Casefile True Crime - Case 78: Exposing a War Crime with Justin Watt | Interview

Episode Date: February 1, 2020

In late 2019, Casefile spoke with a special guest related to one of our most controversial episodes. The interview was initially intended for our companion podcast, From the Files, but as we’ve since put that show on hiatus, we’ve decided to air it as a bonus, one-off release due to its importance.

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In late 2019, Case File spoke with a special guest related to one of our most controversial episodes. The interview was initially intended for our companion podcast From the Files. But as we've since put that show on hiatus, we've decided to air it as a bonus one-off release due to its importance. Prior to listening, we recommend that you revisit episode 78 of Case File, The Jannabi Family, to familiarize yourself with the crimes and investigation pertaining to this discussion. For those who have already listened, here's a quick recap. On March 12, 2006, during the height of the Iraq War, four members of the Jannabi family, 45-year-old Qasem, his 34-year-old wife Fakriar, and their daughters,

6-year-old Hadil and 14-year-old Abir, were murdered in their home in the Iraqi village of Yusufair, south of Baghdad. Abir had also been raped and her remains set alight. It was widely accepted that the attack had been carried out by local insurgents, as such a violence was common in the area that was referred to by occupying foreign military as the Triangle of Death. American soldier Private First Class Justin Watt was stationed in Iraq at the time. Months after the Jannabi family slaying, a sergeant confided that one of their fellow soldiers was responsible for the brutal crime. Justin put his friendships, career, and even his life at risk by conducting his own covert investigation into the matter. He discovered several other soldiers were involved to varying degrees and made the difficult decision to expose them.

Five American soldiers, Sergeant Paul Cortez, Specialist James Barker, Private First Class Jesse Spillman, Private First Class Brian Howard, and Private First Class Stephen Green, were found to have planned, carried out, and covered up the rape and murder of Abir as well as the massacre of her family. All five individuals faced charges for their involvement and received varying convictions. Green had been discharged from the US Army for mental instability prior to the crimes coming to light and was consequently tried in a civilian court, while the other four perpetrators faced the US Army General Court's Marshal. Green, who was responsible for carrying out the murders, was sentenced to life imprisonment with no possibility of parole. He took his life shortly after. The remaining perpetrators were sent to military prison to serve varying sentences.

Justin Watts' actions led to mixed opinions from the American public. Some viewed him as a hero, while others accused him of being a traitor and sent him death threats. His decision also impacted the Iraqi people, creating hostilities between the locals, insurgents, and touring military. Justin has since been medically discharged from the Army and has spoken with us candidly about his military experience, including the Janabi family murders, adding additional context to our episode on the crime. Justin started by telling us how he came to join the military. Before 9-11, I had a buddy named Alden, and we were going to do the SEAL Challenge together. They had a program in the Navy that allowed you to join with a friend.

So you're going at the same time, and it guaranteed you a selection slot to go to Buds. Went through, got qualified for that. I was 17 at the time, and then I showed up to maps like the process for joining the military here in America is like, you know, you'll go through, you'll talk to a recruiter, you'll do some preliminary testing, then you have to go up to maps for, you know, some physical battery stuff, aptitude batteries, stuff like that. On the day that I was supposed to go up to maps, and that's like where you sign your contract, my buddy bailed on me completely, so I went up there on my own. And as it turns out, the job, it was like a crypto slash, you know, networking, like computer type position.

That wasn't available anymore. And so I was like, okay, I'm not going to do this. Because I was 17, you can't join until you're 18. I was in what was called the delayed entry program. So you get all your stuff done when you're 17, and then basically as soon as you're 18, you ship out. I basically dumpstered the idea. 9-11 happened. And that's like in a serious relationship, you know, I had a pretty decent job. I was a blackjack dealer in the casino and a pit boss.

The relationship ended, and I remember just being in a position where I was just kind of like, okay, what am I going to do now? Because all of my plans were kind of based around a future with that person. And I had no idea what I was going to be doing, and I was cleaning out my room. And I found my depth ID and my original ship date was supposed to be on September 11. And at that point, I was just like, wow, somebody else is probably in my place. I had just watched Band of Brothers. This is going to make me sound like the biggest cliche ever.

Literally after watching that, I was like, you know, I want the 101st Airborne, you know, I want infantry, and if you're not going to give it to me, I'm not going. And at that time, the Iraq War kicked off. This was like 2004, I want to say. So it just really kicked off in Iraq. And they couldn't find people to join just because Iraq was a lot bloodier than Afghanistan. And so I got like a $20,000 bonus for joining the infantry, which is unheard of. I mean, because it's a low like ASVAB requirement job.

Yeah, 12 days later from that day that I found that ID, I was on a plane to Fort Benning to get into training. So I went through that. And then immediately after that, the aerosol school, which is where you learn to rob out of the jobbers, which is a big part of what the 101st does. And then got down to my unit. You know, I mean, it was, it was like a very different thing to go through all the training, knowing that you're going to war, like everybody there, sergeants that were teaching us had all just gotten back. It was their first combat deployment.

