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Private Danny Chen was alone when he died. The Army says that he shot himself in a guard tower in Kandahar Province, Afghanistan. But, in an extraordinary case alleging criminal culpability in a suicide, it has charged eight soldiers in connection with his death, saying they bullied Private Chen into killing himself. Seven enlisted men face counts that include involuntary manslaughter, negligent homicide and assault. One officer, a first lieutenant, is charged with dereliction of duty.

The Pentagon insists that it does not tolerate hazing. But the alleged assault on Private Chen bears the markings of ritualistic abuse. He was dragged out of bed, pelted with rocks and racial taunts and forced to crawl along the ground and do pull-ups without swallowing or spitting out a mouthful of water — all apparently because he forgot to turn off the water heater after taking a shower. Private Chen was the son of Chinese immigrants in Manhattan, and he had written to his parents about being the butt of racial jokes, but it’s not clear that racism was a primary reason for the attack.

It is encouraging to see the Army — criticized for being opaque and insensitive to families in high-profile deaths of soldiers — moving with apparent swiftness to investigate Private Chen’s death. It must pursue every detail and not hide them.

Private Chen’s parents may never know what drove their son to kill himself. But they deserve to know everything that can be learned about his final days and hours., his family deserves to see justice done. Others soldiers deserve to know that the military and if, as Army prosecutors claim, he was pushed into suicide by fellow soldiers who brutalized and humiliated him takes seriously its policy forbidding hazing and its promise to punish those who violate it.

Underlined: Simple

Italics: Compound

Black: Complex

Labeled: Compound-Complex