Soldier in Iraq Kills Squad Leader and Fellow Team Leader

15 months...and counting (4.00 / 4)

I'm convinced that the rise in these types of incidents are directly related to multiple combat tours, and possibly even more, the 15 month length.  Many people are unaware that those scheduled to stay for 15 months are still under that time frame.  

Anyway, if you haven't done so in a while, visit
http://icasualties.org/oif/

Click on the individual months from about this past Spring until now.  The numbers of U.S. dead have indeed been lower than ever but it is also interesting to note that many of them are "non-hostile" and no reason is given.  I always wonder if those are suicides.  Depression is simply anger turned inward and it seems this article that Brandon posted was just an example of similar anger being turned outward.

Since May, out of 70 total Iraq deaths,
38 are considered hostile
32 non-hostile
14 of those non-hostile are specified reasons (accidents etc.)
16 are currently unspecified
2 we now know were murder...err...I mean a "shooting incident"

And I know for a fact there are even more cases we never even hear about where no one gets killed but somebody has a lapse of sanity.  I can vouch for the fact that it is sometimes hard to see the end of this deployment.  In about 70 days my husband will have been gone a year...after which we still have about 90 days to go.  If it seems like a lot to me, I can only imagine how endless it must seem to our  troops.  It has to be easy to lose hope.  A lot of the wives here have bailed which is normal for a deployment but my husband knows of 12 marriages that have disintegrated in the last month alone.  All that madness combined has to be enough to send any rational person to the booby hatch let alone your average teenage private or a Team Leader in his early 20's.  Am I right?  Or am I right?

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by: One Wife's Perspective @ Thu Sep 18, 2008 at 02:51:04 AM CDT

Dawson and Durbin were remembered at (4.00 / 1)

http://www.dailykos.com/tags/I...

The worst of all combat deaths.

A special prayer for all those who must suck it up and soldier on and their families.

along with
Spc Marques Knight
SFC Daniel Sexton
CWO Michael Slebodnik

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by: deMeme @ Thu Sep 18, 2008 at 08:55:31 AM CDT

[ Parent ]

at least one of those non-hostile unspecified (4.00 / 1)

was a 19 yr old at Taji who shot himself in front of his 19 yr old wife via web cam.  

His death was like a punch in the gut...

Make wars unprofitable and you make them impossible.
~A. Philip Randolph

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by: CarissaPicard @ Thu Sep 18, 2008 at 10:17:12 AM CDT

[ Parent ]

Is there a link for this anywhere? (4.00 / 1)

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by: Brandon Friedman @ Thu Sep 18, 2008 at 10:55:21 AM CDT

[ Parent ]

I have a link to an article about his funeral (4.00 / 1)

where his mother says she is not at liberty to discuss the details of his death...

I know the details b/c i am friends with a guy in his unit who told me about it when it happened.


Make wars unprofitable and you make them impossible.
~A. Philip Randolph

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by: CarissaPicard @ Thu Sep 18, 2008 at 11:01:29 AM CDT

[ Parent ]

It's heartbreaking b/c he is just a baby... (0.00 / 0)

I am going to email you the article.  I don't want to post it here out of respect for his family, kwim?

Make wars unprofitable and you make them impossible.
~A. Philip Randolph

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by: CarissaPicard @ Thu Sep 18, 2008 at 11:33:16 AM CDT

[ Parent ]

I'm expecting to see a rise in these kinds of attacks (4.00 / 4)

quite frankly.  All the soldiers I work with have had homicidal ideation toward their chain of command, which I know is normal to a certain extent, but I think that we have pushed these guys (I use this in a gender nuetral way) too far for too long.  For example, last week at Ft. Hood, we had a soldier shoot and kill his commanding officer (a 24 yr old Lt) before killing himself.  (I wrote an op-ed about it for military.com here:  http://www.military.com/opinio...

This is what kills me about the lack of concern for the mental health of our soldiers:  we have trained these men and women to kill, we have put them in situations of prolonged exposure to inhumane behavior without trying to help them hold on to their own humanity in the process.  THERE ARE GOING TO BE CONSEQUENCES for this.  And those consequences are just going to get more and more dire.  Sadly, no one pays attention when they only kill themselves.

Make wars unprofitable and you make them impossible.
~A. Philip Randolph

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by: CarissaPicard @ Thu Sep 18, 2008 at 03:09:20 AM CDT

Carissa: (4.00 / 1)

The help you've given to one soldier in particular has provided him with stability he needed to successfully complete his discharge. He asked that I contact you to express his thanks. During the last week he got jerked around a bit and could drop by to thank you personaly.

I took him to Hines VA Mental Health Clinic where he was set up with a complete evaluation including TBI and PTSD. I'm going to there for him for the rough times coming up. He has been welcomed home by friends and family which is a big help.