There was people that were in the logistical infrastructure of basic training that were headed down to the 101st with me. So I don't know, there was like a lot of camaraderie, a lot of, I think apprehension, like everyone, everyone knew with certainty that they were going. Everyone knew that it was popping off over there. So yeah, I mean, it was, it was a crazy time for sure. Where were you first sent in Iraq? So the way it worked out is I got down to the 101st first. And that's like where I linked up with my unit and you know, you get assigned to a company and everything.

And that's how I ended up in first strike or, you know, Bravo company, like the unit that the book was based on. Got down there and then you do pre-deployment spin ups. You know, you go out, you do more training, you know, out in the field and like the simulated urban combat type villages, the National Training CC out in Louisiana. And you do, you know, training as a whole unit and then as smaller elements. Then you go, I mean, you usually get stood down a couple of times just because they don't like people knowing exactly when you're going to be leaving and with how many people you're going and everything like that, just operational security stuff. So I want to say from the day that we were to be going, there was like a couple of week variation.

We went, I think we stopped in Germany on the way there and then landed in Saudi Arabia. Did our last combat zero before getting down into theater, which is, you know, like making sure our weapons were still dialed in. And then yeah, we were down to Iraq. We landed in Baghdad. It's just a different world. I mean, the war machine is pretty, pretty sophisticated. So like by the time we got down there, we'd only been in Iraq. I mean, that kicked off 2003.

So this is, you know, like basically the end of 2004, early 2005, they already had this main kind of super base built up in Baghdad. It was called Striker at the time. And there was like a pizza hut and like a green bean coffee. You know, it's just weird. But then so you're like walking around this area that feels kind of like, you know, a military base. And then you'll be talking with your friend. And then all of a sudden you hear like a huge explosion, a few hundred meters outside the perimeter. You know, then you'll hear a bunch of machine gun fire and from a couple of different areas.

And then, you know, it will just go silent, right? And you're just like, somebody probably just died right there. Crazy. Like it was just a weird transition. Justin then explained how he came to learn his company was being moved from Baghdad to an area known as the Triangle of Death. We were there for, I want to say, probably a week, maybe two weeks before we got down in the sector. We'd found out probably a week or two before we left that we were going to go to this area called Triangle of Death. And it's like a three-cornered area, Yousafiyah, Mamadiah and Ludafiyah. And our company Bravo had done really well in the pre-deployment training.

So we were going to go to the most remote section of that, like the farthest away from support. And so a company's like 120 guys, I'd say probably 90 actual riflemen or people fighting. And then the rest is like kind of leaders in support. And we got down to that area. And it was just like from day one, like we knew that we were going to be in for a fight. And you get off the chopper and you're in the middle of this kind of like the Triverid in that sector. So there's like some densely urban areas. There's a lot of rural farmland in between like these kind of small cities.

It was just like, I think we got mortared our first day. Like I pulled first guard shift. There was like a phone trailer that had like a couple of computers in it and some phones. And it got hit with a mortar first day and sort of one of the shower trailers. Third platoon got the first patrol. And I think that they lost their lieutenant, that first patrol. Like there was like three wounded. The unit that we were relieving hadn't fortified that position at all.

I mean, they were severely undermanned. It was a national guard unit. So they weren't like full-time soldiers. And I think that there's like different standards there. I mean, there shouldn't be, but the reality is like they just don't get resourced the same way that the regular army does. And yeah, I mean, it was basically just like, okay, this is how it's going to be all year, you know, welcome to the Triangle of Death. I asked Justin if his company was given a timeframe for how long they would be in the Triangle of Death or if it was open-ended. At that time, it was kind of flexible.

We knew it was going to be no less than a year from the time that you put boots on ground. So we ripped out the unit that was there previously. The IED threat, it had gone from a conventional fight, which is to say military versus military, right? Saddam's military versus ours into a insurgency fight. So the military was defeated. We came through, basically stood everything down, stripped it down, broke it down for a lot of reasons. But the main reason was that it was really secular, I'd say. Like it was like Sunni and Shia were very isolated.

It wasn't like a meritocracy at all within their military. Those two sects did not, they had not worked together well. It's not to say that they can't, it's just to say that they were never allowed to. And there's obviously a significant history of conflict there between those factions. And also the area kind of writ large when you look at Iran and Iraq. In the time before we got there, their army was stood up, their National Guard and their police forces first. And it was stood up in more of like an egalitarian, like, you know, kind of like meritocracy type way where everything was ruled and they were all still trying to work that piece out.

