Mason is one of many veterans suffering from PTSD

When you take a person, train them to kill, you get someone that usually does not miss when they aim. This veteran could have hit people if that was what he wanted to do. His shots were called random but that in itself shows he was not aiming to hit people. Shoppers were terrified all the same. Justice in this case is that this veteran needs help and it looks like he will finally get it but true justice would have been to get him help before it ever reached a point like this.

EDITORIAL: War’s invisible wounds
Mason is one of many veterans suffering from PTSD

Published: Thursday, Dec 30, 2010 05:01AM

Every month, Americans return from military duty in Iraq and Afghanistan having seen intense combat. Researchers estimate that nearly 20 percent of the 1.6 million veterans of these wars suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder.

That’s a cold statistic. Each of those more than 300,000 veterans has a face and a name. One of them is Michael Thomas Mason. He’s the 27-year-old Springfield man who was shot and wounded by two Eugene police officers Dec. 15 after Mason fired shots in the Valley River Center parking lot.

Mason remains in intensive care, recovering from wounds that left him mostly paralyzed from the neck down. His medical condition is tenuous — Lane County District Attorney Alex Gardner described it as “touch and go.”

Gardner called a news conference Tuesday to announce his finding that the two officers who shot Mason were justified in doing so. It was a reasonable decision, even though it is certain to be criticized by some in the community who believe the city’s police officers are too quick to resort to lethal force.

After randomly firing multiple gunshots that injured no one and struck a car in the parking lot, Mason left the mall and drove to the Santa Clara area. Police confronted Mason as he sat in his stopped sport utility vehicle, ordering him to put both hands out the window. Mason dropped a handgun out the window but reached back into his vehicle several times, not responding to officers’ commands and leading them to believe he might be reaching for a second gun.

The officers fired three times. Two bullets hit Mason, one striking his spinal column.

In addition to announcing that the police shooting was justified, Gardner said he would not prosecute Mason for the mall shootings, saying the veteran was in the throes of a PTSD episode at the time of the incident.

Gardner cited Mason’s extensive combat record: He arrived in Iraq as a member of the 173rd Airborne Light Infantry Brigade shortly after the U.S.-led invasion in March 2003. Mason saw repeated and intense combat during his yearlong tour in Iraq, and he was cited by superiors for bravery under intense and prolonged fire and his efforts to protect fellow soldiers. Mason, who also served as a combat medic, later was for a year sent to Afghanistan, where he also saw heavy fighting.

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