Marine Reserve Cpl. Jeffrey Lucey's family wins law suit

Family of Iraq vet gets settlement after his suicide
U.S. loses wrongful death suit
By Jeff Schogol, Stars and Stripes
Mideast edition, Friday, January 16, 2009
ARLINGTON, Va. — Marine Reserve Cpl. Jeffrey Lucey hanged himself on June 22, 2004, about three weeks after being released as an inpatient from the Northampton Veterans Medical Center in Leeds, Mass.

His parents filed a wrongful death lawsuit against the U.S. government, claiming the VA initially refused to treat him for post-traumatic stress disorder because they required him to be sober first.

Now they will receive $350,000 under a settlement with the U.S. government that was announced Thursday by Military Families Speak Out, an anti-war group to which they both belong.

"The Government killed my son," Lucey’s father, Kevin, said in Thursday’s news release. "It sent him into an illegal and reckless war and then, when he returned home, it denied him the basic health care he needed."
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