Danny Chen
Harry Lew
The U.S. military is fervently hoping this trend doesn’t continue: just because U.S. troops in Afghanistan allegedly physically abused a pair of Chinese-American troops before each took his own life doesn’t mean they were picked on because of their ethnicity. We’ve reported recently on the suspected suicides of Marine Harry Lew and soldier Danny Chen. The New York Times catches up with the death of Chen, from that city’s Chinatown, on the front page Monday.
It’s heartbreaking on two fronts: Chen’s non-English speaking parents can’t fathom what happened to their only child in Afghanistan. The Army – as is so often the case in these types of tragedies — isn’t much help. The Marines have rushed to assure Rep. Judy Chu, D-Calif., that if the death of Lew, her nephew, were caused by hazing – as it apparently was – it runs afoul of Marine regulations. A trio of Marines implicated in that hazing now faces court-martial.