If I can be of any assistance to you, let me know.

In the meantime, let's continue to put pressure on Congress to
1. Acknowledge in a more meaningful way the help military families need. Getting out of Iraq is only a start. Ruling out multiple deployments away from family in a given decade is another.

2. Reinvent VA. Mike Bowman has it right: VA should be part of a totally re-worked re-integration program. VA Healthcare needs to be scrapped as it now exists and made more readily available through local medication delivery and routine healthcare, reserving the VA Hospitals for major trauma, combat related injury, and long-term care.

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by: llbear @ Thu Sep 18, 2008 at 08:52:36 AM CDT

[ Parent ]

1. MANDATORY DWELL TIME equal to or great than the combat tours. (4.00 / 1)

2. Tours NO LONGER than 12 months.

3.  Mental Health counseling ALONG SIDE disciplinary action if a soldier appears to be having problems with impulse control and anger management once he or she is in a combat zone.

I have two other soldiers in crisis I am trying to help right now.  I am DYING for funds for MSC. My DH has taken on loans to pay our expenses.  I also want to get capwiz for the site so we can start issuing letters and having members and site visitors flood congress with letters everytime things like this happen but capwiz is 11,000 for the first year!  if we weren't in debt to our eyeballs my DH would take a loan out to get it for us (i love that man).  after that, it is 5,000 a year to maintain.  

we have our 501c3 status so we can apply for grants, but i am so busy with speaking, writing, working on our cases, and working on our proposed legislation (the return warriors mental health protection act) that i haven't had time to look for grants yet.  i am also working on domestic violence awareness and resources for milspouses.  

i have a lot of research and prep to do for two events i am going to be speaking at, one on tbi and mil fams at the end of the month and one on how private orgs can support vets and mil fams in oct.

so with the kids here and caynan in iraq, i am a bit overwhelmed.  


Make wars unprofitable and you make them impossible.
~A. Philip Randolph

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by: CarissaPicard @ Thu Sep 18, 2008 at 09:16:51 AM CDT

[ Parent ]

My concern (4.00 / 2)

Is the number of non-combat related incident and what does that include.  Accidents obviously would this be cosidered non-combat related since it was not in combat, and premeditate murder, not in the heat of battle?
Being on my seond 15 month tour I have very little patience with anyone and my anger turns to rage rather quickly.  Takes alot of self-control.  Obviously, don't condone mutiny and fratricide but I could see how thoughts quickly turn to action when that "kill switch" has been engaged for too long.

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by: mdbyrne @ Thu Sep 18, 2008 at 05:58:14 AM CDT

wooden, or other? (4.00 / 1)

rifle butts, I hope. I would imagine no small involvement ofPTSD made this guy snap.

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by: 911witness @ Thu Sep 18, 2008 at 08:57:30 AM CDT

Nauseous (4.00 / 2)

Stories like this make me feel like vomiting. So sad, so wrong.

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by: Brian McGough @ Thu Sep 18, 2008 at 09:01:13 AM CDT

Dawson's parents speak out...Dawson had expressed concern about (4.00 / 1)

the 'young guys'. Was trying to get paperwork done to transfer.

http://www.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/...

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by: deMeme @ Thu Sep 18, 2008 at 19:14:56 PM CDT

This (4.00 / 3)

is an everyday event. A squad leader shot his team leader last december in Baghdad. My platoon has a betting pool on whose wife is going to leave next. Are platoon is up to 5 out of the 15 soldiers married that are divorced or in the process of divorce. We have 13 total in just our company. 4 suicide "atempts" and one Awol from midtour leave. I wish i could publish some of the stories but I believe they are abit personal. 15 months......this one is beating everybody up.  

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by: war-junkie @ Fri Sep 19, 2008 at 16:45:07 PM CDT

That sucks, man. (4.00 / 1)

Hope you're doing okay--or at least as okay as possible under the conditions.

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by: Brandon Friedman @ Fri Sep 19, 2008 at 19:42:05 PM CDT

[ Parent ]

Yeah, but we're winning... (4.00 / 1)

Victory requires sacrifice, does it not?  Stay strong, soldier.  Stay Army strong.

http://ivaw.org

Peace...

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by: JD @ Sun Sep 21, 2008 at 20:25:57 PM CDT

[ Parent ]

I'm honestly surprised that this isn't more common (0.00 / 0)

I made a video a while back to try to get the message across to people about the very real need for post deployment psychological care for those returning from Iraq.

http://blastedreality.org/supp...

If anyone here can get any use from it, please feel free to download or link to it.  

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by: ReverendX @ Fri Sep 26, 2008 at 14:29:48 PM CDT