Judge Says Troubled Veteran "Created by Us"

Judge: Troubled vet ‘created by us’
Asbury Park Press
June 16, 2014

“They said I was never in combat, never saw combat action, that I spent 17 months in Kuwait,” Constable says in staccato bursts at his Sayreville home in 2013, shortly after his records were finally corrected to reflect his combat role in Iraq.

Home but not really home, shadowed by the phantoms of his war experiences, and racked with the trouble that comes with post-traumatic stress disorder, Agifa Constable drinks to sleep.

After more than 50 missions and 17 months in Iraq, combat still flares in his head when he returns home to Old Bridge in November 2004.

Shinbone fractures and a torn cornea that obscures vision in one eye weigh on him.

Shots of Jägermeister at the local Veterans of Foreign Wars hall, then a six pack of beer allow him to drop off for about four hours.

“I wasn’t happy — I was glad to be home, but I kind of wanted to stay in the Army. I had some unfinished business,” he later says. “It was like walking away from a fight.”

In an interview nine years after his return home, Constable detailed the mental illness, the outbursts and the other effects of PTSD on his life.

Constable’s service ended abruptly and against his will. After getting caught up on a drug charge in Germany, he was given a general discharge under honorable circumstances, between an honorable and a dishonorable discharge.

His war records then reflected the general discharge, but did not show his combat service, preventing him from receiving disability money and complicating his treatment for PTSD. Omissions with service records were not uncommon for junior enlisted soldiers in Iraq, Constable’s former commanding officer, Lt. Col. Phillip D. Sounia, wrote to an Army board in 2011.
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