Theodore S. Westhusing

His suicide note to his commanding officer, General Petraeus, featured in an article by Robert Bryce published in the Texas Observer on March 8, 2007, read:

Westhusing served with what the U.S. Department of Defense called the "Multi-national Security Transition Command - Iraq". His primary duty was to oversee the training of Iraqis for civilian police duty, in collaboration with USIS, a private military company. In mid-May 2005 he received an anonymous letter alleging fraud, waste and abuse by USIS. He also witnessed many of the following charges as well. The accusations included the following: forged employees' résumés claiming elite forces background, inadequate skills and competence of trainers, insufficient numbers of trainers in order to maximize profits, disappearance of large quantities of weapons, radios, and other equipment, and employees boasting of killing Iraqis.

Colonel Westhusing died at Camp Dublin outside Baghdad, Iraq in June 2005, leaving a note saying, “I cannot support a mission that leads to corruption, human rights abuses and liars.”

Westhusing, who was left-handed, was found in his trailer with a gunshot wound behind his left ear from his own 9mm Beretta service pistol on June 5, 2005, a month and three days before his tour of duty was to end. He had had a heated and confrontational meeting with General Petraeus that morning concerning these issues with USIS. A DOD Army report also stated that an administrator near his trailer had heard a very loud argument in Colonel Westhusing's office trailer before he was found dead by the contractor. Approximately an hour after this argument and the earlier meeting with Generals Petraeus the USIS contractors that morning, he was found by a USIS contractor who then altered the death scene before reporting it. A note was found at his side in which he wrote, in addition to a short explanation, "I am sullied - no more". Three of the seven numbered pages of the document by his side were not disclosed in the investigation. This note was part of a journal he was keeping to document these issues. Other pages were excluded from the Army's final report because of what was considered sensitive government issues.

Westhusing was born in Dallas, Texas and attended high school at Jenks High School in Jenks, Oklahoma where he was a student and starter for the basketball team. He attended West Point, where in his senior year he was selected as honor captain (the highest-ranking ethics official within the cadet corps) and graduated third in his class. He served in the 82nd Airborne Division among other duties, and eventually became a professor at West Point. In 2003, he wrote a dissertation in philosophy at Emory University in Atlanta, "The competitive and cooperative aretai within the American warfighting ethos". The dissertation explores "an ideal functional description of the American warrior [which] makes heavy demands of the warrior's entire being in supporting and defending the United States Constitution to which he has sworn his allegiance." He held degrees and majored in Russian, Philosophy and Military Strategy.

Colonel Theodore S. Westhusing (November 17, 1960 – June 5, 2005), a West Point professor of English and Philosophy, volunteered to serve in Iraq in late 2004 and died in Baghdad in June 2005 from an allegedly self-inflicted gunshot wound. At the time he was the highest-ranked American to die violently in Iraq since the start of the March 2003 United States-led invasion. He was 44 years old, married with three young children.