy; his dissertation was an extended meditation on the meaning of honor.
So it was only natural that Westhusing acted when he learned of possible corruption by U.S. contractors in Iraq. A few weeks before he died, Westhusing received an anonymous complaint that a private security company he oversaw had cheated the U.S. government and committed human rights violations. Westhusing confronted the contractor and reported the concerns to superiors, who launched an investigation.
In e-mails to his family, Westhusing seemed especially upset by one conclusion he had reached: that traditional military values such as duty, honor and country had been replaced by profit motives in Iraq, where the U.S. had come to rely heavily on contractors for jobs once done by the military.
His death stunned all who knew him. Colleagues and commanders wondered whether they had missed signs of depression. He had been losing weight and not sleeping well. But only a day before his death, Westhusing won praise from a senior officer for his progress in training Iraqi police.
His friends and family struggle with the idea that Westhusing could have killed himself. He was a loving father and husband and a devout Catholic. He was an extraordinary intellect, having mastered ancient Greek and Italian. He had less than a month before his return home. It seemed impossible that anything could crush the spirit of a man with such a powerful sense of right and wrong.
On the Internet and in conversations with one another, Westhusing’s family and friends have questioned the military investigation.
A note found in his trailer seemed to offer clues. Written in what the Army determined was his handwriting, the colonel appeared to be struggling with a final question: How is honor possible in a war like the one in Iraq?
When Westhusing entered West Point in 1979, the tradition-bound institution was just emerging from a cheating scandal that had shamed the Army. Restoring honor to the nation’s pre-eminent incubator for Army leadership was the focus of the day.
Cadets are taught to value duty, honor and country, and are drilled in West Point’s strict moral code: A cadet will not lie, cheat or steal – or tolerate those who do.
Westhusing embraced it. He was selected as honor captain for the entire academy his senior year. Westhusing graduated third in his class in 1983 and became an infantry platoon leader. He received Special Forces training, served in Italy, South Korea and Honduras, and eventually became division operations officer for the 82nd Airborne, based at Fort Bragg, N.C.
In 2000, Westhusing enrolled in Emory University’s doctoral philosophy program. The idea was to return to West Point to teach future leaders.
As planned, Westhusing returned to teach philosophy and English at West Point as a full professor with a guaranteed lifetime assignment. He settled into life on campus with his wife, Michelle, and their three young children. But amid the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, he told friends that he felt experience in Iraq would help him in teaching cadets. In the fall of 2004, he volunteered for duty.
“He wanted to serve, he wanted to use his skills, maybe he wanted some glory,” recalled Nick Fotion, his adviser at Emory. “He wanted to go.”
In January, Westhusing began work on what the Pentagon considered the most important mission in Iraq: training Iraqi forces to take over security duties from U.S. troops.
Westhusing’s task was to oversee a private security company, Virginia-based USIS, which had contracts worth $79 million to train an elite corps of Iraqi police to conduct special operations.
In March, Gen. David Petraeus, commanding officer of the Iraqi training mission, praised Westhusing’s performance, saying he had exceeded “lofty expectations.”
“Thanks much, sir, but we can do much better and will,” Westhusing wrote back, according to a copy of the Army investigation into his death that was obtained by the Los Angeles Times.
By April, his mood seemed to have darkened. He worried over delays in training one of the police battalions.
Then, in May, Westhusing received an anonymous four-page letter that contained detailed allegations of wrongdoing by USIS.
The writer accused USIS of deliberately shorting the government on the number of trainers to increase profit margins. More serious, the writer detailed two incidents in which USIS contractors allegedly had witnessed or participated in the killing of Iraqis.
A USIS contractor accompanied Iraqi police trainees during the assault on Fallujah last November and later boasted about the number of insurgents he had killed, the letter says. Private security contractors are not allowed to conduct offensive operations.
In a second incident, the letter says, a USIS employee witnessed Iraqi police trainees kill two innocent Iraqi civilians, then covered it up. A USIS manager “did not want it reported because he thought it would put his contract at risk.”
Westhusing reported the allegations to his superiors but told one of them, Gen. Joseph Fil, that he believed USIS was complying with the terms of its contract.
U.S. officials investigated and found “no contractual violations,” an Army spokesman said. Bill Winter, a USIS spokesman, said the investigation “found these allegations to be unfounded.”
But several U.S. officials said inquiries into USIS were ongoing.
The letter shook Westhusing, who felt personally implicated by accusations that he was too friendly with USIS management, according to an e-mail in the report.
“This is a mess . . . dunno what I will do with this,” he wrote home to his family May 18.
By T. Christian Miller
Los Angeles Times
WASHINGTON – One hot, dusty day last June, Col. Ted Westhusing was found dead in a trailer at a military base near the Baghdad, Iraq, airport, a single gunshot wound to the head.
The Army would conclude that he committed suicide with his service pistol. At the time, he was the highest-ranking officer to die in Iraq.