So we knew we were going to be there working with partner forces for at least a year, but could be extended. And for many people it was, I mean, I'd say the average deployment for a soldier between 2005 and 2000 and probably nine was about 15 months, 15 to 18 months. So it's, I mean, it's a long time to spend in combat for sure. And that's like one of the main differences, you know, in Vietnam, like you might spend a couple weeks on the frontline and then you'll be back, you know, for R&R or you'll get stood down for a bit. The soldiers of today, when we get deployed, were out there for the entire time. And that's, it can be pretty grinding.

So yeah, we got, we got told it was going to be no less than a year. For me, I caught a little bit more than that towards the end, obviously, because I ended up getting transferred to a different unit. My platoon had been decimated. Justin further explained his experiences in the Triangle of Death. There was a few areas within the Triangle. Bravo Company was in Yousufia. And there was a few different areas of operations within Yousufia. We started off and it was just a, what we call a fob or a forward operating base. That would be like what you would refer to as home, home base, right?

So we would, that's where we kept like the equipment that we weren't keeping on our bodies, like photos from home, stuff like that. And then there was a patrol, just a smaller version of a fob, about a platoon size. So 30 man position. And that was, I want to say about eight to 10 kilometers away. And it was guarding a bridge. The position was responsible for an area we called the Alamo. And that was a water treatment facility that provided clean water for the area. And then in additionally allowed transport of goods, materials, personnel from SUNY Triangle writ large to Baghdad.

So it was like one of the only crossing points right over the Euphrates. And so that was an important position. And those were the two areas that we had to staff with our company started out as a manageable situation. But after we got out there and we secured these spots and we were, it was just a very kinetic environment. Jim Frederick who wrote the book did the math on it and the way it worked out based on like the Blue Force One reports. I think there was like 900 IEDs that went off that we were involved with during that year. And it was basically like gunfights every other day or for six months straight, whatever floats your boat, mortars every day, rockets, stuff like that.

The first time the Colonel went out to the JSB, which is what I'm going to call that patrol base, the Jhaka Safari Bridge is what the bridge was called. And the actual position that guarded it was called the Alamo. First time that the Colonel in charge of our unit came out, he got hit by an IED. That IED was the one that killed my best friend and my roommate. This is about 30 days in, less than 30. So it was on this road called Sportster. And so what Colonel decided is that we needed to own this road.

He took a company, which is like 120 guys. So subtract 30 from that. I mean, that's the patrol base supposed to guard the bridge. And then you've got these checkpoints to run up and down Sportster, which is the road between the patrol base and the fob. So we did that and that another platoon. So that's minus another 30. And before you know it, we basically don't have the ability to really do anything.

There's no rest cycle. Flash forward a little bit more. When we found out that Zarkawi, it was like number two in Al Qaeda at that time, was operating in Rushda Mullah, which is a little bit, it's like down route caveman from where we were at. So like past where the crimes happened with the Jinnabis towards the power plant, I think to the north. We had to take another patrol base, which is another 30 people.

So, you know, 30 people at the JSB, you've got 30 people at the checkpoints. You've got 30 people at Rushdie. That's 90 out of 120. And then you've got the main base that has third two. So you can start to see how the math doesn't add up. So like, it was basically, there's no rest. You're undermanned for everything. And we do raid at night.

We attack objectives at night because, you know, we have an advantage there with our night vision. And so it's just not a lot of sleeping going on. No time to really refit. It was really, I would describe it as grinding. Justin then explained how we first found out about the Jinnabi murders. There's kind of two parts to this. There's like when I actually found out about it and then I actually kind of found out what had happened. So my platoon, first platoon was out on checkpoint duty during that rotation.

Morning, like any other, you would wake up before the sun rose. You would start getting prepared to do the IED sweeps, which is like one of the most dangerous parts of the day. So like at dawn, you would get up and walk one checkpoint to the next and sweep that area for bombs. Easily my least favorite part of the day. So I was getting ready to go do that. And there's curfew laws like where the local nationals aren't allowed to be out between call it 11 o'clock at night or 10 o'clock at night until, you know, 6 o'clock in the morning. So right at 6, you've got old man and a young boy show up checkpoint and they want to talk to the lieutenant. I went down there, went to talk to him.

I grabbed the interpreter and found out what was going on. And they're like, our whole family got killed. Everyone's dead. The house is on fire. We need the police and medical services to be able to get through because everything is locked down until we do these IED sweeps. And this is both for our safety as well as theirs, you know, like these kids have to get to school. And so we need to make sure that the road is, you know, free from IEDs stuff like that before we open up the road. So went back up and I talked to the lieutenant, told him what was going on.

Your review was there. And, you know, we've assessed the situation. And it was, you know, we were a little bit concerned that it could be an ambush just because we were so under resourced that when we were sending out patrols, I mean, it might be three, four guys that would go investigate something like that or go check something out. That's not even remotely close to ideal. Lieutenant decided he wanted to investigate. He put your review in charge of the patrol. I actually gave your review my camera, my personal camera.

