“It’s a shame that the colleague of Michael would find it necessary to defend him.
No one was challenging Michael’s intelligence or ability to do his job, or his
experience in Afghanistan. The point I thought you were making is that there is no
mechanism to do any type of risk analysis, and that this is not even part of HTS
training or daily operations. I think any unit knows what its people are doing at
all times, and that certain warnings or advisories are issued, etc. That is not
done for any HTTer in country.”

You seem to imply that Bhatia may have skipped out on some form of training, and that’s what got him killed. Hardly the case at all.

Bhatia was a conscientious student in college — he was overwhelmingly absorbed by his studies, and some who knew him in his Phd program at Oxford have said that he was an over-achiever there, even by their high standards. Read his memoriam in Brown University’s magazine, the Brown Alumni Monthly.

Here’s more: http://watsoninstitute.org/news_detail.cfm?id=851

At his funeral, in fact, soldiers spoke glowingly of how well trained he had been. While watching him changing out of his socks during a rest stop as a standard precaution against infection, one approached him early on and asked, “What branch of the military were you in?”

It was not training or a lack thereof that killed him. The bomb blast tore apart his jeep and killed a fellow soldier in it, as well. It also maimed two other soldiers, destroying their legs. You can’t duck a blast, and no amount of training protects you from it.

I have no idea whether Michael was “sent in prematurely” or not, but I do knew he traveled to Afghanistan at least six times or more. He conducted hundreds of interviews there with everyday people and combatants for a three-part photo essay on Afghanistan, which is available free of charge online at the Globalist.com:

http://www.theglobalist.com/StoryId.aspx?StoryId=6416

In any event, the bottom line is his training has absolutely no bearing on his death.