Shawn McMurray caught the PTSD in the 1st Gulf War
There was this fellow, Shawn McMurray, who applied for disability benefits last year and was unfortunate enough to explain his case to Social Security administrative law judge Gary Suttles who, according to the Austin Statesman, has denied more than 80% of the cases he hears. Mr. McMurray was seeking disability compensation for the injuries he incurred in a 2012 motorcycle accident and he tacked on some psychological maladies like depression, bi-polar disorder and PTSD that were a result of his military service in the 1st Gulf War.
Mr. McMurray served on the aircraft carrier, USS America, during that war as an aircraft fueler, He was discharged soon after because the Navy said he had a “personality disorder”. He has unsuccessfully tried to get the VA to compensate him but VA doctors haven’t found a reason to connect his PTS to his service in Navy. The ALJ, Judge Suttles tried to make that connection, too. The conversation recorded in the Statesman went like this;
Suttles: “What do you think happened to you in Iraq? I mean, hey, you were in the Navy. You weren’t even fighting on the ground. I mean, you were out in the ocean weren’t you?”
McMurray: “Yeah but, I was on a carrier. We lost a lot of planes.”
Suttles: “OK, you’re out there on this big old carrier that doesn’t even touch ground.”
McMurray: “It’s stressful.”
Suttles: “Well, life is stressful,” (laughing)
McMurray: “Uh, yeah.”
Suttles: “To me it would be exciting. What do you mean stressful? I mean you’re on this floating city in the middle of the (ocean)….Didn’t you find that exciting?”
McMurray tells the reporter;
“It’s tormented me since that day,” said the Navy veteran, 44, “He took my dignity away. I wasn’t proud to be a veteran.”
[…]
McMurray said the exchange “hurt me so bad. … He just slammed all of us. What judge in his right mind would tell a veteran that? He’s very biased and discriminating against the Navy.”
Veterans, like all Americans have to stiffen up and realize that just because you’re a veteran, that doesn’t shield you from criticism. Especially if you expect that shield just because you served in the military once.
Of course, the VSOs line up to defend McMurray;
[Anthony Hardie, spokesman with the advocacy group Veterans for Common Sense] said those aboard carriers endured “the sheer terror of incoming missile attacks, any of which might have been laden with chemical or biological warfare agents.” Navy vessels in the Persian Gulf also confronted the threat of underwater mines and environmental hazards like smoke from oilfield fires.
“Fueler is a high stress job in itself,” [Jim Bunker, executive director of the National Gulf War Resource Center] said. “It’s extremely long hours in an extremely dangerous position. He’s being told people’s lives depend on him. Things can happen on those decks that we have no clue about, mishaps. You’re told you could die out there at any time. In most deployments you don’t have that kind of stress going.”
McMurray claims that he once witnessed a crash on the deck of the America and the pilot ejected into the sea.
Now, I’m no expert on post traumatic stress, and I know that stressful situations affect people differently, but it seems to me that if the VA can’t point to a reason to connect McMurray’s PTS to his Navy service, the judge probably couldn’t either. I have no doubt that this will go McMurray’s way because the Social Security Administration has apologized to him for the judge’s comments. For the judge’s part though, he denied McMurray’s claim which is probably why we’re reading about the hearing room exchange now.
The article goes on into the VA guidelines being expanded in 2010 to include events “related to fear of hostile military or terrorist activity.” But, you know what? I doubt very much there was much danger of either of those things on the decks of the USS America during the Gulf War. Then the VSOs go into the old “forgotten Gulf War veterans” canard. I haven’t felt forgotten, not even for a minute, but then, I don’t make up ailments and injuries related to my military service.
It all reminds me of another fellow we all know who claims false maladies from his service on the decks of another carrier in another war related to duties that he never performed.
Did the Duffel Blog see this coming?
Category: Dumbass Bullshit
Crashes on the deck of the USS America CV-66? I assume he meant the flight deck, not the poop deck.
The only thing I could find on that is a 1986 mishap with a helicopter:
http://www.apnewsarchive.com/1986/Minor-Injuries-in-Helicopter-Crash-on-USS-America/id-fb7771662a2c75cf5d43a73241c3fc7c
I don’t believe that took place when this individual was on board the ship. It was, after all, 1986 during routine exercises, not the Gulf War… unless the ship went through one of those time warp clouds like the Nimitz did in that movie (Final Countdown). Was this guy even around in 1986?
Come on! With all the info available on the internet, he couldn’t do a better job of lying? What a dork!
