When Iraq Comes To Wal-mart

MP blames flashback in Wal-Mart assault

The Associated Press
Posted : Wednesday Dec 19, 2007 11:52:48 EST

BLOOMSBURG, Pa. — A Wal-Mart shopper said a “flashback” from her military service in Iraq made her shove a 70-year-old greeter at the store.

Jessica R. Bogart, 24, was sentenced Monday to four days in jail for assault.

“My first instinct was to get away. I pushed her,” Bogart told Columbia County Judge Thomas A. James Jr.

James replied, “Nonetheless, the lady was hurt.”

Bogart was leaving a Wal-Mart store near Bloomsburg in February when greeter Ahnastacia Miller asked to see a receipt for items in Bogart’s cart that were not in shopping bags. Bogart shoved Miller to the floor and Miller hit her head.

Bogart said she got upset after Miller threw the receipt at her 2-year-old son, who was seated in the shopping cart. Miller denied the claim.

Defense attorney Leslie Bryden said Bogart, who spent a year in Iraq as a military police officer, had “a difficult adjustment” returning home with one child and being pregnant with another.

In addition to the jail time, Bogart was sentenced to 18 months of probation. She will also pay a $300 fine and $1,986 for the victim’s medical expenses.
http://www.armytimes.com/news/2007/12/ap_walmartshove_071219/

It is surprising there haven't been a lot more of these reports. It is what happens when soldiers are stressed to the breaking point and there is no one interested in putting them back together again. As you read the number of claims the VA is behind on, what we do not read is how many the DOD is not processing either. While we assume active military are being taken care of on the spot for whatever they need, it is an assumption without any link to fact. If Walter Reed was not an eye opener, nothing will ever remove the grandiose blinders.

Does anyone really understand what we are asking of the troops in these two occupations? Anyone other than their families?

Ahnastacia Miller was just doing her job and should not have been subjected to this. MP Jessica Bogart had done her job being deployed. What's missing in between these two women who did their jobs, is the problem something like this happened. Did Bogart have a flashback or was she just being a jerk? The only people who know are the ones who really know her and what she has always been like.