PTSD Efforts Being Turned Back By Sterotypes

Police Shootings Touch Nerve Among Military Veterans
ASSOCIATED PRESS
By JULIE WATSON
SAN DIEGO
Jul 20, 2016

Many veterans fear the service records of the gunmen will feed a false perception that combat veterans are volatile and violent, turning back years of efforts to change such stereotypes.

FILE - In this Sunday, July 17, 2016 file photo, Baton Rouge Police investigate the scene in Baton Rouge, La., where several law enforcement officers were killed and wounded. Back-to-back attacks on police in Texas and Louisiana by former military men have touched a nerve among veterans who traditionally share a close bond with law enforcement. Veterans and active-duty troops started posting messages on social media almost immediately after the news broke this weekend that a masked ex-Marine had ambushed law enforcement along a busy highway, killing three officers - including a fellow former Marine. (Scott Clause/The Daily Advertiser via AP, File)

Back-to-back attacks on police in Texas and Louisiana by former military men have touched a nerve among veterans who traditionally share a close bond with law enforcement.

Veterans and active-duty troops started posting messages on social media almost immediately after the news broke last weekend that a masked ex-Marine had ambushed law enforcement along a busy highway, killing three officers — including a fellow former Marine.

Seeing one Marine kill another Marine after both had returned home safely from the battlefield in Iraq has been especially painful for the military's smallest branch, which considers service life-long membership among a force whose official motto is: "Semper Fidelis," or "Always Faithful."

"In the Marine community, we don't believe in 'ex-Marines'. However that is not the case when one decides to break the moral and ethical values we hold dear. The ex-Marine that opened fire on officers is everything we swear to protect our Nation from," Marine Cpl. Eric Trichel wrote on a Facebook page with about 25,000 mostly Marine members.

In an email to The Associated Press, he emphasized he was not speaking on behalf of the Marine Corps.
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