…Would have been nice if the judge had thought to do the same research Ex-PH2 did, asked the lil’ snowflake about the crash, and then asked him if he was aware there was no – repeat – no record of any crash aboard America during ODS and in fact, America lost NO aircraft during the fight.
It would have been comedy gold, I tell ya.
Mike
There you go!
See how easy it is to be caught with pants unassed?
Does the judge have these cases ahead of time enough to do any research? Or is it a “next case on the docket, here’s the file yer’honor”?
PH2 comes to the rescue. As I read the story about him having to watch some horrible crash on deck, I was thinking that any kind of crash resulting in a airframe loss or death would be documented and in the public record. And before I could ask if anyone had a sources for crashes on the USS America,in comes my fav Photographers Mate.
Maybe reading about them using the USS America in a live torpedo exercise and sending her to the bottom of the Atlantic is where it comes from? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_America_%28CV-66%29#Post_decommissioning_service
Well we are around the same age he would have been 16 in 1986. He may have a serious issues with Sand in his manjina… I hate Fucktards like this that try to trivialize PTS. I like the judge I wish I could buy him a beer Lol…..
Oh yeah, well maybe it was a sooper sekrit CIA spy plane that crashed on AMERICA during the gulf war and the crash isn’t listed in anybody’s records because of the fire at the records center. Hey, it could happen.
Yeah, see it’s that sentence about America’s deployment during Desert Storm that kind of takes the wind out of this toilet scum’s tale.
From Wiki: America departed the Persian Gulf on 4 March, with CVW-1 having conducted 3,008 combat sorties, dropped over 2,000 tons of ordnance and suffered no aircraft losses during the war.
There you go: NO LOSSES.
Next contestant!!!
First of all the paper wrote it wrong. You got the facts wrong .Feb 1991 during recovery operation an A-6E intruder from squadron VA-85 was lost. It at the bottom of the Persian gulf…Do the research. Its kind of funny how you criticised a vet and you weren’t there. . Go to USS America ejection .always remember those guys won a war in 100 hrs..So whats the problem you fuck are fighting something you can’t win…. think about what you say…half of you people talk shit and your mom was still wiping your ass when they went over there…they kick ass and took names later….so tell tell your butt buddies to go fuck themselves….Defender of a vet……
I reference this incident below. It was not a crash. A damaged but repairable plane was pushed into the water in order to clear the deck. McMurray still has major problems. Telling a judge “we lost a lot of planes” is very different from “we pushed one damaged plane into the water”. He appears to be guilty of gross exaggeration at the very least.
This slacker gives the rest of us slackers a bad name !!!
Sounds like he has combination of FTS and SM (Fractured Taint Syndrome and Sand in his Mangina) and got his feelings hurt when the big bad judge denied his “claim”. His “personality disorder” was that his umbilical cord wasn’t cut from Mommy at birth.
Maybe he should have hired a “lawer” that we all know with “experience” in matters like this.
Well of course there is no record of it, the B-2 Stealth Bomber that had crashed was ferrying a squadron of Secret Squirrel types back from a LRRP after being picked up 30 miles behind enemy lines in a night-op after trying to assassinate Saddam.. the whole thing was flagged level Omicron, Ultra-Black classified and the whole crew was hit with the Men In Black memory flashy thing.
Obviously it doesn’t work as well when you done caught the PTSD.
(I could tell you my source, but I’d have to kill you)
But there is a record… it’s in a sooper sekrit vault… file can only be read while sitting in a triple-secure shitter in the E-ring at the Potomac puzzle palace on days that do not end with the letter “Y”.
I know this stuff. Also, I can split atoms…WITH MY MIND!!!
No washrooms in the E-Ring, they’re all in the corridors. Every corridor has two bathrooms; one male, one female. There’s also a unisex washroom in every apex around the A-Ring.
Since the mean ol’ SS judge denied this fractured taint’s disability claim, maybe some of those oh-too-vocal VSOs can generously pay it out of their own personal pockets.
Not holding my breath waiting, though.
“the sheer terror of incoming missile attacks…”. There were? I didn’t realize it.
“…and environmental hazards like smoke from oilfield fires.” Does smoke from diesel burning shit count? If so, I’m 100%.
Yes. I saw that smoke. I witnessed the night attacks from incoming fighters.
I saw it all… ON TV.
Based on McMurray’s standard, I should be committed, lock in a padded room, medicated, fitted with a straight jacket and given a druel bucket.
This POS is a pussy!
We were under the impression this was your standard Saturday night Chief.
Only on paydays and after he’s hit the Chief’s club.
Is he claiming PTS from the smack down he got from the judge? Maybe he’ll do better claiming that one.
