The Lives Of Vets: Destroyed By The Iraq Fandango

The New York Times is running an epic length story on murders by returning Iraq Vets. Its a sad and brilliant chronicle and here are the key paragraphs:

The New York Times found 121 cases in which veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan committed a killing in this country, or were charged with one, after their return from war. In many of those cases, combat trauma and the stress of deployment — along with alcohol abuse, family discord and other attendant problems — appear to have set the stage for a tragedy that was part destruction, part self-destruction.

Three-quarters of these veterans were still in the military at the time of the killing. More than half the killings involved guns, and the rest were stabbings, beatings, strangulations and bathtub drownings. Twenty-five offenders faced murder, manslaughter or homicide charges for fatal car crashes resulting from drunken, reckless or suicidal driving.

This brought to mind a story I was told about an embedded photographer on the first run into Baghdad who said that the medics were handing out so much speed (”go pills”) that you could hear teeth grinding from outside the Bradley Fighting Vehicles. How many of these kids were introduced to amphetamine by the Army during their tour of Iraq? When you read the description of some of the crimes, the paranoia and aggression associated with Meth just jumps out at you:

When Archie O’Neil, a gunnery sergeant in the Marines, returned from a job handling dead bodies in Iraq, he became increasingly paranoid, jumpy and fearful — moving into his garage, eating M.R.E.’s, wearing his camouflage uniform, drinking heavily and carrying a gun at all times, even to answer the doorbell.

“It was like I put one person on a ship and sent him over there, and they sent me a totally different person back,” Monique O’Neil, his wife, testified.

On the eve of his second deployment to Iraq in 2004, Sergeant O’Neil fatally shot his mistress, Kimberly O’Neal, after she threatened to kill his family while he was gone.

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On New Year’s Eve, (Sgt. Seth) Strasburg, accompanied by his brother, consumed vodka cocktails for hours at Jim’s Bar and Package in Arnold. Toward evening’s end, he engaged in an intense conversation with a Vietnam veteran, after which, he said, he inexplicably holstered his gun and headed to a party. Outside the party, he drunkenly approached a Chevrolet Suburban crowded with young people, got upset and thrust his gun inside the car.

Mr. Strasburg said he did not remember what provoked him. According to one account, a young man — not the victim — set him off by calling him a paid killer. Mr. Strasburg, according to the prosecutor, stuck his gun under the young man’s chin. (The man died from Gunshot wounds).

The Army’s explanation of all this is PTSD, and the Times make only passing reference to many of the vets being in substance abuse programs. However it might be worth asking the Army Surgeon General about Amphetamine consumption in Iraq.

Link. The Times article is here.