Ex-Green Beret Pummeled to Death in Apparent Fratricide
Accounts of Rick Rodriguez’s death are vague, but they involve a trash-talking brawl in northern Iraq that left the Special Forces veteran beaten unconscious. He never woke up.
Adam Rawnsley,
Spencer Ackerman
01.07.19 8:12 PM ET
An American contractor fatally injured in Iraq, apparently by members of the U.S. military, is a former Green Beret who served in the Army for 20 years, his family said Monday.
Rick Rodriguez, who was stationed in Erbil for Lockheed Martin, was flown from Iraq to Landstuhl Regional Medical Center in Germany, an aunt told The Daily Beast.
His wife and four kids, who live in Fayetteville, North Carolina, were then flown by the military to Germany and, according to a U.S. military source, made a decision to take him off life support on Jan. 4.
Rodriguez’s death, which multiple sources said was the result of a sudden fracas involving U.S. Marines, follows last year’s brutal strangulation of another Green Beret, Army Staff Sgt. Logan Melgar. Two Navy SEALs and two Marine Raiders were recently charged in the Melgar case.
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