Fuck him! I was on the Nimitz in ’88 when we had a flight deck fire that killed a guy in my shop. I was close enough to the initial explosion that it knocked me on my ass.
This little scumbag is crying because “We lost a lot of planes”? Really, because I bet it’s a hell of a lot more stress seeing a guy you worked with burned to death.
“It’s extremely long hours in an extremely dangerous position. He’s being told people’s lives depend on him. Things can happen on those decks that we have no clue about, mishaps. You’re told you could die out there at any time. In most deployments you don’t have that kind of stress going.”
Bullshit! In EVERY deployment you have that kind of stress. When you work the flight deck if you don’t keep your head on a swivel a plane will take it off in a heartbeat. We had a grape ape almost walk into the prop arc of a E2 Hawkeye because he was dragging the hose backwards.
This is the kind of shit that really pisses me off. Whinny little bastards that want us to just shell out cash to them because “I has a sad”.
Again, fuck him.
Like I said, the only ‘crash’ I could find for the America was 1986, helo accident, some injuries to crew, but nothing serious.
It’s pretty obvious to me caught the PTSD from watching the opening sequence to JAG too many times.
Yep, too much Harmon Rabb and Maverick all rolled into one for me.
I’m out.
It was not a LRRRRP. It was a SLURP.
And this was their recovery aircraft.
https://youtube/IANwb_qT1gg
Wrong code. Sorry.
https://youtu.be/IANwb_qT1gg
You know your PTS claim has to be complete bullshit if even the VA won’t approve it.
If that snotnosed limp-dicked jelly-spined little Smurf-hugging candyassed Sparkle Pony of a snotweasel ever needs somebody to cry to while they hug him, he’d best pass right by me because I DON’T give even remotely give a shit about “Oh, poor me” critters like that! That inspires me to do a hymn…
FUCK HIM…
Fuck HIM…
FUCK him…
“Social Security judge dismisses combat stress claims of Gulf War vet, says war would have been ‘“exciting.”'” Star article.
Oh what bullshit. The ALJ never said any such thing. The paper also says that the Feds are investigating the judge. Investigating him? Hell, they ought to be giving him “ALJ of the Year.” And another thing: I can’t stand to see anyone wearing a representation of Old Glory as an article of clothing. Dickwad.
You know, there is a certain level of consistency in these dickless wonders.
They don’t do any research.
They can’t get their facts straight.
They think nobody who was actually THERE or alive then will find them and debunk them.
They lie like cheap carpeting and have probably done it their whole lives.
If nothing else works, they try to intimidate their opponents.
They all have desperate need for attention.
“related to fear of hostile military or terrorist activity.” Ok, by that rule, every swinging richard that served in with me in Korea in the mid 80s or in Germany during the cold war is good to go. Everybody hop on the gravy train, the PTSD express in pulling in to the station!
Booger-eating thumbsucking little bedwetter!
I have an old girlfriend whose husband is a Gulf War Vet who caught the PTSD and some of the stories she relates about how he can’t be around fire works, loud noises, crowds, and how he often just has a vacant stare make me nauseous. He never saw any action and wasn’t even combat arms but to hear his struggles he was so highly traumatized by that 4 day war he can’t even function.
Why does she go on about all of her husbands travails? Because its a constant blast against the VA for not approving his claims for disability and that they are so FUed up they cannot understand he was on classified missions and obviously that wouldn’t be in his records.
I understand that there is plenty of valid criticism that can be laid at the VA’s door step but there are so many people trying to scam the system I bet most of the back log could be a direct result of them having to wade through all of the bull shit. I see it every time I go to the VA hospital or clinic….the latest tactic I heard was “sympathetic PTSD”……you know, they never went to war themselves but they could have and they knew people who did and that was stressful.
Damn it, just thinking about it ruined my breakfast.
A 15 year old girl at my son’s private school ran away from home. According to the flyer they put out, she had the PTSD before she ran away.
They found the girl OK after about a month.
If contractors start riding the PTSD gravy train, watch out. The government will need to print a lot more money.
After my last trip to the sandbox (09-10) and the post deployment health assessment, I was ‘diagnosed’ with PTSD from the first Gulf War and Somalia and supposedly it was enhanced from more deployments to Iraq.
and all that time I just thought I was an asshole….
Still haven’t filed with the VA because I don’t think I have the PTSD. I mean fireworks don’t bother me so I’m good right?
Amen Bro. My tent got mortared during Tet ’68. First Shirt and I just rolled to the dirt. Funny smell. Oh, all the bug bombs above sand bag level were perforated. Tent looked like a colander.
