PTSD on Trial: Nathan James Keyes

Iraq War vet gets 3 years
By CHAD SMITH
July 31, 2009

Jamie Keyes held her son's decorated Army jacket Thursday as she told a judge how war changed her boy, hoping for leniency before he was sentenced for shooting at a sport utility vehicle occupied by a man and his 6-year-old daughter on a busy St. Augustine street last summer.

Her son, Nathan James Keyes, had nightmares, suffered from depression and withdrew from family when he came back from Iraq the first time, in July 2004, she said, fighting off tears as she read from a letter to the judge.

When he came back the second time, it was worse.

Every day she's reminded of the "indescribable horrors of war" her son lives with when she sees the bullet hole in her trailer's ceiling from the time he tried to kill himself.

Circuit Judge Wendy Berger said she appreciated Nathan Keyes' military service and agreed that the government did not do enough to help him readjust.

"It doesn't mean, though, that you shouldn't be held accountable," Berger said. "Does it mitigate your sentence? Maybe."

She sentenced Keyes to three years in prison, in the middle of the 18-to-54-month range agreed to in a plea deal, and four years on probation, during which time he will have to get counseling for post-traumatic stress at a center in Kissimmee and take anger management courses.
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Iraq War vet gets 3 years