Marine's final fight on a Chicago street

A Troubled Marine's Final Fight
When his nation called, Marine Sergeant David Lindley answered. But when he came home hurting, his country let him down
TIME
By MARK THOMPSON
Monday, Feb. 10, 2014

At some point I remember looking out the window and seeing a man hiding behind a tree. I knew I could kill him, but some part of me kept saying, No, don't hurt anyone. I fired at the tree and laughed because I knew I could have hit him. When I smelled the smoke from the rounds fired, I had a rush. Suddenly I was back in the fight.

David Linley's last night as a free man began, like so many others before it, in his dark basement, watching Band of Brothers. Or was it Saving Private Ryan? Deep into a bottle of Bombay gin at the time, Linley can't recall what was on the screen when his wife Kristin came downstairs to do the laundry. She was surprised to see him wearing, for the first time at home, the Marine fatigues he had worn in Iraq.

Her interruption was minor and routine--a light switched on, a noise from the washer--but it triggered in Linley something he couldn't ignore. Feeling an irrational rage welling up inside, Linley ordered Kristin to leave the house with their 3-year-old son Hunter and 3-week-old daughter Hannah. Then Linley, age 41, kept drinking. Over the next 24 hours, he tried to kill himself twice by filling the house with natural gas, once by sitting in his running car inside the garage and once by hanging.

As a Marine sergeant, Linley saw action and witnessed horrors in Grenada, Lebanon and Iraq a generation ago. Ten years ago in January, he headed back to Iraq on his final combat deployment. He had earned an expert rifleman's badge, the corps's highest. The Marines tapped him for prized assignments guarding U.S. diplomatic outposts in Brazil and Pakistan, jobs that required top-secret clearance. He was discharged from the corps, honorably. Twice.

But his final firefight was on his suburban street 30 miles (48 km) southwest of Chicago, and the enemy was local police. When it ended, he'd traded 17 years in uniform for 16 years behind bars.

The trouble is, Linley has never gotten that treatment. "I've seen a psychiatrist about every six months for 30 minutes, which is absolutely useless," he says. "I have received no treatment for PTSD at all--nothing." Linley says he sought an antidepressant in anticipation of a VA-sponsored prison PTSD-counseling group. Such counseling depresses Linley, so he wanted to get on an antidepressant for the sessions. He took Celexa, prescribed by a corrections psychiatrist, for about a year, awaiting the counseling. But the VA never came, prison officials say, because there weren't enough veterans seeking such help there. Linley says he stopped being "doped up" on the medicine, which made him "foggy and nauseous," once it became clear the VA wasn't coming.
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