Troubled veteran found new mission in the Occupy movement

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Troubled veteran found new mission in the Occupy movement

John Wagner, left, stands by his brother Anthony Wagner's casket during funeral services in their hometown of Peru, Illinois, November 9, 2011. On November 3, the morning after his last visit to Zuccotti Park, Wagner was found dead in a friend's New Jersey apartment of what authorities suspect was a drug overdose.
ABEL URIBE/CHICAGO TRIBUNE

By JOHN KEILMAN
Chicago Tribune
Published: December 28, 2011
PERU, Ill. — They buried Anthony Wagner in his hometown two days before Veterans Day. It was cold, with a stinging wind that tore the last few leaves from the trees and pulled the cemetery flags into taut ribbons of red, white and blue. A lone sun ray spilled from the sky, briefly painting the grave markers with a stripe of gold before vanishing into the clouds.

Wagner couldn’t get out of Peru fast enough when he was a teenager. He was a hard case back then, prone to fighting and partying, and he had ambitions too big for a small town to hold. When an Army recruiter visited his high school in 2001, he saw his chance to escape.

But a few months after he enlisted, Wagner stared at a mess hall television screen and watched the twin towers disappear in pillars of smoke. Just like that, his future was set on a new course.

He spent a violent year in Iraq, and the things he saw and did there changed him. He shipped out a rough-edged but essentially stable young man. He came back with a brain injury, a propensity for extreme substance abuse and a savage case of post-traumatic stress disorder.
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