Joshua Jamesray Gueary
Earlier this month, someone sent us the tragic story of Josh Gueary published in the Topeka Capitol-Journal. Josh, here, shot his brother and two laborers before turning the gun on himself – and of course, his military service was to blame;
On that day, Fletcher said, Josh Gueary displayed the paranoia and edginess that friends have seen in him since he returned from the military last year. He often believed someone was chasing him or lurking behind him. When someone knocked on Fletcher’s door, Josh Gueary jumped.
[…]
He apparently resented his time in the military, telling Fletcher the day before he died, “The Army changed me.” The long overtime hours made him feel like a slave, he said. He called enlistment the worst decision of his life, despite the sunny locale to which he was sent — Oahu, Hawaii.
Must’ve been brutal, you know, being stationed in Hawaii. Joshua Jamesray Gueary was an engineer in a bridging unit, according to his records. He never deployed, and, oh, by the way, he didn’t complete his commitment, either. He did three years and seven months, discharged as a private last Fall.
While the story ends tragically, it plays into the stereotypical “all veterans are crazy and on a hair trigger”, but it seems that Josh, here, had problems before he joined the Army and nothing he did in the Army played into that tragic ending. He didn’t train with a handgun on the Army – they can’t even blame his marksmanship with his weapon of choice in his crime on the Army.
Category: Who knows
‘The long overtime hours made him feel like a slave, he said.’
Oh FFS. A slave?
— sigh —
To Teh Special Snowflakes, everything is a “trigger”. And for blacks, everything is “raycisssssss”. Draw the Venn diagram, he fits into a special subset of……what?
Not all Blacks but in these latitudes enough to justify the comment. What is particularly unfortunate, is many educated and especially elected to state, county and city public office Blacks revert to the Theory of Victimization for profit. I am talking Pine Bluff, Arkansas.
I did more push-ups under one black NCO (one I respect to this day) than I ever did under all others combined.
Does that make HIM a “slave driver?”
He must have reached his breaking point just after getting that good conduct medal.
Excuse me? I wonder how he’d feel about $97/month as an E-1 in 1967.
I guess I didn’t have it so bad as an Army AD Bachelor E4 in 1994 taking home a whopping $640 a month after confiscations (*OOPS!*, taxes).
The long overtime hours made the leech feel like a slave? the lazy a.h. just couldn’t stand WORKING for a living!!
Probably caught the PTSD because one day the bar hostess forgot to put the little decorative umbrella in his mai tai at the Hale Koa barefoot bar…///
I don’t know how things are these days but back in the 70s there were a couple of places on Hotel St where one could get an STD which is only a typo and 1 letter short of PTSD.
Close enough for a snowflake, for sure.
There were still a few in the 80’s on Shit Street.
Closest I ever got to teh PTSD in Pearl was on payday Fridays and couldn’t kill my first pitcher at Beeman’s until 1300, or worse yet, had to roam around the parking lot at DeRussy for half an hour looking for a parking spot.
A bunch of us went to see the “Boys will be Girls Review” one night before heading out to Guam. A couple of hours into the the party a fresh out of sub school non-qual that we brought along chatted with a tall slim looker with an adams apple and a hint of 5 o’clock shadow who eventually took his hand and started dragging him towards the door. A CPO that was with us grabbed the non-qual by the collar and said, “Son, there are three rules the Navy insists you follow in situations such as this. It must have a pulse. It must be female and it must be human. Which of those rules do you think you are about to break?”
Me thinks that non-qual came closer than you 🙂
Building that MGB (medium girder bridge)(mean green basted) in the Hawaiian paradise will do it to you.
By MCB I ass-u-me you mean the “Mean Green Bitch” as we called it when I was an AD 12C?
When weeding recruits that had some undiagnosed or diagnosed but hidden mental illness I’d have to tell them that the Army won’t make them ‘better’ just amplify the characteristics that are already inside of them, good/bad/indifferent.
Unfortunately the first line of the system is too concerned about making numbers. I know I ain’t a Doctor, but damn, get a consult FFS so we can stop s*** like this.
