Facebook/Vernon Parish Sheriff’s Office
A U.S. soldier was sentenced Monday to more than 11 years in prison for making and detonating a chlorine gas bomb in a national forest next to his Army base. Ryan Keith Taylor, 24, used a chemical weapon “banned under international and national laws because of its terrible effects on the human body” in the Kisatchie National Forest next to Fort Polk, according to U.S. Attorney David C. Joseph for the Western District of Louisiana. Taylor pleaded guilty to the charges over the summer and is said to have admitted to detonating the device before standing by to film it as soldiers from his base rushed over. The injuries sustained by two military investigators who were exposed to residue from the device “effectively ended their military careers,” according to the Justice Department. In addition to 135 months in prison, Taylor also faces five years of supervised release.