Army ranger earns $20k signing bonus, uses money to run bank heist, now says it was antiwar protest

[Bucky]

Dude, you're a bank robber. Get over yourself.

5 soldiers charged in heist; alleged leader says he wanted to publicize war crimes when caught
By Gina Cavallaro - Staff writer
Posted : Monday Mar 5, 2007 11:29:08 EST

In May 2006, Spc. Luke Sommer got a $20,000 cash bonus for re-enlisting in the 75th Ranger Regiment. He soon spent it all on electronics, firearms and grenades.

Three months later, according to charges filed in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington, Sommer and two of his Ranger buddies, plus two Canadian friends, pulled a bank heist near a gate into Fort Lewis, Wash. Two more soldiers were charged in connection with the crime but presumably were not at the scene.

They wore commando-style clothing and body armor and burst into the bank wielding AK47 assault rifles and other weapons belonging to Sommer, according to an FBI investigation, indictments returned by a grand jury and Sommer himself.

The robbery was carried out with “military-style precision,” according to court documents. No shots were fired, no one was hurt and the five assailants — who completed the robbery in two minutes, 21 seconds — made off with $54,011.

<snip>

In a series of lengthy telephone interviews, Sommer said he enjoyed soldiering, but he launched into articulate and often bitter diatribes against the actions and attitudes of special operations soldiers in Iraq and at home base.

He consistently tied his own actions to noble, human rights-based motives, and acknowledged that he eventually will face U.S. and military authorities and the possibility of a life term in prison.

The army gives him $20k in bonus pay, which he uses to rob a bank for $54,000--which he would have had to split with his four associates. Um, do the math, dumbass. And don't try to pretend you're a war protestor now. Sheesh, he must think the antiwar side of the fence are idiots.

Given the fact that he used military force and still ran the operation to a huge deficit, he'd get a much more sympathetic hearing from the Republicans.

[Tunkamerica]

1. In his defense...

...he probably thought he'd get more in the robbery.

[CarbonDate]

2. If you're going to go that route....

...go on a three-day spree, make off with as much money as you can (he pulled $54K from that one, so if he planned it more ambitiously, he could have gotten away with half a million total), catch a flight out to the Phillipines and live like kings for the rest of their lives. Nobody would have had to know who did it.

That much planning for one heist? It sounds like they did pretty well. Why not knock off more banks? I don't get it.