Soldier's widow wages war against meds she says killed her husband

Soldier's widow wages war against meds she says killed her husband
Posted: May 31, 2012
By Ashlea Surles, Reporter

HATTIESBURG, MS (WDAM)
"We met on Valentine's Day at a Bitter Ball for singles in Mobile, Alabama," said Alicia McElroy, sitting on her couch in her Petal home describing the day she and her husband met. "He was awesome, he was your dream guy. He was too good to be true almost."

Alicia and James McElroy knew they were it for each other from the start.

"Ever since the day we met we never were apart, we were inseparable," said Alicia.

They dated for about a year, were married, and had a son - Dane. James, a Mississippi National Guard soldier who everyone called 'Mac', worked close to home at Camp Shelby.

"We had a good life, we had a happy family," said Alicia. "It was perfect, I mean you couldn't ask for more."

But that was all about to change.

"We got the call on our anniversary in 2009 that he was being deployed." James left in April and came home on leave in October and, Alicia says, he had changed. "Mac was crying all the time, he was depressed, he was anxious, just real agitated and irritable, he couldn't sleep."

He had done a tour in Iraq and once before in Afghanistan, and halfway through his third combat deployment he was breaking down.

"He had been in bed all day and I had been out here with Dane, I didn't want Dane to see his dad like that and I went in the bedroom that afternoon to check on him," said Alicia. "He was in bed sobbing ... He was curled up in the sheets, head, pillow, everything just crying his eyes out," Alicia said. "And after a little while he said 'Please help me, get me some help."

The military sent him to Fort Benning in Georgia to begin receiving treatment for Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.
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