In August 2023, Joshua Glardon – a first sergeant in the 4th Psychological Operations Group (Airborne) at Fort Bragg – was sentenced to 76 years in prison, followed by lifetime supervised released, for the distribution of child pornography across the internet. An unnamed woman – his accomplice – was sentenced to 30 years in prison after she “confessed to allowing him to rape” her child.
Just two weeks later, Major Vincent Ramos was arrested at North Carolina’s Raleigh-Durham International Airport on one count of statutory rape of a child younger than 15, seven counts of statutory sex offense with a child younger than 15, and two counts of indecent liberties with a child. A logistics officer based at Fort Bragg, he was later charged with two more counts of indecent liberties with a child.
And one month after that, in October 2023, Chief Warrant Officer 2 Stuart P. Kelly of the 82nd Airborne Division was sentenced to 16 years in prison and a dishonorable discharge after pleading guilty to raping and abusing a child under the age of 12. Kelly had made the child touch him and perform oral sex on camera.
Meanwhile, Staff Sergeant Carlos Castro Callejas was handed a 55-year jail term, a dishonorable discharge, and a demotion to the rank of private, after facing 13 charges of rape of a child under 12 years old.
All four of these men were not only based at Fort Bragg, but have served lengthy tours in Afghanistan. But they are merely the tip of a shockingly large iceberg of dozens of individuals from Fort Bragg who have been arrested on crimes related to abusing and trafficking minors.
According to investigative journalist Seth Harp, who uncovered a massive narcotics smuggling and distribution network run by elite military operators at the base in his book, “The Fort Bragg Cartel: Drug Trafficking and Murder in the Special Forces,” there has been a tenfold increase in such cases since 2021 and the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan. But even more chilling is the choice of victims for these sexual predators; “I have not heard in years about one case of these special forces guys raping a woman. In the same time, I’ve heard about 15 cases of them raping children,” he told Abby Martin and Mike Prysner on the Empire Files podcast.
All this raises a plethora of serious questions about what is going on at the base, and what sort of dark and chilling secrets are being kept there. (more...)
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