Army: Ivan Lopez “saw no combat in Iraq”
TSO sends us a link from a few minutes ago to an article in the Associated Press in which Army leadership admits that the latest Fort Hood shooter, Ivan Lopez, “saw no combat in Iraq”;
Army Secretary John McHugh testified Thursday that the soldier appeared to have no connections to extremist groups.
The soldier is identified by others as Ivan Lopez. He enlisted in the Army in June 2008 as an infantryman and later switched his specialty to truck driver, the job he had in Iraq.
McHugh says the soldier was examined by a psychiatrist last month and was found to show no violent or suicidal tendencies. He says the soldier had been prescribed Ambien to deal with a sleeping problem.
As I’ve been saying all along, PTS has become an excuse for bad behavior, but on closer examination, something the media is largely unequipped to accept, that’s all it is – an excuse. An excuse largely accepted by the social engineers and our intellectual betters who have all of the answers and none of the experience.
Category: Military issues
I saw elsewhere he did 4 months in country? I have to find another reference to substantiate this. I left Baghdad in 2010, and Iraq then was a far, far cry from Mosul in 2004. I give the benefit of the doubt for PTSD, but this is pushing it.
According to this report, yes. Four months. No combat.
http://nypost.com/2014/04/03/fort-hood-shooter-sought-help-with-mental-issues/
“Lopez did report a traumatic brain injury upon his return to the US, and had a number of mental health issues and was receiving psychiatric help for depression and anxiety.
He was also on medication for his problems, including Ambien for a sleep disorder.
The suspect was fully examined last month by a psychiatrist, McHugh said.
There was no record that there was any sign he was likely to commit violence either against himself or others, “so the plan [going] forward was just to continue to monitor and treat him as deemed appropriate,” he said.”
It’s also being reported that he didn’t suffer any sort of TBI while deployed.
I don’t know if this article adds anything to it, other than giving the female MP some credit for actively confronting the shooter.
http://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/fort-hood-shooting/fort-hood-four-dead-16-hurt-female-cop-who-ended-n70556
However, it does say that he had a ‘self-reported’ TBI, which means nothing at THIS particular moment.
Speculation on what drove him to this is going on in the media, of course, but they forget one little thing: this could have happened without the shooter being a troop, and in any crowded area where there are available victims.
Ex-PH2 Thank you for the article. Bravo Zulu to the female MP for standing her ground and doing her duty! She, through her stance in front of this guy brought an end to it. Albeit he took the self inflicted way out. As I read this post I realized what I had speculated before was true. No real combat in Iraq, no real PTS and no TBI. Ambien to sleep…please. One of the most prescribed meds for sleep problems from workaholics to worn out moms to geriatric patients. Nothing high speed or debilitating about Ambien. Too much of it…you could OD and take a dirt nap forever but it would take far more than most any competent doc would prescribe for a month’s worth.
It could result in hallucinations. My wife has seen shit that isn’t there when taking it right before she drifted off to sleep.
What if this mental midget took his meds during the day in order to get high, became paranoid at what he was seeing? That could be a possibility.
I’m just glad he’s dead.
Atkron Yep you just never know with a guy like him. Took too much…took it at the wrong times for the wrong reasons. I guess he won’t be telling us anyway but his blood work for pathology should show whatever he had in him at the time.
Ive been taking ambien for quite a while.
If you take too much or mix it it will affect your motor skills ans ability to think clearly ( read some of the typos in my late night posts)
It will make you loppy if you take too much, or don’t lay down before it starts having an affect on you.
By loopy Im talking about doing something like eating peanut butter on tostada chips ( which I have done) .
It doesnt make you go on a rampage or angry. If he took too much ambien he would have fell asleep drooling in a corner.
Sounds to me like he was just a nasty violent man that was also a coward and hid behind whatever he could just so he could find a way to get out of whatever duties he was assigned…
Oh, I forgot, he was basically an a$$hole…
Prayers for those he killed and wounded…
Thanks Clinton, this is your fault…
Thunderstixx. I think you summed him up well.
Self-reported vs combat documneted head injury from previous article speaks volumes.
Remember Tim Poe’s self-reported injuries. Obviously this guy is in a different category than Tim Poe. But I’ve said it in many forums before. Mental illness is real, and it affects the civilian population too. I was in Kuwait, prior to the start of OIF. No shots had been fired. But one of our Airmen had a complete mental breakdown, that to had all the signs of schizophrenia. It’s a disease that often doesn’t manifest until the mid-20’s. John Hinkley was never in the military, and his mental break led him to shoot Ronald Reagan. I had an Airman in my unit with ZERO deployments, non-combatant, kill himself two years ago. But his family wants to call it PTSD. From what? Simply writing everything off as PTSD does nothing to address mental illness, which is a genuine issue to both military and civilians.