If I smell bug bombs, I’m reminded. Guess I caught the PTSD. Also feel the same when I smell shit burning with diesel as an additive. Or when the engineers spray diesel on the road to stop dust and kill the desert tortoise et al. Never mind Agent Orange. Guess I outta not go clean my guns now.
I’d recommend that they create a Navy Service Ribbon, like the Army Service Ribbon, to stop certain NAVETS from making the waves in their sea stories higher and more violent, but since certain ARVETS won’t let their Army Service Ribbons stop them from embellishing their land stories, I won’t push for such recommendation. 🙄
When the Federal gov’t is willing to give shit away, the lines of people wanting to get some get very long. (Some of us recall the free cheese. I know Chevy does. He probably thought he had died and went to Heaven.) Veterans, as a group, are not exempt. It is easy to rationalize taking something for one’s service that one doesn’t need or deserve. How many honest-to-goodness cases of PTSD are out there no one knows but it’s a cinch that too many are absolute bullshit, borne on the wings of the get-yourself-some bird.
Free book via Amazon Kindle about WWI. Now It Can Be Told by Gibbs. Gibbs was a war correspondent. The WWI vets who lived and fought in trenches for months with the bones and decomposing corpses of their comrades and enemies would call this guy McMurray a major pussy. Another instance of government subsidies resulting in surpluses.
Thanks, GDC. I’m on it. One thing, though, the Kindle download is .99 but, being the cheap SOB that I am, I found a site that will let folks read it from their pc or other device at no cost and w/o a Kindle:
http://www.gutenberg.org/files/3317/3317-h/3317-h.htm
Cool. Mine was free but I got it probably one year ago or so. It’s a good book. Another thing I have enjoyed is Dan Carlin’s Hardcover History podcast about WWI (free). Each installment is 3 hours or so of audio. I was gratified to see that he occasionally quotes Gibbs. Great podcast series…terrible war to end all wars.
YGBFSM! An organization with the audacity to call themselves “Veterans for Common Sense”, actually came to his defense? What a shit box.
That’s because an organization with “Common Sense” in its name usually doesn’t have any. Common Sense is a favorite term of the progressive left and I don’t think it means what they think it means.
So “XYZ for common sense” is used in the same manner as “Peoples’ Democratic Republic”?
I will have to remember that one.
What a yellow-belly. – *PTUI*
You know, this got me to thinking. I worked night shift in Iraq in what was probably a Mirage jet bunker at Q-west.
It was scary at night. There was no available WiFi.
Several times I thought the Iraqi pilot guys shooting touch and go’s were going to crash. They could have. The Iraqi Army had blown up Toyotas parked just up the road from us. There were always footprints on the toilet seats in my work area.
As if that wasn’t enough, AFN radio used to play the same 10 songs over and over in a random sequence. You knew the same stupid song was coming, but you didn’t know when. It was like anything could happen.
Was it anything like this?
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=-rqQujx9vk0
In my opinion the MAJOR reason the VA and SSDI pension system is broken is because slimebags like this clog up the system.
VSOs and Legal types (Birdbath) don’t give a shit if their clients are weasels or not.
Bingo. I’d be surprised if the outright fraud rate in SSDI (and I don’t mean exaggeration – I mean outright BS, where someone is capable of doing some kind of gainful work but simply doesn’t want to) wasn’t approaching 50%, and at least 20% in VA claims. I’d guess it’s higher than that for PTSD claims.
In many respects, SSDI has become just another handout, or a form of extended unemployment compensation. And IMO PTSD claims are fast approaching that point.
Plus in the case of the VA, “helping vets” by approving their PTSD claims helps justify a bigger budget next year through larger documented need. So there’s a built-in institutional incentive for approving them when they’re questionable. And they’re hard as hell to fully document and assess even in the clearest of cases. They’re subjective as hell.
It used to be that claiming back pain was seen by freeloaders as an easy free ride with whatever they could get for it, now they use PTSD trying to get whatever free ride they can while clogging the system and keeping treatment away from those who really do have it FUCK Shawn McMurray up the ass sideways with ten tons of cockle-burs and sandspurs wrapped in asbestos!!
A quick check of Wikipedia shows 6 aircraft that could have come from the USS America being shot down. I’m not sure what “a lot of aircraft” is, but I’m guessing more than 6.
Aircraft refueler is a crappy job, and anything on a flight deck is dangerous. But, the beauty of the Navy is that your job is pretty much constant regardless of where the bird farm is parked. The op tempo was increased, but same job. As we used to say, chose your rate, chose your fate.
