'Model Soldier' Gets 25 Years In Prison For Trying To Support ISIS

Gotta be honest; I only looked into this story because I thought it was about an actual model/soldier.

Whoa… what I wouldn’t give to get up on a ladder with a big ‘ol jug of BBQ sauce & just dump it all over th… whoa… where was I…

Ah – it wasn’t about that kind of model. Unfortunately it’s a pretty serious & complicated story.

From Reuters:

A U.S. Army sergeant described by former colleagues as a one-time “model soldier” was sentenced to 25 years in prison at a federal court in Hawaii on Tuesday after pleading guilty to providing material support to the Islamic State militant group, a local news outlet reported.

Ikaika Erik Kang, 35, agreed to a plea deal in August on four counts of breaking antiterrorism laws in which he accepted a proposed 25-year sentence.

Kang had begun expressing support for Islamic State, which the United States deems a foreign terrorist organization, by early 2016, according to the U.S. Department of Justice.

Undercover agents from the Federal Bureau of Investigation began meeting with Kang earlier this year, some of them posing as members of the militant group.

Kang gave them military gear and classified documents and agreed to teach them hand-to-hand combat in a video-recorded session, according to federal prosecutors.

Handing over military gear & classified documents, actually bad. Very bad. Promising “ISIS” a film of Army sanctioned karate moves? A little funny (but still bad).

There’s no denying that what Kang did is waaaaay wrong, but going off the part below it’s clear the Army also let him down. I’ve seen countless stories from the military where something goes very off-track with someone but there were pretty clear signs of trouble long before that showed the person needed help.

Lawyers for Kang filed three letters of support in court that described him as a diligent but withdrawn soldier who struggled with his mental health.

Kang’s older sister, Erika Takahashi, wrote that Kang grew up in a “very abusive household,” adding that he “is a good person on the inside.”

Two soldiers who worked with Kang in air-traffic control at Alabama’s Fort Rucker military post used their letters to urge the judge to help Kang get counseling.

Thomas Maia, who was Kang’s first supervisor at Fort Rucker, called Kang a “model soldier” but said he had worried about Kang’s odd behavior. This included staring at a wall for hours on end, saying he was trying to listen to the sound of his blood running through his veins, Maia wrote.

Maia wrote that his efforts to secure a mental health evaluation for Kang were rebuffed.

“He didn’t seek out ISIS on his own, he was approached and socially engineered by the FBI at the Army’s request,” Maia wrote, using an acronym to refer to the Islamic State. “If he would have been given adequate mental treatment back when I asked for it, none of this would have happened.”

Federal prosecutors say Kang agreed to swear an oath of loyalty to Islamic State in a pseudo-ceremony organized by the undercover FBI agents. After the ceremony, Kang told the agents he was ready to take his rifle to downtown Honolulu and start shooting, whereupon he was arrested.

Terrifying. Not sure if more will come from this story but if what his supervisor, Maia, is saying is true it’s a huge failure on his superior’s parts. The Army is huge, there’s tons of moving parts & people can fall in the cracks, especially when it comes to mental health. Think this story highlights how important it is to pay attention to the signs & take action on them before things could escalate.

But hey, if you are going to ignore the mental health of your troops though at least make sure you keep some hot, model ones around for morale purposes. Silky, oily, oily, silky… man… I just want to climb up on a ladder with a tub of BBQ sauce and…