The Army closed its case. But the questions surrounding Westhusing’s death continue.
Westhusing, 44, was no ordinary officer. He was one of the Army’s leading scholars of military ethics, a full professor at West Point who volunteered to serve in Iraq to be able to teach his students better. He had a doctorate in philosophy; his dissertation was an extended meditation on the meaning of honor.
So it was only natural that Westhusing acted when he learned of possible corruption by U.S. contractors in Iraq. A few weeks before he died, Westhusing received an anonymous complaint that a private security company he oversaw had cheated the U.S. government and committed human rights violations. Westhusing confronted the contractor and reported the concerns to superiors, who launched an investigation.
In e-mails to his family, Westhusing seemed especially upset by one conclusion he had reached: that traditional military values such as duty, honor and country had been replaced by profit motives in Iraq, where the U.S. had come to rely heavily on contractors for jobs once done by the military.
His death stunned all who knew him. Colleagues and commanders wondered whether they had missed signs of depression. He had been losing weight and not sleeping well. But only a day before his death, Westhusing won praise from a senior officer for his progress in training Iraqi police.
His friends and family struggle with the idea that Westhusing could have killed himself. He was a loving father and husband and a devout Catholic. He was an extraordinary intellect, having mastered ancient Greek and Italian. He had less than a month before his return home. It seemed impossible that anything could crush the spirit of a man with such a powerful sense of right and wrong.
On the Internet and in conversations with one another, Westhusing’s family and friends have questioned the military investigation.
A note found in his trailer seemed to offer clues. Written in what the Army determined was his handwriting, the colonel appeared to be struggling with a final question: How is honor possible in a war like the one in Iraq?
When Westhusing entered West Point in 1979, the tradition-bound institution was just emerging from a cheating scandal that had shamed the Army. Restoring honor to the nation’s pre-eminent incubator for Army leadership was the focus of the day.
Cadets are taught to value duty, honor and country, and are drilled in West Point’s strict moral code: A cadet will not lie, cheat or steal – or tolerate those who do.
Westhusing embraced it. He was selected as honor captain for the entire academy his senior year. Westhusing graduated third in his class in 1983 and became an infantry platoon leader. He received Special Forces training, served in Italy, South Korea and Honduras, and eventually became division operations officer for the 82nd Airborne, based at Fort Bragg, N.C.
In 2000, Westhusing enrolled in Emory University’s doctoral philosophy program. The idea was to return to West Point to teach future leaders.
As planned, Westhusing returned to teach philosophy and English at West Point as a full professor with a guaranteed lifetime assignment. He settled into life on campus with his wife, Michelle, and their three young children. But amid the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, he told friends that he felt experience in Iraq would help him in teaching cadets. In the fall of 2004, he volunteered for duty.
“He wanted to serve, he wanted to use his skills, maybe he wanted some glory,” recalled Nick Fotion, his adviser at Emory. “He wanted to go.”
In January, Westhusing began work on what the Pentagon considered the most important mission in Iraq: training Iraqi forces to take over security duties from U.S. troops.
Westhusing’s task was to oversee a private security company, Virginia-based USIS, which had contracts worth $79 million to train an elite corps of Iraqi police to conduct special operations.
In March, Gen. David Petraeus, commanding officer of the Iraqi training mission, praised Westhusing’s performance, saying he had exceeded “lofty expectations.”
“Thanks much, sir, but we can do much better and will,” Westhusing wrote back, according to a copy of the Army investigation into his death that was obtained by the Los Angeles Times.
By April, his mood seemed to have darkened. He worried over delays in training one of the police battalions.
Then, in May, Westhusing received an anonymous four-page letter that contained detailed allegations of wrongdoing by USIS.
The writer accused USIS of deliberately shorting the government on the number of trainers to increase profit margins. More serious, the writer detailed two incidents in which USIS contractors allegedly had witnessed or participated in the killing of Iraqis.
A USIS contractor accompanied Iraqi police trainees during the assault on Fallujah last November and later boasted about the number of insurgents he had killed, the letter says. Private security contractors are not allowed to conduct offensive operations.
In a second incident, the letter says, a USIS employee witnessed Iraqi police trainees kill two innocent Iraqi civilians, then covered it up. A USIS manager “did not want it reported because he thought it would put his contract at risk.”
Westhusing reported the allegations to his superiors but told one of them, Gen. Joseph Fil, that he believed USIS was complying with the terms of its contract.
U.S. officials investigated and found “no contractual violations,” an Army spokesman said. Bill Winter, a USIS spokesman, said the investigation “found these allegations to be unfounded.”
But several U.S. officials said inquiries into USIS were ongoing.
The letter shook Westhusing, who felt personally implicated by accusations that he was too friendly with USIS management, according to an e-mail in the report.
“This is a mess . . . dunno what I will do with this,” he wrote home to his family May 18.
Comment