YONGSAN GARRISON, South Korea — A 19-year-old soldier was sentenced Monday to 10 years confinement as part of a plea agreement involving three assaults, including one that left another soldier with permanent brain damage.
Pvt. Rodney A. Brackens Jr., 19, of Marietta, Ga., admitted in the court-martial that he fought with three soldiers at three separate times last year.
In the most serious case, Brackens admitted to beating, kicking and stomping a soldier he didn’t know in December because “I wanted to hit somebody,” he told Army Col. Patrick Parrish of the 6th Judicial Circuit in a courtroom in Yongsan.
During sentencing, Brackens turned to the victim — Spc. Eric Huff Jr., 19, of Lancaster, Calif., who was with the 17th Aviation Brigade — to apologize.
“All I can say is, ‘I’m truly sorry,’” Brackens told Huff and his father, Eric Huff Sr., who both traveled to Seoul to testify. “It was an inexcusable act. If you ask my why I did it, I can only lower my head and say nothing. I only have my apologies to offer.”
Brackens pleaded guilty to six charges, including conspiracy; maiming; underage drinking; and assault by intentional infliction ofgrievous bodily harm. The maximum sentence allowed was 27½ years, Parrish said in court, but the judge set his sentence at 13 years.
Brackens, however, faces just 10 years because of a pretrial agreement in which he agreed to be a cooperative witness for the government in two other cases stemming from the same three fights, according to prosecutor Capt. Kristian Murray. Those accusations — involving Pvt. Henry C. Hall Jr. and Pfc. Demetry L. Randall — are expected to go to jury trials, Murray said.
Brackens, Hall and Randall served with the 305th Quartermaster Company at Camp Coiner. Randall’s court-martial is scheduled for later this month; Hall’s, for early fall, Murray said.
Brackens also was demoted to E-1, the military’s lowest pay grade, and is to have his pay withheld until he is dishonorably discharged at the end of his confinement.
On Monday, Brackens explained his role in the fights. He blamed his behavior on a violent childhood and alcohol abuse and said he is seeking help for his drinking and anger.
In the first incident on Aug. 14, Brackens testified, he was helping defend a friend when he grabbed one man, then hit his head and kicked him while the victim was on the ground. The wounds required three staples in the man’s head and left him with a broken finger, Parrish said, reading from court documents.
In a Nov. 30 fight, just outside Yongsan, Brackens admitted to attacking a man because he wanted his leather jacket.
The third assault proved the worst.
Spc. Huff said he remembered answering his barracks door early Dec. 10. He was due to go on leave that day, to see his family in California for the first time in about two years.
He remembered seeing two men, Huff testified on Monday. Then he remembered waking up in the 121st General Hospital and seeing his parents.
“I saw my parents,” he told the court, “and I thought: ‘What are they doing here?’”
Huff’s father testified he received a call from his former wife and an Army representative saying their son lay dying in a military hospital in Seoul. Eric Jr. had a fractured skull, bruised brain, eyes swollen shut and couldn’t breathe on his own, his father remembered.
On Monday, Eric Jr. walked into the courtroom slowly and deliberately, and his short, muffled answers were barely audible. He said he can no longer run. He showed how he can raise his left arm to just above shoulder height, and then only with the help of his right arm. He said the numbness he was feeling on the left side of his body has gone away.
His father said his son never will be the same.
“His memory is so-so,” Huff Sr. testified. “It comes and goes. He’s not a normal 20-year-old. He’s come a long way since the accident. But he’s still not the same. It shouldn’t have happened.”