SELF REPORTED TBI
“Hey doc, I got a really bad headache.”
“Well has anything happened?”
“Yes sir, I was getting in my truck and banged my head on the cab because I forgot to duck.”
“Okay, I noted you hit your head on truck cab. Get this Tylenol from the dispensary. Take two every four hours until the headache subsides. Watch out for that truck cab soldier. I just banged my head getting in my car the other day too!”
Later, upon leaving Iraq. “Any medical conditions we should know about?”
“Yes sir, my head was severely injured on a supply run when my head was thrown against the truck cab.”
“Hum…Okay soldier I’ll note that. Did you report it at the time?”
“Well no sir I just told them I had a really bad headache and they gave me Tylenol. But my headaches won’t go away now”
“Okay soldier, it’s noted. Keep taking the Tylenol and follow up when you rotate home.”
“Thank you sir.”
I was working nights in Kuwait. Twice a week in the mid-morning, EOD would blow up stuff they had confiscated across the border. So for weeks I was I suddenly woken up by large booms. About two years later I was being seen for insomnia. Doc was going over medical history, specifically sleep patterns. I relayed this story. She was totally wanting to say I had TBI. Sorry I just won’t buy it. I would just feel like such a poser to claim TBI because of a booming alarm clock. I don’t know, I’m now expert. I don’t know what was going through this kid’s head. It’s just sad all around. I just hate talking heads on the news, who are suddenly mental health experts, who within 30 minutes of the story saying, “Yep, obviously PTSD”
In Balad, on the other side of the air field, about 0330-0400hrs, the Air Force getting the fighter jets ready for mission and reving up the engines to full power. It would shake your teeth loose and knock crap off the shelf. Another “alarm clock” that wasn’t fun.
I self-reported a couple years after I had gotten knocked out in an IED (documented in theater) because I starting having dizzy spells and couldn’t keep my balance and having memory loss issues. I was just playing it safe and wanted to get checked out. Thank goodness I didn’t have MTBI. It turned out to be something else that was easily treatable.
To clarify, I said MTBI instead of TBI because I knew if I had it it was mild because I had been walking around for a couple years without much problems.
“Your Honor based on my previous assertions and the information provided above … I rest my case”!
I wonder if someone called bullshit on his TBI and self proclaimed PTSD. That could be what set him off.
My sentiments exactly.
I wonder if Lopez wasn’t trying to get put out via a psych discharge, which carries a pension, and he killed himself rather than owe up to what he had just done? It sickens me half to death that he killed and wounded others before he killed himself. I just wonder how soon we’ll start seeing liberal pols and their sniveling media lackeys screech for us ME Vets to be disarmed at every opportunity? Four months, no combat, he did that.
Proud I wonder the same thing. The tragedy to me is that instead of taking innocent lives, he could have went on post to the hospital, sat down and pulled his weapon on himself, threatening suicide. After the hours long standoff and finally subduing him. He would have gotten the psych discharge he wanted. If, that is what he was after.
I don’t know about politicians, but Liberals are all over Yahoo calling for disarming all vets. Of course they are claiming that we are all bloodthirsty killers just waiting to explode.
Seems logical from their viewpoint. Most Vets are staunch supporters of the 2nd amendment, well all of them really.
Who better to disarm than the folks that were willing to give all to an oath to Support and Defend the very Constitution these politicians are so happy to wipe their asses with.
Narcissism personified. It’s all about HIM, isn’t it?
And haven’t we seen this before – HOW many times – right here?
I don’t mean to sound cynical, but I think it’s just a damned shame he shot himself in the head before anyone could tackle him, put him on trial, and send him off to the Big House. I don’t know if this is true in all states, but in some, an insanity plea for committing a crime results in a ‘guilty but mentally ill’ verdict, meaning you may find a cure, but if so, you still have to serve your sentence when you are ‘cured’. LOTS of time in the lockups there.
In this case, however, he brought an unregistered personal weapon onto the base and started shooting random targets, so I doubt that his claims hold much water. The statistics on TBI injuries in non-military people will bear out what I’m saying.
What he did was intentional, period.
