PTSD: Cpl. Chad Oligschlaeger didn't get proper care

Before one of his two deployments to Iraq, Cpl. Chad Oligschlaeger showed the sly, mischievous smile he was known for.

Dead Marine's family says he didn't get proper care
Austin American-Statesman - Austin,TX,USA
Chad Oligschlaeger was struggling with post-traumatic stress disorder when he was found in barracks, parents say.
By Marty Toohey

AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF


Sunday, June 15, 2008

Cpl. Chad Oligschlaeger returned from Iraq in early 2006 haunted by the memory of a fellow Marine he thought he should have saved.

He began drinking himself to sleep to dull the flashbacks and the nightmares, friends and family say. He told them he was accused by a superior of faking to avoid his next deployment.

After a second tour in Iraq, Oligschlaeger came home to Round Rock on leave and slept for days, a shell of the McNeil High School student who had pushed his friends into every kind of mischief imaginable, giggling all the way. He told his family the dead Marine was talking to him.

In the spring, two years after the nightmares began, he told his family that doctors had diagnosed him with post-traumatic stress disorder and put him on at least six types of medication. The Marines sent him to alcohol rehab and were arranging treatment at a mental health clinic.

But weeks before his death, Oligschlaeger declined to re-enlist, and his unit left him with no supervision and nothing to do for days on end, according to family and friends, who say he called them at all hours, slurring his speech, unable to recall what medications he had taken.

He was found dead in his room at the Twentynine Palms Marine base in California on May 20. He was 21.
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