And then his job was to go out to that checkpoint and investigate what had happened. So he grabbed the old man and the boy, the grandfather. We didn't have any bodies to spare from our checkpoint because we had to do the IED sweeps. And so he walked down with us while we're at he sweeps to the next checkpoint, linked up with those guys. We walked back and ultimately put together enough guys from that checkpoint to go out and check out the house. He comes back. I'm a checkpoint one. I'm off guard and tosses me back my camera.

I'm looking at all the crime scene photos. I don't mean to sound like cold or it's just this wasn't really new. I mean, you know, have an election and then the mayor gets kidnapped and then his family gets beheaded. And then their bodies are booby trapped and you're digging kids out of the Euphrates, you know, on an almost daily basis. Soonies are setting up checkpoints for Shias and killing them in their cars. People are setting car bombs off in markets. The Maudi militia is attacking targets of strategic importance within the Sunni kind of militias. It was just a bloodbath over there like constantly.

So this wasn't unusual for that sector at all. The one thing that stood out, it wasn't the women or the kids or the family that had been murdered for seemingly no reason. It was the isolation of the young female, a beer, the fact that her body was burned. And then the rest of it segregated into another room where their bodies were. There wasn't a lot of male on female sexual assault that we were aware of. When we disbanded their military police and we stood things up, it's like we would hear about everything in these towns. I mean, we were living amongst these people. It wasn't like I was living in a patrol base.

So when you were out at the checkpoints or at this water treatment facility, you're living in the basement of the industrial complex in the middle of some tribal farmland, like small villages. And the families would be like the father or would live in the village of the grandfather and then they'd make the village a little bit bigger than his sons would build a house within the walls of this village. And so we were living amongst these people. And so we had a pretty intimate relationship with them. We saw them daily. It wasn't rare for us to be on a morning patrol after the IED sweeps to say hi to certain people.

The women would be out making the naan, the bread in the morning. And we would go out there and give them money for naan and chai, chai tea. Yeah, like the sexual assault piece, because it seemed like when I looked at the pictures, I'm like, why would they isolate? Like what did she do? A community structure is much different than it is in the West. And it's not me passing judgment on it. Like I'm not saying that.

I'm just saying it's different. That's just the fact. And so the idea that like a 14-year-old could do something egregious enough to invoke something like that. And a lot of this was assumption. Like when I was looking at the photographs, I was just like, why would somebody do this to this family? Why would they do this and desecrate this body? It wasn't something that we saw like that. It was kind of unique.

And then quite honestly, not to sound dismissive, it was just onto the next thing. And so that was March. I was like March 13th. Want to say June or July is when I found out what really happened. And we had lost a whole bunch of people. I mean, it was like one out of every three people. So like, you know, 10 of 30 had been killed in my platoon. Over 50% were wounded to the point where they had to be, you know, medically evacuated from theater.

And it was just a, a hellacious knock down drag out fight. The last thing that happened, the last really terrible kinetic event was when they, Zarkawi had just been killed. I want to say about a month prior. And so there was a power vacuum and some of Zarkawi's lieutenants were vying for leadership power, you know, in lieu of him being dead. One enterprising, you know, lieutenant and I'll decided that you wanted to attack an American checkpoint. At this point, it was the Alamo that was staffed by three people. It was a Tucker, Babineau and Menchaca. This is just a funny army idiosyncrasy.

But like dental is like the most important thing in the universe. It doesn't make any sense. It's like, uh, if one of the Navy SEALs that had to go kill bin Laden, you know what I mean? Like wasn't up on their dental, like they were to go on that mission. That's like how, how crazy dental is. So my, my time for a dental appointment came up. So they're like, okay, you have to go up to striker to get your, your dental screening. And then your Rebe had been injured in an IED blast that killed our lieutenant.

We had a hernia and he had been just kind of playing hurt for the past two months. And so both of us had to go up to striker. So it was just business as usual. We were out at the JSB. We had guys at the Alamo. We got on a bird and we made it to Mamadiah. Mamadiah was the, uh, the battalion headquarters. There was the biggest, the biggest base in our sector, which was the Triangle of Death and relatively safe.

We got there and it's nice when you get there because you can do things like they have shower trailers that have like real toilets. It sounds stupid, but it's like using a real toilet or, you know, having hot water for a shower, being able to see yourself in a mirror. It's kind of like a luxury. So it was always nice to be able to go up there. And so we got there and I think that maybe three hours had passed, sundown had happened and all of a sudden everything exploded. Like the whole base was just all of a sudden like everyone was running everywhere. And finally we were able to find out they're like, uh, some people in Bravo are dust one. That's like duty status.

