'LA Times' Profiles U.S. Officer Who Committed Suicide in Iraq
By E&P Staff
Published: November 27, 2005 2:30 PM ET NEW YORK
In the Los Angeles Times on Sunday, reporter T. Christian Miller presents a disturbing portrait of Col. Ted Westhusing. This past June, he was found dead in a trailer at a military base near the Baghdad airport, a single gunshot wound to the head. At the time, he was the highest-ranking officer to die in Iraq. The Army concluded that he committed suicide with his service pistol.
But why did he die?
Westhusing, 44, was an unusual case: "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 better teach his students. He had a doctorate in philosophy; his dissertation was an extended meditation on the meaning of honor," Miller explains.
"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especially upset by one conclusion he had reached: that traditional military values such as duty, honor and country had been replaced by profit motives in Iraq, where the U.S. had come to rely heavily on contractors for jobs once done by the military."
The article continues:
"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?"
The lengthy article recounts Westhusing's pre-Iraq years and his time in that country helping to train Iraqis. Then he received, in May, a letter detailing wrongdoing by a contractor.
The letter shook him, as he 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 June, some of Westhusing's colleagues had begun to worry about his health. They later told investigators that he had lost weight and begun fidgeting, sometimes staring off into space. He seemed withdrawn, they said. His death came on June 4.
"He was sick of money-grubbing contractors," one official recounted. Westhusing said that "he had not come over to Iraq for this."
After a three-month inquiry, investigators declared Westhusing's death a suicide. They revealed contents of his suicide note, most of which tells of a struggle for honor in a strange land.
"I cannot support a msn [mission] that leads to corruption, human rights abuse and liars. I am sullied," it says. "I came to serve honorably and feel dishonored. Death before being dishonored any more."
Miller's article concludes:
"Westhusing's body was flown back to Dover Air Force Base in Delaware. Waiting to receive it were his family and a close friend from West Point, a lieutenant colonel.
"In the military report, the unidentified colonel told investigators that he had turned to Michelle, Westhusing's wife, and asked what happened.
She answered: "Iraq.'[per thou]
E&P Staff (letters@editorandpublisher.com)
8:28:34 AM 
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