PTSD: The Invisible Front and Forgetful Writers

Stress can play part in crimes, experts say
THE GAZETTE
By DENNIS HUSPENI and TOM ROEDER
December 23, 2007

CRIMES LINKED TO CARSON VETERANS
Here are some notable criminal cases involving Iraq war veterans stationed at Fort Carson.
- Colorado Springs police allege two veterans from the same platoon are tied to a crime ring that could be responsible for the homicides of two soldiers.

Spc. Kevin Shields was shot to death and his body was found Dec. 1.

Pfc. Robert James was also shot to death. His body was found in a car parked in a Lake Avenue bank parking lot in August. The suspects are: Louis Bressler, 24, who was discharged and complained of suffering from PTSD; Pfc. Bruce Bastien Jr., 21; and soldier Kenneth Eastridge, who was an infantry rifleman. Authorities have charged or plan to charge all three with homicide, court records show.

Former soldier Anthony Marquez, 23, admitted Thursday he shot and killed a 19-year-old Widefield resident and suspected drug dealer Oct. 22, 2006, during a robbery attempt. Marquez’s public defenders attempted to introduce PTSD as a possible defense, but dropped the effort when a judge ruled against them, court records show. According to the plea agreement, Marquez will spend 30 years in prison when he is sentenced in February.

Pueblo police last month arrested Spc. Olin “Famous” Ferrier, 22, on suspicion of shooting taxi driver David Chance, 52, on Oct. 30. No charges have been filed.

Former Pfc. Johnathon Klinker, 22, was sentenced to 40 years in prison in July for killing his 7-week-old daughter, Nicolette. Klinker blamed the baby’s October 2006 death, in part, on “war-related stress.”

Former Pvt. Timothy Parker of the 3rd Heavy Brigade Combat Team, 4th Infantry Division, was convicted by court martial of manslaughter for beating Spc. Piotr Szczypka to death in a November 2005 fight at an apartment complex near the base. Both men had been drinking before Parker hit Szczypka with a fireplace poker, trial testimony showed. Parker was sentenced to seven years in a military prison.

Nine days after 2nd Brigade Combat Team Pfc. Stephen S. Sherwood, 35, came home from Iraq in August 2005, he drove to Fort Collins and shot and killed his wife of seven years, Sara E. Sherwood, 30. The soldier, described by his commanders as a hero who fought bravely in Iraq, then turned the gun on himself and committed suicide.

Fort Carson Soldier Pulled Out Of Hospital To Redeploy

The soldier, who asked not to be identified because of the stigma surrounding mental illness and because he will seek employment when he leaves the Army, said he checked himself into Cedar Springs on Nov. 9 or Nov. 10 after he attempted suicide while under the influence of alcohol. He said his treatment was supposed to end Dec. 10 but his commanding officers showed up at the hospital Nov. 29 and ordered him to leave.

"I was pulled out to deploy," said the soldier, who has three years in the Army and has served a tour in Iraq.

Soldiers from Fort Carson and across the country have complained they were sent to combat zones despite medical conditions that should have prevented their deployment.

Late last year, Fort Carson said it sent 79 soldiers who were considered medical "no-gos" overseas. Officials said the soldiers were placed in light-duty jobs and are receiving treatment there. So far, at least six soldiers have been returned.
source: Denver Post 2008

Fort Carson's top general Maj. Gen. Mark Graham said most of the 79 soldiers remain in Iraq, while about a dozen are in Kuwait, the newspaper reported in Friday editions. A few returned to the United States because of inadequate rehabilitation available in theater, Graham said.

CBS News reported that last part

Oh, the problem continued and it didn't really matter much what it was doing to the soldiers being sent back out of "necessity" while the major news outlets pretty much ignored all of it. Shouldn't really surprise anyone that now the people responsible for most of this are now being regarded as if none of it ever occurred.

There is so much more to the following story but now you have something to really base it on.

‘The Invisible Front,’ by Yochi Dreazen
New York Times
By DAVID ROHDE
NOV. 13, 2014

When Jeff Graham was killed in Iraq in 2004, the Kentucky State Legislature passed a resolution hailing the young second lieutenant. Tens of thousands of fans applauded when his boyish face was displayed on the scoreboard at a University of Kentucky basketball game. Hundreds of mourners waved American flags as his hearse passed. One sergeant even named his son after the fallen hero.

When Jeff’s younger brother, Kevin, committed suicide in 2003 while enrolled in a University of Kentucky R.O.T.C. program, his aunt opposed holding his funeral in a local church. His memorial service was sparsely attended. Members of the community suggested to Kevin’s parents, Mark and Carol, that their son had been “a weakling, a coward and even a sinner.”

“Strangers told them that Kevin’s suicide had been a sin in the eyes of God,” Yochi Dreazen writes in his new book, “The Invisible Front,” “something Carol, a deeply religious woman, often worried about.”

Jeff, Kevin and their deaths are the spine of this harrowing book, a courageous effort to examine the military’s abysmal initial response to rising numbers of post-Iraq and -Afghanistan suicides. To his credit, Dreazen takes the book a step further. He uses one American military family’s tragedy to expose a vast double standard — and spreading epidemic — in American society.
read more here