United for Peace of Pierce County, WA - We nonviolently oppose the reliance on unilateral military actions rather than cooperative diplomacy.

Pvt. Anthony Cruse, 20, was sentenced to life in prison on Friday for the Jun. 15, 2007, pre-dawn murder of a fellow soldier, Pvt. Timothy W. Crislip, of Elmhurst, Illinois, the News Tribune (Tacoma, WA) reported Saturday. -- Over the urgings of Army prosecutors, the same five-member panel of officers that convicted Cruse on Thursday left open the possibility of parole after he made a tearful apology to member of Crislip's Elmhurst, Illinois, family, who were in the courtroom at Fort Lewis. -- "Testimony during the weeklong trial showed that Cruse was drunk when he reached out from behind another soldier to thrust a knife into Crislip’s neck," Mike Gilbert reported. -- Crislip, "a 22-year-old Iraq veteran, had been trying to calm a confrontation between two others," had been "reduced in rank from specialist to private for an undisclosed disciplinary matter before he arrived at Fort Lewis." -- A few days after Timothy Crislip died, a friend posted two moving reflections on his short life; with the second, he posted a 2006 photo of Crislip with his guitar, and a video that shows him playing guitar accompaniment in a church in 2003, when he was 18.[2,3] -- The tribute read, in part: "[Tim Crislip] was a musician, that was where his heart was, and the level on which I related to him most. He played tons of instruments, some of them pretty well. He loved to sing and play guitar the most, and was always looking for an opportunity to play, or maybe I should say, be heard. . . . He was still a boy, in so many ways. He was insecure, so concerned of how he was perceived. The girls, the guys, he wanted to stand out, to be noticed, to be loved. He could not get it through his thick skull that there were those of us that truly did like him and care for him. His self-concept would not let him . . . It was so frustrating to try and explain to Tim that he was talented, and likeable . . . How can someone be the biggest, baddest, best at everything and still be so insecure? I wish we had more time to work on that. It truly was his only flaw, and it affected all that he did. I wish I had done more." -- A guestbook on the web site of the Chicago Sun-Times posts a number of tributes to Crislip's memory. -- BACKGROUND: On Jun. 20, 2007, military authorities charged Pvt. Anthony Cruse with the premeditated murder of a fellow soldier at Fort Lewis. -- Cruse had joined the Army in November 2006 and arrived at Fort Lewis in March 2007. -- Both Cruse and Crislip were assigned to the 5th Brigade, 2nd Infantry Division, a new Stryker brigade being developed there. -- Only a year ago, Cruse had been playing on the Licking (Missouri) High School Wildcats basketball team. -- Crislip, of Elmhurst, Illinois, was the veteran of a year's service in Iraq, ending in April 2006. -- He was a graduate of Timothy Christian High School in Elmhurst, Illinois, and his grieving mother said shortly after his death that "He loved worshipping Jesus." -- A hometown newspaper reported after his death that Crislip had been a changed man after returning from Iraq: "The sound of rocket fire [another account said "mortar attack"] had damaged his hearing slightly . . . and his hands and arms had become strong from restraining insurgents." -- The convicted murderer's rural town of Licking (pop. 1,741) is in Texas County in southern Missouri, in the Ozarks, between Springfield and St. Louis. -- Elmhurst, Illinois, is a suburb of Chicago about three miles from O'Hare International Airport....

A Fort Lewis soldier was sentenced to life in prison Friday for the stabbing death of another soldier in a fight outside their barracks last summer.

An Army panel deciding the fate of Pvt. Anthony J. Cruse allowed for the possibility of parole after listening to his tearful apology to the victim’s family.

“I am absolutely sorry for the hurt I’ve done, for the pain I’ve brought upon you guys,” Cruse, 20, said to the family of Pvt. Timothy W. Crislip, seated across the courtroom. “I never meant for this to happen.”

The same five-member panel of officers and noncommissioned officers late Thursday needed only an hour to find Cruse guilty of premeditated murder in the June 15, 2007, stabbing at his unit’s North Fort Lewis barracks.

Testimony during the weeklong trial showed that Cruse was drunk when he reached out from behind another soldier to thrust a knife into Crislip’s neck.

Crislip, a 22-year-old Iraq veteran, had been trying to calm a confrontation between two others. He died at 5 a.m. at Madigan Army Medical Center, within an hour of being stabbed.

His mother, his twin sister, his younger brother and Army friends all described him Friday as a loving person and talented musician.

He grew up in the Chicago area and joined the Army because “he wanted to accomplish something he could be proud of,” said his sister, Amanda.

His mother, Linda Crislip, showed pictures of him performing in school plays and with the marching band, and another of him in uniform at his hometown Memorial Day parade after his return from Iraq. She said he’d begun to think about marriage and becoming a father.

Crislip, a wheeled-vehicle mechanic, served in Iraq in 2005-06 with a unit from Fort Campbell, Ky., before arriving at Fort Lewis in April 2007 to join the new 5th Brigade, 2nd Infantry Division.

Although he’d been reduced in rank from specialist to private for an undisclosed disciplinary matter before he arrived at Fort Lewis, “it was something that he learned from, and he wanted to better his military life,” said Pvt. Jacob Evans, a friend.