Ex-PH2 “Narcissism personified. It’s all about HIM, isn’t it?” Excellent points. The news has made this all about “him’. The 3 he killed and 15 he wounded are just so many notes at the bottom of the page for them. I agree, it was an intentional act, period.
We’ve already been targeted.
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2009/apr/16/napolitano-stands-rightwing-extremism/?page=all
Don’t be fooled; the same people are still in charge.
In my personal experience, PTSD is a complex condition and exposure to combat, or lack thereof isn’t always the determining factor in who has it. Saying that someone doesn’t have it, or shouldn’t, simply because of their mos or because of some vague notion you may have of their military experience cheapens the meaning of PTSD almost as much as the media does.
Agreed, but in 2011 there were only major FOBs left, all the COPs had been dismantled or turned over to the Iraqi forces. Can’t help but think he was a dirtbag that left theater early for some reason. His biggest conflict would be deciding whether to go to BK, Pizza Hut or Cinnabon by that time frame.
Well, I have a sense for these things. No, when it’s just the MOS or the exposure to combat, those factors in and of themselves don’t say much, but when it’s combined with an excuse for bad behavior, bells go off in my head. it seems to me that you’d be upset that everyone is using PTS as such an excuse, that the “PTS explains everything” cheapens the meaning of PTS, to use your words.
Sorry. But I don’t read it that way. I don’t think PTSD excuses a murderer from the murders he committed, I don’t think many others do either. I do think PTSD can be a major contributor to acts of impulsivity or anger, but even if that happened here it doesn’t excuse murder.
My problem with what you’re saying is that from what I understand, development of PTSD is often influenced by traumatic situations that happen in childhood. An individual who had something traumatic happen to them as a child can develop PTSD during a traumatic, or even highly stressful period as an adult, even if they seem well-adjusted. Just because someone isn’t a trigger puller, or doesn’t see combat doesn’t mean that they’re faking it when they start saying that they’re having problems which may be related to PTSD. The threshold for it isn’t always high.
I like the fact that your voice for reason reminding people that PTSD sufferers aren’t all Travis Bickles. I just think you should be a little more sensitive to the complexities of this condition which affects a large cross section of people, POG and grunt alike.
Good point on the childhood trauma observation. Chances are, this guy had latent issues that went un-noticed when he signed his DD Form 4/1966 and wasn’t disclosed at MEPS. In that case, PTS wouldn’t be service related, but could offer some explanation into the makeup of his personality and behavior down the road. Only 4 months in Iraq? Can’t help but wonder if he wasn’t a shit-bird then that carried into other assignments, and perhaps he received Art.15 for something we don’t know about. I’m no expert, obviously. Only speculating.
Well, Former 11B, “no combat experience” does bring up the question of what precisely it was that he experienced while serving that was so “traumatic” it would later cause PTSD.
I mean, getting shot at I can see; ditto getting hit by an IED or seeing a buddy get hit by one. But dealing with bad roads, bad weather, long hours, primitive living conditions, and MREs? Sounds like pretty much every time I went to the field at Bragg – or Korea, or Campbell, or . . . .
Hondo et.al. Agree totally that this is in no way anything to do with PTS/D. As I said on the other thread, I would love to see what his actual diagnosis in AXIS 2 is. I have a feeling that they were considering a discharge for a Personality Disorder, which you cannot even get VA Benefits for. Also, I can understand the suicide, but only a sociopath would kill others before themselves. It would seem that his only medication was Ambien….that says a lot also.
How do you know he has no combat experience? Your 214 doesn’t record every fire fight or ambush you have ever been in.. The brass at fort hood have no idea either.
No, but a 15-6 should or line inquiry/debrief. They are recorded.
In regard to using post-traumatic stress disorder as an excuse for bad behavior, answer these questions:
How many rape victims have gone on a rampage involving mulitple random victims?
How many firefighters and cops have gone berserk on people? (I use this as an example, because the Chicago cop Abate beat the crap out of a bartender who refused to sell him more liquor, but he was not a victim of PTSD, AND cops and now firefighters do get shot at.)
What are the statistics on those people?
Something I don’t understand is why it took so long for the MPs to get out there. I know that area really well. the main MP station is not even half a mile from the 13th footprint. LTG Milley said it took the first MPs 10–15 minutes to get there
Some people have mental, emotional, and charcter defects before they join the military. We have all known one or two about whom we;ve said, “That guy has some serious issues” or words to that effect but, still, the nutjob doesn’t go berserk and kill innocents. When one of these people does go off, either during or after service, the media have a field day with troubled Vet this and troubled Vet that, as if the trouble is inextricably linked to or caused by military service. And that pisses us off. And it damn well should.