Uh, we're about to unknown. It's like the worst thing that could possibly happen. So we found out that basically the checkpoint got overrun. They had killed Babineau on the spot and, uh, Tucker and Menchaco were missing. And so Uribe and I grabbed our guns and we were just running up helicopter over here, run to the helicopter. You guys got room, run over to, uh, you know, this convoy that's leaving. Hey, you guys got room. You know, we're with Bravo with our guys and, uh, nobody had any room or nobody wanted us because I think that it's a, it's kind of like a similar to the police.

I imagine it's like, you know, if your kid got killed or something like that, they wouldn't put you as the detective in charge of the case. So it ended up just being this ghost town. We were sitting in this tent. Everyone was gone. It was just us alone in this tent. It was pitch black. You know, we started that deployment together. Uribe is like my big brother.

We were on the same squad, same team. We kind of came up in combat together on that deployment. Like he had one previous deployment, so he was definitely a lot more seasoned, but we were like some of the only original people. From the platoon, only survivors. And I think I said, like, did you ever think that it was going to turn out like this? Could you even imagine? I mean, at that point, like I wasn't scared of getting a gunfights or anything like that anymore. So you wear like a bulletproof vest, but like the breast pockets of my shirt, I would have around just one round.

And it was like literally in case it ran out of ammo and I had to take my own life. You know, like that style was like the one thing that I was not willing to do is be captured. Just because they're, if members of that organization get ahold of you, they are savages. And so Uribe's like, yeah, that's like, this is crazy. Like this is messed up. And then that led into like, he's like, you want to know, you know, what else is messed up? He's like, do you remember that family that got killed back in March? And I was like, you know, like, which one are you talking about?

And he was like the one with the burn girl. Yeah, no, I remember that one that was messed up. And he's just like, he's like, no, dude, that was, that was us, man. That was green. And I was like, what? Like, what are you talking about? And so then he told me happened on that patrol, like he went up there. He said he had found like a shotgun shell.

And he had brought it back to checkpoint two where those guys were at. Green was just waiting for him outside the checkpoint. He's just like, he's like, that was me, man. I did that. And Uribe didn't believe him at first. And then he was asking him questions about, you know, like, where were the bodies then? You know, how many victims were there? You know what I mean?

Like what weapons systems were they killed with? And he was able to answer all the questions. And then so basically Uribe was like, thought that he acted alone. I was basically like, listen, you either get yourself out of the army or I'm going to put you out. And I think next day green went to combat stress and was finally discharged from the military while in theater. But yeah, that's, that's kind of how I found out about the crimes in real time and then retroactively. Justin then took us through what happened as he started to process what Uribe had just told him. There was guys that used to be in my squad that were out at that checkpoint.

This house is like 200 meters from the checkpoint. And I was like, you're telling me that the dumbest guy in our platoon was able to get out of his uniform, put on his ninja silky, take an indigenous weapon, sneak out from, you're in one room of like a bombed out hut. You know what I mean? Like you sneak out past two guys that aren't even really sleeping because you never really sleep when you're over there. And get out past the guards, you know, through the barbed wire, hold a family at gunpoint while conducting a rape, kill everybody with a non-silenced, you know, AK and a shotgun, and then re-infiltrate the same wire dressed like an insurgent. I was like, there's no way.

There's, there's absolutely no way. There's not one guy that was in my squad that found guard for that entire deployment. There's not one guy that would have let somebody sneak up on them. I just didn't buy it. So I told him, I was just like, we got to turn him in. There's more people involved. I don't believe that he could have done this alone. And he shut me down.

At that point, I was just like, Uribe and I were close. I mean, he was like my big brother. So it didn't get hostile right away. I was just like, he just needs, he needs more evidence. Like I don't think that he believes me that more people were involved. I think that he need just more compelling case. And so I went and I talked to Howard. I just played like I knew more than I did.

And then he just broke down and told me what happened. It validated all my suspicions. Like I, all the people matched up with my radio logs about who is at what checkpoint on that day. And everyone was involved, like Cortez. And it was complicated because Cortez, he was the sergeant at the checkpoint, one of the main criminals. And Cortez was engaged to Uribe's fiancee's sister. They were basically family. He was just like, no, you need to shut this, shut this down, man.

You are going to let this go. No uncertain terms. At that point, I was just like, I'm on my own. And I thought about the situation. There wasn't a lot of guys left. I mean, pretty much like, you know, it's basically like half the survivors of the original members of the platoon were involved in this crime, right? So the platoon had devolved into a tribe. You know, we had lost, I don't think we went through three platoon sergeants. We've been through a lieutenant.

I think two squad leaders. I didn't trust anybody really, outside of a very few people, that they would do the right thing. Just because the level of loyalty in that platoon at that point was so high, you know what I mean? Amongst the people that had endured all that. I couldn't imagine it happening if I went to the lieutenant, or if I went to a squad leader, or I went to somebody else within my actual platoon, that it wouldn't make its way to one of those criminals. And if that happened, there's absolutely, I mean, we were miles away from a flagpole. You know what I mean?