From the ship’s history found on the USS AMERICA Museum Foundation’s web site (emphasis added):
Looks pretty much to me like this guy is trying the old con called “lying for dollars”. IMO he’s merely a LSoS.
Not surprised. I just went through the downed aircraft list and counted the Navy airframes. I was going to pull up the squadrons that the pilots belonged to and see where they were flying from. No need now.
I Am Hondo…… 🙂
Is this them or am I thinking of someone else?
The War at Home: One Family’s Fight Against PTSD
I’ve exchanged e-mails with Jeremy Schwarz, the reporter who wrote the linked story. He pointed me to documentation of an incident that occurred on the America in which a damaged plane landed and the pilots ejected because the brakes had stopped, working. Although the plane was snagged before going over the edge, and it was considered to be in repairable condition, the decision was made to push it into the water in order to clear the deck. Here are the links that Mr. Schwarz provided:
http://aviation-safety.net/wikibase/wiki.php?id=57194
http://www.ejection-history.org.uk/CARRIERS/USS_AMERICA/uss_america.htm
Even though one incident described by McMurray appears to be verified, he still has big problems. One, it’s hard to buy that watching a couple of pilots eject in a non-fatal landing mishap could ever cause PTSD, especially PTSD that lingers for over 20 years. Most importantly, even with one verified incident, his statement that “we lost a lot of planes” appears to be a gross exaggeration if not an outright fabrication. And he made this statement to a judge during a hearing, when he was (presumably) under oath.
I’VE GOT IT!!!!!
He looks like the retarded son of James Carville and Mr Six, the Dancing guy from Six Flags amusement parks.
http://newsbusters7.s3.amazonaws.com/images/2010/November/carville.jpeg
http://static1.squarespace.com/static/53b49132e4b0468a579f1bd3/53d64874e4b0b38230ca1f22/53d17294e4b0086f4256a1e2/1406236054963/SixFlagsOldMan.jpg
You look like the fucking toilet paper l wipe my ass with..Fucking big man talking shit behind a curtain. I bet if you took all those gulf war vets over there they get it done in another 100 hrs. Because you f ucks can’t get the job done, fucking everybody is c omming home fucking dead or bodyparts missing. 100 hrs are less expensive than you fucking asshole running up the national debt. The millitary of today is nothing like the millitary of the past. Today’s millitary is a bunch of girls scouts selling cookies. at least the gulf war vets didnt allow the rag heads to come over here and take controll….
Shut the fuck up stupid.
Bitch, I was in from 1984 till 2007.
Go suck a fat babies dick.
🙄
/not feeding the troll any more than that.
So Sean,
Sorry about your Butthurt.
So many veterans are scamming the system anyway with their bullshit PTSD claims, it makes me furious.
Good grief. Another POS. Yeah, many of us were there or very close. Yeah, there are some sounds and especially smells which trigger negative memories. There are others sounds and sights which trigger pleasant memories. Most of us just call that LIFE. Every normal, healthy person has similar reactions to stuff which triggers memories, good and bad.
He well may have some kind of irrational response to his memories, but having PTSD from a non-event? Naw, not buying it.
Maybe he caught the PTSD because he has remorse that he wasn’t refueling aircraft at Sisters Airport that fateful day that Daniel Bernath decided to become part of aviation history. Oh, the humanity.
Negative Nancy’s, Why spend time looking into the ships background and pulling apart this veterans story? Look at the bigger picture. Our veterans should be taken care of regardless. Has this judge ever served in the military, been on deployment, or fought a war? We should all be concerned that 80% of the cases brought in front of him have been denied. To date he has only approved 23% of the claims brought to his attention. If Mr. McMurray was discharged for a personality disorder then maybe it was recognized that the potential to be easily susceptible to PTSD was evident. Situations affect us all differently. Several of my family members serve in the Navy and have been deployed more than once. In dangerous situations they have recieved compensation. Somebody see’s their situation as stressful. If you ask my family they will tell you that the idea of serving while in a war and the potential for danger is there….they can easily see how someone could fall prey to PTSD whether they witnessed death and destruction or not. Support this veteran, past veteran’s and future veteran’s that will not get what they deserve because of this judge. This is one man’s story but it’s not about him it’s about a judge who can be proven to deny a large amount of substantial claims.
Sorry but the story is not about the judge just because you say it is.
This story is about fabrication in order to receive benefits. PERIOD. And if you want to step back and look at the “big picture”, then imagine 1000 shitbags like McMurray trying to obtain victim status in return for monetary gain.