Cav…these are the “personality disorders” I’m talking about. Discharged a bunch of them as recruits, male and female, while working on Parris Island. I knew they would only be big time trouble later on as many can “maintain” in a structured environment for a while, but usually not for years. Their “issues” eventually come right back to the front.
Not that we will ever know for sure, but someone, maybe during the presser/briefing last night, said that he was prescribed meds. Was he not taking the prescribed meds, or was he reacting badly to them? Gotta wonder when they start talking about psychotropic stuff. Not everyone becomes a better human being when taking them. Or doesn’t take what they should.
ABC News sends us a link to their article about Lopez’ Facebook Page, but I’d caution you that AKO says there are twelve Ivan Lopezs in the Army, three are specialists, but none are yesterday’s shooter.
A little bit off topic, but even the FBI has suggested (in a round about way) that teachers could (should?) theoretically be armed to confront an active shooter. Why shouldn’t military folks be allowed, then?
http://www.fbi.gov/stats-services/publications/law-enforcement-bulletin/September-2010/shooting-feature
Brass and the civilian leadership think enlisted are dumb trash that’s why. Battalion OOD in the Marine Corps is armed for example and usually the SNCO that’s with him but otherwise enlisted are not to be trusted.
I’m sure armchair head-shrinks in the media will say it’s PTSD from Iraq…which is a round-about way of saying our foreign policy response to 9-11 is the root cause to what happened today. But I’m sorry, the first thing I thought of when the details came out today was the 1994 shootings at Fairchild AFB. Look at the details of that case, that shooter joined after Desert Storm and before 9-11. What was his root cause of bad behavior….other than mental illness.
Though during both my deployments we did see combat in my opinion it did not mitigate the terrible behavior I saw out of some individuals. On deployment my belief is that people’s true colors came out during deployment, especially with the daily monotony people tend to talk a lot about their past. We had another Corpsman in my company who joined the Navy at the rip age of 22 because he was honestly a heroin addict, which he failed to disclose before he joined the military. Being in Iraq sent this guy over the edge; he was talking about killing some Iraqi soldiers who groped a journalist who came to our COP for the day. Eventually he was sent home 3 months into the deployment for just being plane nuts and abusing pain medication. Years go by and I vaguely kept in contact with this guy. Eventually he wound up in jail and his parents started contacting guys in our company about standing up for him at his trial. The prosecutor also contacted us as well. The crime he committed was him and his girlfriend where doing heroin and she did it all and did not share it with him so he beat the shit out of her and point a gun at her and shot but missed as she was running out of the house. I found myself in a bad spot this was 2010 two years after I retired. I found about 50% of the guys in my company had some form of ptsd and the other 50% where doing just fine. The guys I know who are doing bad are doing bad but their symptoms of ptsd is that they just want to be left alone and never leave their house. I do believe that the guy who committed the crime would have eventually no matter if he went to Iraq or if he had never joined the military would have ended up in prison, and that PTSD was not a factor and that he was a drug addict before hand. I told his father that I… Read more »
Spot on. I was in when there weren’t constant deployments and most of the soldiers were good citizens. However, we had some dregs of society – druggies and worse. Perhaps they had PTS, or more likely they were just gang bangers and criminals heading to jail no matter what.
drc You spoke well sir. In my time, the best and worst came out in troops during and after Vietnam. Sometimes it manifested during their tour. It really, in my mind and memory, came down to what they brought to the military to work with or deal with. Some were great guys coming from good backgrounds and suffered terribly during their tour and afterwards, volunteers and draftees alike. Some who came from backgrounds I would have bet money would have had them in prison otherwise, did exceptionally well during their service and afterwards. I will never figure it out. I do not believe there is any formula which can ever be created to explain what will happen to each person. I will not believe until I am proven otherwise that this killer had PTS. I say that not because of his MOS or his short tour. I know true PTS can be blind to MOS or length of tour. I believe he brought a lot of his own baggage into the Army that no one except him knew of. As I said, I remember the military turning troop’s lives around from the experiences they went through. I also saw it turn some into sad individuals, almost…locked away from life. The only ones I personally knew of who did anything truly violent, (and this is just from my one very limited amount of information and contacts) took their own life but harmed no one else.
Sparks: IMO, it’s possible the guy had PTSD. However, I don’t see how he could have been “traumatized” while in the Army, given what’s been made public about his service so far.