I agree with Roh-Dog.
Also, it isn’t any military branch’s fault that most recruits are the median age for the onset of serious mental illness. A “normal” 18 year old enlists for a few years, schizophrenia or bipolar appears as it would if he were anywhere (college, Taco Bell, whatever), but it’s “the military’s fault” he crazy.
But the Army would have been accused of being racist (or more so) if they denied him entry, because, you know, racism.
The smartest decision I ever made in my life was enlisting in the Air Force and leaving for basic three days after my 17th birthday. That was on 4 September 1958 and I have never for a day in my life regretted what serving in the military did for me. That includes the shit details, one summary for assault, the 12+ hour guard duty shifts during the Cuban missile crisis, and all of the asshole NCO’s and officers I encountered. Safe to say most of you share the same sentiment.
Roger that, Club Manager. Except for marrying my wife of 46 years, The Russian, joining the Navy in 1968 is the best decision I made in life. If I could get a do-over, I would do so in a New York Minute.
Everyone I know who was AF says the same thing. Best decision and made me who I am today. And yes, I would go back in in a heartbeat if I could. As that can’t happen, I will live vicariously through my boy who is in week 2 of BMT.
How do you get out of the Army as a private (E1 or even E2) after 3 years and still have a good conduct medal? I figure after he got it at the 3 year mark he 1) finally got caught or 2) started actin’ a fool.
Either way, I don’t think hanging out in Hawaii is very PTSD inducing.
Or he figured out you don’t get time off (early release) for good behavior, the quickest way out is the screw up big-time, but not so big that you get sent to the brig or to OCS…
THAT specimen very likely had other issues before joining the Army but they likely got ignored by a “Graduate ALL the warm bodies you can” mentality at some OSUT Unit at Fort Lost-in-the-Woods, MO and the Army allowed another Problem Child into its ranks.
They were probably making him build a bridge to the mainland. That would give me the disorder.
“He called enlistment the worst decision of his life, despite the sunny locale to which he was sent — Oahu, Hawaii.”
Yup…I did two tours in Hawaii with the 25th…..it was absolute hell…the beaches, the diving and surfing; I don’t know how I forced myself to volunteer for back to back tours…My wife and kids were inconsolable about having to live in Hawaii..
I must confess Doc, my only knowledge of the 25th ID is that they would come to Korea once a year,tear the joint up then leave. (Team Spirit)
Ah, yes, a 3 year tour at the govt’s expense to Hawaii while all those poor civilians have to save for years to go there for a week. I had it tough there; women, beaches, Waikiki, too many horrible memories from 86-89. Don’t know how I survived it all…
Not to mention getting the kama’aina sticker on my ID which got me dirt cheap tickets and hotels on the outer islands.
Hawaii? Hawaii?
Fuck me I was at Drum in January….fucking Hawaii? I’d have killed Castro myself to get to fucking Hawaii….
What a tough place to serve, thousands of good looking, scantily clad women…god damn that sounds awful….
“The long overtime hours made him feel like a slave….” I get that. That’s because but for the leg irons, whips, subservience, ownership of oneself by another, absence of salary, bar to every public conveyance, public house, and total denial of Constitutional rights, among many other things, being in the Army is just like being a slave. Yeah.
He should have been on a boat. 3-section duty, 80 to 100-hour weeks, at sea 250-300 days a year.
You know, fun shit like that.
Something tells me this special snowflake wouldn’t last long on a sub.
Justin Wingerter the “journalist” that wrote the story sounds almost as much as a scumfuck as the actual scumfuck he’s writing about. Let’s inject a bunch of bullshit hearsay claims and not do any actual journalism to confirm the ridiculous claims made against military service!
He wuz a good boy until he suddenly wasn’t!
GTFO
That tour in Hawaii must have been a bridge too far….
Another sub-standard discharge.
Let’s upgrade it!
Later, turd.
All the TDY in theatre (aka) flying and baby sitting fuck-ups like this
Make me ask… were is my frequent flyer miles and were is my baby sitting award ???