Army prosecutors urged the panel to impose life in prison without parole, the maximum punishment. The combat veteran was murdered “not in a combat zone, but at his home, just feet away from his barracks, where he should have been safe,” said Capt. Mike Coblin.

Cruse, an infantryman, arrived at Fort Lewis in March 2007 after initial training at Fort Benning, Ga. He also was assigned to the 5th Brigade, the Stryker unit that has yet to deploy to Iraq for the first time.

His mother, Rhonda Stevens, described pictures of her son as they were shown on a courtroom projector. One was of the little boy from Licking, Mo. with reddish-brown hair, snuggled up next to a baby girl -- his younger sister, Trista, who died at 2 1/2 months of sudden infant death syndrome, Stevens said.

Later, Stevens fought through tears as she told Crislip’s family, “I know what it’s like to lose a kid. I’m sorry. My heart goes out to you guys.

“I know he’s sorry, too,” she said of her son. “He’s not a bad person. We’re not bad people. We’re not.”

Cruse shared what it was like to break the news of Thursday’s guilty verdict to his family. He choked up as he described talking to his younger brother, Stetson, age 13.

“I told him, ‘Let this be a lesson,’” Cruse said. “‘Don’t drink. You get nothing good from it. Listen to your parents.’”

One of Cruse’s defense lawyers, Capt. Chad Balfanz, urged panel members to leave open the possibility for Cruse to persuade a parole board to give him a second chance one day.

“Life without parole is reserved for the most serious offenses,” Balfanz said. “It doesn’t apply to a drunk soldier who makes a serious mistake on one night of his life.”

This is my attempt to lay out my feelings and thoughts about a person as unique and multi-faceted as I have known.

He was a military man, no doubt about it. Though he often went chin to chin with superiors, and paid the price (which was always worth it), it was still in the walk, the talk, the attitude, the hair. Tim had become a solider, and no matter what he said, he liked it. It gave him some purpose, some pride. He wore the uniform well, and the few times I saw him in it, with pride. He went to Iraq. He did not get political about it, he did not make a big fuss. He got medals.

He was a musician, that was where his heart was, and the level on which I related to him most. He played tons of instruments, some of them pretty well. He loved to sing and play guitar the most, and was always looking for an opportunity to play, or maybe I should say, be heard. He practiced and learned and practiced more, his commitment to playing and learning always put me to shame. Though he often had a problem with his volume knob, slowly shifting spontaneously toward "11" without a touch from him, he was a rock-solid partner in the praise band that we shared for a few years. If he said he would learn a lead, he would learn it; then turn it up. He loved all types of music from praise and worship, to hard rock, to everything in-between, as evidenced by the Whitesnake song on his myspace which was released when he was 2.

He was still a boy, in so many ways. He was insecure, so concerned of how he was percieved. The girls, the guys, he wanted to stand out, to be noticed, to be loved. He could not get it through his thick skull that there were those of us that truly did like him and care for him. His self-concept would not let him, and I blame his no-good Dad for a lot of that. It was so frustrating to try and explain to Tim that he was talented, and likeable; that he did not need to put on a big dog and pony show, toting out his new this and big that and shiny whats-it and the most thing-a-ma-bobs. But he did. Every time I saw him. How can someone be the biggest, baddest, best at everything and still be so insecure? I wish we had more time to work on that. It truly was his only flaw, and it affected all that he did. I wish I had done more. I wish...

Tim was a work in progress and work was progressing. It is a true shame that we will never know the Tim that was to be. The self-confident and settled Tim. The content Tim. The Tim who found his place in this world and in his skin. But I am glad I had the chance to know him and his family. I truly will never forget him.

As I sit here in my office with 1001 things to do, I am pouring over a dozen hours of Gathering praise band video. I discovered, hidden at the end of one tape, almost buried under all the fast-paced, jazzed-up Christian rock, something that turns me inside-out. I mean it is giving me that thickness in my throat and the swelling eyes and the vertigo stomach. Its a video of Linda, Amanda, and Tim in church on a Sunday morning playing El Shaddai. Just the three of them, with Tim on guitar. No piano, no drums, no distortion or keyboard. And it hit me like a ton of bricks, the one thing that we so often missed about Tim. He had a real sweetness. That's the only word to describe it. Though it was something rarely seen, this video just lays it out. The way he plays the song, you can tell he cares so much about making this song with his sister and mom right. You can see the time he practiced. You can see the concentration. You can see it in the gentle way he handles his guitar. Just like the song is stripped to is bare elements, six strings and two voices, so is Tim. No bravado. No "look at me." Just Tim, trying his hardest to please his Mom and sister, and his God. It's all right there, preserved forever in pixels on my screen and 0's and 1's on my hard drive. And it was always there, like a hidden gem at the end of a four-hour video, the often hidden sweetness that Tim had. I hope that everyone that knew Tim had a chance to discover it, or to see a glimpse of it. It took me hours and hours of searching, but it was worth it to find this one thing. The final missing piece of Tim that I knew was there, but needed to rediscover for myself.