If this guy had PTSD, I’m thinking USMCE8Ret above is right, and it was based on an undisclosed preexisting incident or incidents. That in turn means that his Army service is irrelevant. It was a preexisting condition vice something caused by military service.
Hondo I do not disagree at all. PTSD can from from myriad sources. Many, occurring during childhood, only to be exacerbated by later life events. I guess I should have been more specific and added that I do not believe, as you, that it was a result of his service in Iraq or the Army.
Much to my point earlier … this guy never had a squared away sea bag, his failure in adulthood at a ripe age of 34 (most people get it in early 20’s) and his inability to cope triggered the criminal in him that was already there.
He is nothing more than a murderer!
So, Crazy Ivan?
/yes, I’m going to hell. (Too soon?…apologies to the Bubbleheads. )
What a fuggin’ buttplug.
As one of our resident medical types, I’d like to chime in on the medical angle. Simply being ‘noncombat’ does not completely mitigate the possibility of a TBI/PTSD. If this guy was really an 88M, as it’s been reported, those guys got exposed to concussive effects so often that it was often not even recorded, and the current research is indicating that there’s a strong link between repeated low level concussive exposures and the severity of PTSD. So; While the evidence about this guy seems to point away, don’t discount it. He’s the right age for preexisting psychiatric issues, he was in a MOS that had a high repeated exposure to blasts/concussive forces and had been being treated for anxiety and depression. The effects of all three (depression, history of TBI and PTS) can stack up in a hurry.
That said, it’s time to require every NCO E5 and above and every officer to be authorized to carry firearms on post. This shit has got to stop.
ANCCPT: sorry, but I’m having a hard time following this line of thought. Where would the guy have been exposed to blasts/concussive forces other than combat – which per the Army, he never saw?
Perhaps I’m just missing something.
I get what you are saying, but there weren’t very many IEDs going off towards the end of 2011. I was there 08-09 and everything was winding down then. I went the entire year without finding or hitting an IED whereas in 05-06 it didn’t seem like I could go a week without finding or hitting an IED.
IED exposure amongst the 88M’s was almost ubiquitous. And simply because the Army says he didn’t see combat doesn’t mean anything. He was in theater; He was a truck driver; it’s a known risk factor for the MOS. I’m not saying he was, I’m saying it’s possible. And just because the Army says something doesn’t mean it’s true. ‘Combat’ as defined by the army is a pretty specific definition. Indirect fire, IED’s a hundred meters away outside the wire, EOD blowing stuff up, all not combat from the way I understand it’s defined. There’s a lot of ways to get exposed to concussive forces, and the research is showing it takes a Lot less than previously thought.
And I was just floating the possibility; Occams Razor would suggest that he was mentally ill and this was the result.
Actually, ANCCPT – if the Army (or DoD, for that matter) has a standard definition for the term “combat”, I’ve never been able to find it. Last time I checked, it was in neither the Army’s (ADRP 1-02) or DoD’s (JP 1-02) standard dictionary of operational terms.
The “last time I checked” was 5 min ago, by the way. (smile)
The word “combat” is used as a part of many Army/DoD definitions in various places – including “direct ground combat” (SECDEF 1994 memo defined this term), “combat support”, “close combat”, and many others. Further: if the term “close combat” must be defined, that implies that there are multiple forms of combat, and that the term “combat” is not identical to “close combat”.
Best I can tell, the term “combat” itself is nowhere officially defined (for DoD purposes) anywhere – at least, not in any official publication that I’ve ever been able to find.
From an organization that directs the exact shade of sock color, this seems like a glaring omission of bureaucracy then. How are CAB’s awarded? What defined ‘combat’ for purposes of awarding the CAB to a noncombat/noncombat unit assigned service member? Is it taking a few incoming rounds? Is it getting shot at and returning fire? Is it having to actively work to avoid someone who is trying to kill you? Inquiring minds want to know!
When I was a Company Commander in a Guard unit in Florida, I would regularly receive medical forms to sign off for Soldiers who claim to have PTSD. In there, it would provide for a Commander’s statement. More often than not, I would remark that PVT Joe Snuffy did not have PTSD in my opinion but rather was suffering from stress at home due to money, problems with spouse, or general malaise due to the employment situation (this was circa 2010-2012). We did deploy to Iraq, which is a combat zone, but no one in my unit was ever shot at. We did receive the occasional volley of indirect fire but nothing came close to rock anyone’s world. The Guard has been trying to tackle suicide’s amongst troops who have never deployed which is higher than those who have deployed. So its likely PTSD had nothing to do with this at all and people who knew him really didn’t know him.