Like we are out in a bombed out hut doing dangerous stuff every day, IED sweeps. I mean, how easy would it be to just shoot me up? You know what I mean? Like while we're out on patrol and just be like, oh, hey, yeah, it was enemy forces or frag me in my sleep or whatever. And so I was just like, okay, like I've got to get this outside the chain of command. There was a guy named Staff Sergeant Davis. There's a new program in the Army at that time called Mobile Combat Stress Teams. And they would go down to, you know, wherever after, you know, like a SIG Act action or a gunfight or, you know, you killed somebody,

you lost somebody, you worked on some casualties, car bomb went off, whatever. And I had just been unfortunate enough to be involved in a lot of those. I'd gotten EFR training, which is like basically being the backup medic. It's like part of an initiative to be able to make sure that soldiers are able to get aid. And so like I carried around additional equipment, all trauma focused. So, you know, definitely not a medic, but like when it comes down to gunshot wounds and, you know, amputations and burns and breaks and stuff like that, like that was stuff I could deal with decompressed lungs or because I was that backup medic. I had been involved in like a significant amount of casualties and, you know, I treated our own casualties and my squad had been in a lot of the gunfights and a lot of the kinetic activity.

I had to talk to on a fairly regular basis because that was the thing is like if something like that happened, it wasn't like a terry thing. It was like, hey, go talk to somebody. I'd had a fair amount of interactions with these people and they knew that I was like a solid soldier. Like anytime that anything happened, you're treating, you know, a bunch of people after a car bomb explodes in a market or you've got to shoot somebody or whatever. Like these people knew that I was like good to go. Whenever something happened, I'd just be like, yeah, I'm good, you know, send me back. I mean, not to say that there was really an alternative. I mean, even if somebody was like, hey, no, I'm not good, then it'd be like, oh, here's some Xanax or, you know, here's a sleeping pill and what you can't really take.

But I had always been like, hey, I'm good. So I felt like I had a degree of rapport with those people. There's also codes of ethics and people in the mental health care profession, medical profession in general. And these people were national guards, so they're more civilians. I felt that these Staff Sergeant Davis and Colonel Bowler were people that I could trust. They seemed like good moral people in a good profession. And I feel like if I told them that they needed to investigate this, they would be compelled to just by virtue of their job. And it would also create time and distance for the investigators to be able to figure out how to do what they needed to do because I was intimately aware that like, this is the triangle of death.

The crime happened months ago and the crime scene wasn't secure. There's no murder weapon. There's no witnesses that had come forward. And it's like my word against all of them with a, you know, who have had months of time to get their story straight. So I just wanted to give them the best possible shot at getting justice for that family. I told them, I told you Rebe, then you go see Combat Stress under the guise of like, I couldn't sleep just because of, you know, those guys being kidnapped. Well, not kidnapped, abducted off the checkpoint, whatever. I don't know if you bought it or not.

I haven't really asked him since then, but I got to go in there and I told him what was going on. I got my sleeping pills, showed it to him and I was just like, all right, you know, then it was time to go back. He got back down on the line and I knew I was on a clock because Howard knew that I was asking around. And then you Rebe also knew that, I mean, like I was explicit with him that I wanted to turn these guys in. And that I believe that there were more people involved and everything else like that. And I was like, okay, when we get back down on the ground together, all these people are going to find out everything. And so I need like an insurance policy. So I went to like one of the only guys I trusted at that point.

My name's John Deem. Just E5 Sergeant got promoted from E4 just a few months ago, young guy. As good as the day is long, man. One of the smartest people I've ever met. I went to him and I was like, listen, Sergeant, like I can't tell you what this is about. But if something happens to me, you need to get to Staff Sergeant Davis. When you get this ball across the finish line. If something happens to me, it's not by accident.

I need you to know that. And he's just like, no, you got to tell me what's going on. And we had a really good relationship. I mean, it's like when we were on guard together, I just call him John, you know, not Sergeant. You know, like we were friends, but like he pulled rank on me that one time. And he's like, you've got to tell me, you know, what happened. And so, you know, I told him what I've done. And he was like, Roger that.

So I was working it from the outside. He made the decision on his own, which I got. I didn't know about this until years later, but it almost got me killed, but he actually ended up saving me. So kind of a funny deal, but he went and just reported it right up the chain of command, right? Like right to the Lieutenant. And then exactly what I was worried about happening happened. Basically, it went out over the radio.

Everyone found out that someone had said something and everyone was frantically running around. Like if they weren't aware of it, they were trying to figure out what was going on and the criminals were trying to figure out who had talked. And so at that point, like I was like sweating bullets and, you know, I got approached by Tony. It's like, did you say something? I was like, nah, must have been Howard. No idea what you're talking about, man. And I was like, I'm going to get killed out here.

