Dan Krauss is the writer and director of “The Kill Team,” a 2019 military drama film about US Army soldiers stationed in Afghanistan, which is based on his 2013 documentary of the same name. It centres on Andrew Briggman, a new recruit under Staff Sergeant Deeks’s strict authority, as he tries to blend in with the other soldiers. Briggman is aware that what he is seeing is wrong, but he is driven by a desire to win over Deeks and his peers.
The action drama film from 2019 explores what it’s like for troops to be in combat and how their feelings about working as a team and doing the right thing can often conflict. Seargent Deeks, played by Alexander Skarsgård, is unpopular with everyone he works with because of his brutal methods of dealing with the local Afghan population and his impact on the group. You may question the veracity of his account given his significant involvement in the murders that became known as the Maywand District killings and his level of command over his squad.
Is Seargent Deeks Based on a Real Soldier?
While Krauss’ 2013 documentary, “The Kill Team,” presents a fictionalised version of the actual events covered, “Seargent Deeks” is based on Staff Sergeant Calvin Gibbs, a real soldier who was charged in 2011 with killing innocent Afghans together with four other soldiers. Though the allegations against one of the five troops were dropped, Gibbs was found guilty of three killings and other crimes for which he is said to have refused to enter a plea. These soldiers were thought to be members of a “kill team” under Gibbs’ leadership. Adam Winfield, Andrew Holmes, and Jeremy Morlock, the other troops who were accompanying him, entered guilty pleas to counts of manslaughter and murder.
All of them were members of Bravo Company, which Gibbs joined in 2009 as its commander. At the time this incident came to light, Gibbs was a 25-year-old father of one. He is from Billings, Montana, and he supposedly dropped out of school before enlisting in the Army. He was said to be constantly hunting for trouble; an investigation is still ongoing into an alleged 2004 incident in which he and a few others attacked an Iraqi family. He worked in Afghanistan under a high commander before to joining the squad in 2009. The New York Times claims that Gibbs confessed to an investigator that he had the skull tattoos seen in the film as well, and that he used them to record the number of people he had killed.
Upon the beginning of the investigation into the Maywand District murders, his colleagues allegedly painted him as a vicious assailant who fed suspicions about Afghans and took pleasure in taking the lives of innocent people. Additionally, it has been said that he desired a necklace made from of the fingers of his victims, who were apparently defenceless Afghan farmers who were attacked by Gibbs and his group. While Gibbs did not enter a guilty plea for the killings during the investigation, he did confess to gathering the severed body parts of the victims his crew had slain, comparing it to gathering deer antlers after a hunt. He says he was not physically there for the other two of the three murder allegations against him, and that he was only involved in the one that he believes was justifiable.
Where Is Calvin Gibbs Now?
He was given a life sentence in 2011 because to the 15 counts against him, with the possibility of release after or within 10 years. Despite this, he maintained faith that he would one day be reunited with his 2008-born kid. After ten years in prison, Gibbs challenged his charges in a federal court. His attorneys claimed that Gibbs was not given a fair trial in military court and that the testimony of two witnesses, Specialist Michael Wagnon and Staff Sergeant David Bram, may be able to clear him of some of the more serious charges brought against him.
Additionally, Morlock’s testimony against Gibbs was accused of having contradictions since, although originally acknowledging in an interview that Gibbs wasn’t present for the acts, he later modified his testimony the following day, implicating Gibbs in the allegations. The federal court requested that the committee reply to the lawsuit filed by Gibbs’ attorneys in January 2020, which questioned U.S. Disciplinary Barracks on an unfair military trial that had previously taken place, within a month.
Nothing further is known about the situation after that. Gibbs is presumably still serving his life term for the offences at the Disciplinary Barracks in Fort Leavenworth because there was no hearing held following this. It appears that although if Deeks is based on Gibbs and resembles the real soldier in “The Kill Team” in many ways, it is still a fictionalised account with many elements derived from the case’s perceptions rather than reflecting any potential narrative flaws as the genuine case does.
Our Team DCS includes 5 different writers proficient in English and research based Content Writing. We allow them and encourage them to follow the Entertainment news all day long. Our posts, listicles and even the exclusives are a result of their hard work.