MARCH 10
11 p.m.: Staff Sgt. Robert Bales and Cpl. David Godwin leave Sgt. Jason McLaughlin’s room after drinking Jack Daniels and Diet Pepsi and watching a movie, “Man on Fire” starring Denzel Washington.
MARCH 11
Midnight to 12:30 a.m.: Bales visits Special Forces Sgt. 1st Class Clayton Blackshear to urge Blackshear to be more aggressive in responding to a March 5 attack that took the left leg of a Navy explosive ordnance disposal technician. The EOD tech was a close friend of Blackshear’s.
1:30 a.m.: U.S. soldiers in a guard tower hear shots from the village of Alkozai, which sits about 650 meters from their location at Village Stability Platform Belambay.
2 a.m.: Bales makes two visits to the room of Sgt. Jason McLaughlin. McLaughlin said Bales told him he “shot up some people” in Alkozai and planned to leave again to do the same in a village called Najiban. McLaughlin did not believe Bales.
3 a.m.: McLaughlin takes a guard shift and is confronted by Afghan soldiers who say they saw an American soldier leave Belambay.
About 3:10 a.m.: Capt. Dan Fields, the commanding officer at Belambay, learns of Bales’ disappearance and orders all leaders to check for their personnel. Fields assumes that Bales is sleepwalking or was kidnapped. Fields asks soldiers at a nearby forward base to turn a surveillance camera on his area to look for the missing soldier.
3:30 a.m.: Bales is the only American soldier missing at Belambay. Soldiers prepare hostage rescue teams as reports come in about wounded civilians in Alkozai.
4:45 a.m.: Bales turns himself in at Belambay. He reportedly tells soldiers “I thought I was doing the right thing.” He declines to answer questions from Fields. Soon after, a mob of Afghan civilians gathers outside Belambay with the bodies of Bales’ alleged victims.
Source: Testimony from Bales’ Article 32 hearing.
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