Colonel rolls down. First, the captain rolls down actually. Excuse me. He starts asking questions, gets the Colonel down there. Colonel comes down and he did exactly what I thought he was going to do. He basically conducts his own informal inquiry, basically lets everyone know that someone is making his accusations and they all deny it predictably. And then he goes down and he outs me in front of Uribe at checkpoint four where I was at.

Basically they're like, where's Wad at? They brought me into a room with this bombed out building. Uribe is standing in the doorway behind me and they're like, what gives you the right to accuse these men of these crimes? You know, you're going to ruin these non-commissioned officers' careers. You don't have any evidence. What gives you the right? And I told him, I just looked behind me and I looked at Tony and I just looked back at them. And I was just like, I was like, you're wrong, sir.

That guy covered up a rape and multiple murders. Howard confessed that he was the lookout to me. I've got all these names in my logbook. I know that they did this and I'm going to fill out an official statement to that effect. They just berated me for a while longer and then they tried to leave me at that checkpoint. I know that they never even tried to get me out of there because they didn't have room. So they were leaving that checkpoint. You want to talk about it?

That was like the most dejected and alone and just miserable I'd ever felt in my life was when they're like you're dismissed and I went out there. I got back into the Humvee and I started pulling guard and I was just like looking out at the horizon and I was like, I'm dead. And then all of a sudden I heard this voice on the radio that was like, talent six, talent six, do you have Watt with you? And I was John Dean and he's like a sergeant talking to a lieutenant colonel. This doesn't happen. It was like negative Watt's at checkpoint four. It's like you need to bring him with or they're going to kill him. Forced him to turn around.

So they came and they picked me up and they had to leave one of their guys there. I had my weapon taken. I wasn't arrested, but I was detained for interrogation by CID, which is like the FBI, the Army. And I just had to fill out statement after statement after statement. I'm like freaking out. I wasn't I wasn't allowed to go anywhere aside from medical combat stress and Chow Hall that was it. And it was like with guards. One day I went down there to see Colonel Buller, who was the combat stress doctor.

And I was like, I'm like losing my mind. There were some technical difficulties at this point in the interview. Justin said that the combat stress doctor advised him to get a lawyer because they wanted to file charges against him for false statement and perjury amongst other charges. Justin then continued. And at that point, I just I just lost it. I felt like I was defeated. They brought the other guys up for investigation to the same place that I was at. And then it was the day of the funerals for Tucker Babs and Choco.

Like I'll never forget it. I wasn't allowed to go to the funeral. I was told. And I just didn't care anymore, like in regards to like what anyone had to say about what I couldn't do. So I was just decided I was going to go. So I just walked out the front door of the tent. And there was like the two guards were just like, what? Like, you can't do that.

And I'm just like, well, you could shoot me or we could fight or, you know, whatever you want to do, but I'm going to the funeral. And so they just kind of looked at each other and they're just like, well, and then they just started walking with me. And then out of the corner of my eye, I see the two CID agents that were interrogating me walking with Howard. And I'm like, what? Where are you going? And I was just like, I'm going to the funeral. I mean, we could fight about it or whatever. But I'm not at this point, you know what I mean? It is what it is.

So, you know, funeral starting, like make a choice. And they're like, we just want you to know that Howard, Howard confessed. He filled out a statement. You're really just filling out a statement right now as well. You were right. This happened. And we're going to go talk with the colonel right now. And I just like fell down to my knees and like I cried, man.

I was kind of surprised by what happened next. The criminals got pulled out. They started getting charged right away. That left basically nobody in my platoon. So the platoon was combative and effective. Like they couldn't do their job anymore because there just wasn't enough people. So they got pulled up there too. Basically, they brought all of the, all of the people that would be like retaliating against me up to where I was at.

So I was just like, man, like this super sucks. And then as like a prize at the end of it, they assigned me to Charlie Company first platoon, which was the platoon that got tasked to go out to Bravo Company first platoon, my old platoon sector. So literally, I got sent back down to the exact same area that I was in before all this happened. So that's where I served out the rest of my deployment. Then I went home. Was there any animosity from Charlie Company towards you? Not from Charlie Company.

I mean, I had a good reputation in the battalion. I didn't know anybody there personally, but I made some friends. Captain Doherty was in charge of that. He was a good man. It wasn't bad in Charlie Company. It was just bad in the sense that like when I got back, the Bravo Company Barracks was right next to the Charlie Company Barracks, like literally like right next to it. So there was a lot of animosity from Bravo.

I'll tell you that. And I mean, I got jumped a couple of times, but the big thing, and I understand it to a degree. I mean, and I do want to acknowledge that is that you've got a bunch of people at a time where it's like the war wasn't popular. It was dangerous. And these people were like giving their everything. There's a thousand people in that battalion, right? There's what, like four or five, six criminals, right? Everyone that's that deployment got marred with this thing.

