Staff sgt. gets 20 months, allowed to retire with full benefits despite role in fatal drunken-drivin

[unhappycamper]

Staff sgt. gets 20 months, allowed to retire with full benefits despite role in fatal drunken-driving crash
By David Allen, Stars and Stripes
Pacific edition, Thursday, January 31, 2008

KADENA AIR BASE, Okinawa — An Army noncommissioned officer was sentenced to 20 months’ confinement Tuesday after pleading guilty to causing the death of two other soldiers in a drunken-driving incident last May near Camp Foster.

Staff Sgt. Byron Anthony West, 40, also was demoted to E-1 and received a bad-conduct discharge.

However, the judge, Col. Donna Wright, recommended West’s punitive discharge be suspended to allow him to retire with full benefits.

He had faced a maximum sentence of eight years in prison, a demotion to E-1, forfeiture of all pay and allowances and a dishonorable discharge.

West, a motor sergeant with the 1-1 Air Defense Artillery Battalion, a Patriot Missile battery on Kadena, is married and has three grown children.


Rest of article at: http://www.stripes.com/article.asp?section=104&article=52049

[thunder rising]

1. This guy is a looser. He'll kill again, just wait.