SIGO Thanks for your input. I did not know that suicides were higher for non deployed over deployed troops. That is a new fact for me and it gives me pause for thought regarding the issue.
After I redeployed from Iraq in late 2007, it took me until the summer of 2012 that I was able to get a really good night’s sleep. At times the insomnia would keep me up for four or five days straight. Did or does this mean I have the PTSD, HELL NO. I go to the VA for a yearly physical and blood work. They did a TBI evaluation of me, a few years back and my brain has not turned into water and poured out my ears.
I am getting sick and tired of these mental cases doing what they do and then blame everything under the sun for what they have done so that they can try and escape the consequences that follow their sick deeds.
The story now is that Lopez, a Puerto Rican, was upset b/c he didn’t get immediate emergency leave when he requested it and that he got back to the shooting gallery (Puerto Rico) five days after his mother’s death. Makes sense…just not to me, unless he was a dyed-in-the-wool nut. Many of us have suffered the loss of loved ones under all sorts of circumstances. Some of us got angry, very angry–but none of us went on a murderous rampage to vent that anger. As for PTS, given Puerto Rico’s homicide rate (6 X the US rate), he probably heard more gunfire and saw gunshot victims while growing up than he did in the military.
It also appears he might have had recent troubles with someone at Fort Hood:
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/fort-hood-gunman-devastated-mother-death-article-1.1744315
PTS this PTS that. OMG, he was deployed for a couple of months during a time of war!
I fucking hate when the media reports anything veteran related because they always immediately bring up the same tired memes. I’m surprised they haven’t reported more about the absurd gang activity in the military and try to claim PTS is the cause too.
It fits their preconceived ideas about the members of the military and veterans. Yes PTSD exists, my father has suffered from it after Korea, but it is not the fall back reason for any act of violence that is committed.
The political agendas are also coming out to the point that I have heard musings that this is Bush’s fault..
FatCircles0311 Good point. Many of the news articles I have read are already showing nearly nothing except photos of Lopez holding weapons. Where are all the family and I am sure plenty of non weapon posing pictures? No, the media wants him to look like a crazed war vet, weapon in hand all the time, ready to kill because it is, “the Army’s fault” he was the way he was.
regardless of whether he had some form of trauma, the underlying FACT is that a) no one forced him to go on a rampage and b) as soon as he was confronted he pulled his own switch. That adds up to shitbag and a coward to me.Maybe I’m just not a sympathetic kinda guy, but the bottom line is that he had no excuse for what he did.
Regarding PTS. I never wrote this down before, I am not very comfortable doing it now, whatever. Maybe some good will come of it. In the early 1980s I participated in a body recovery – a drowning. I knew the individual’s family. I handled the remains. It was tough. The experience stayed raw for about a year and has not completely faded. I can still easily bring up a fairly clear image of the 18-year boy we pulled out after being in the water for six days then wrestled into a body bag and handed over to the State Troopers. His dad was a close acquaintance. I am glad that someone recovered his son so my friend could have closure. I am glad that I could help but I am not proud of it. You who have seen combat have it a lot tougher than that. The wounds are worse, the relationships closer, there are more injuries and death, and they pile up. I offer my deepest respect. Yet, the vast majority of you find a way to deal. I never talked to anyone about it but I think that I did not have a post-traumatic stress injury. I had some of the symptoms but they did not last because I found a way to deal with my experience. Sure as hell, I am nothing special. I think that most people find a way. We do not know how to look into a mind and decide if it is broken. Even if we know that a mind is broken, we don’t know how to fix it. If yesterday’s Fort Hood shooter had a PTS injury who can say that was the reason he started to shoot people? Given my general view about the resilience of people (noted above) and the support that the Army said that he was receiving, I think that it is far too easy, convenient, and simplistic to blame PTS for his behavior. I think that we should look elsewhere first. If there are no other explanations then we can come back and reconsider PTS. I could… Read more »
Goddamn it. Why do these shitheads get away this? MF. I. am. in. no. mood. Good thing someone gave him the dirt nap he deserved.
My old pastor, a Marine grunt NCO in Vietnam told me some golden words after I came back from Iraq and started having some issues related to my deployment: “war can exaggerate our character flaws, but we are still responsible for what we say and do…stop fucking up.”