And everyone's good work got tarnished with this thing. I mean, I understand, you know, why some of these people hated me, but it still was really hard to deal with. Did all of this change your view of the military and your fellow soldiers? I don't know, like maybe when you're a kid, you think your parents are like superhuman, but they're just people. And I think that I felt that way about soldiers before I joined. And now I know that the army is just people and people will fail sometimes. I can say that I think writ large, the army is definitely worthy of the respect it gets because it fails. I think a lot less than other organizations.

And when it does, I think that it owns it. And so I think it's worthy of our respect. But yeah, I mean, it changed a lot in terms of how I view about how recruiting should be done, about what citizens relationship with politics should be, how things should be resourced, what good leadership looks like. I mean, there's a thousand things I could talk about. But the reality is no one's Superman, dude. Justin then explained what it was like experiencing the trials. For one, you're going to have people that take shots at you. You have people that are trying to disprove what you're saying.

The hardest part by far of the trials for me was just thought for sure I'd be called by the prosecution. But I was actually called by the defense in every single case, but one. In military court, there's basically two rooms for witnesses. There's like the courtroom and then there's like the defense in the prosecution's room. And then all the defense's witnesses are in the defense's room and the prosecution's witnesses are in the prosecution's room. So I would be at a trial that could be going on for a month. I'd be sitting in a room with like the family of the people that I put in jail, you know, for eight hours a day and all of the people that were on their side. And you just have to sit there and endure that.

I think you could probably imagine that's rather uncomfortable. Are you aware if there was any direct threat made against your life? Yeah, a number of times that, like, you know, I had some people that were friends with me. There was a guy in my platoon who was looking for Magmi when I was at Mamadiah. I was told that people that were going to, you know, try and come and shoot me. Then there was, you know, after the fact, you're really corroborated. This is just like a year or two ago. The MX-400 class is based on our deployment now, which is like the culminating class on officership.

It's a 400 level class. It's really a study of the book about our deployment. And they bring us up there to talk about it with the cadets so that they can learn from, you know, these mistakes. And some of the positive things that we did right as well. And he told, confirmed to me that there was, like, the minute that it came out over the radio and the colonel was coming down, that Cortez had went up to Uribe, and what are we going to do about Watt? We need to take care of him like now. Yeah, there was like an absolute plot on my life from the criminals.

I mean, there was even from their friends as well. Do you have any advice for others who are in a position where they need to speak out but are hesitant? Yeah, I mean, I think, I'd say stand your ground, you know. I think that one of the reasons why in time things have more or less been better for me than a lot of other people that have been in situations like this is because I didn't run from anything. I stood there and I took it and it's hard. It's going to be hard. Like, don't expect, don't expect that it's going to go well. I certainly lost a lot through this process, but I can say after everything

that living with the alternative for me would have been impossible. So do what you got to do and just know that you're going to go it alone. What does your post to military career look like? That's like speaking to kind of like the way that things don't work out. I really liked my career. You know, I was a good soldier. I wasn't a great soldier, but good. I had planned on going to special forces selection. Like I had my packet all together. I had met all the criteria and then obviously that kind of got taken away from me.

So I had to figure things out. I was married at the time. So I had to figure something out in a hurry. So I started building computers, managing infrastructure for small to medium-sized businesses until the economy basically just bottomed out in 2009, 2008, 2009. And then the juice just wasn't worth the squeeze anymore for the work. So I sold that to a local competitor, tried my hand at a few other things and just constantly ran into this scenario where, you know, I didn't have the college education. I had a lot of experience, had a lot of connections,

but it wasn't enough to get to that level of success that I wanted to. And so, I mean, I'm 36 now and I'm back in school. I work full-time. I have my own little digital business development consultancy where I help small businesses on the internet market. And then I do, you know, school full-time as well. And badly, I might add, I'm not super good at math and I'm trying to do computer science. So it's a struggle, but yeah, I mean, I feel like it's hard sometimes when I'm like, well, you know, in six years from right now, I'd be retired.

And so rather than being 30s and, you know, having to just kind of start all over again. But yeah, I mean, it's just normal, normal, normal guy doing normal stuff. And you've spoken with your rabies since? Yeah. Yeah, we talk a couple times a year. I usually see him at the West Point deal as part of the class. We didn't talk for years after everything had happened, but there's willingness to contribute to educating these cadets. When I go to these things, like I often find that like people to him more than me,

because I think that people can understand why he did what he did, not just military cadets, but I mean, I think people in general, I think that the average person, I don't know if people really will impulse us to kind of inject themselves into the situation, kind of like I did or not. But I think that him getting up in front, like just described in the book, it's like, you know, he's like this G.I. Joe war hero dude. And I think that him getting up in front of these kids and saying that he was wrong, a horrible thing, you know, and I think he's doing what he can to contribute in a positive way.

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