Sgt. John Russell trial example of what went wrong on PTSD

By now most people have forgotten what happened in 2009 at Camp Liberty. The witnesses haven't forgotten. The families haven't forgotten. Aside from the trial, the military must have forgotten about this too.

Camp Liberty shootings leave a lot of questions but so far we're still asking questions and getting few answers. In May of 2009 The Guardian headline was "Horror and stress of Iraq duty led US sergeant to kill comrades" and it is something you should read before you decide how you feel about this story.

U.S. soldier enters no plea in 2009 Iraq shootings
By Laura L. Myers
Reuters
November 19, 2012

Sgt. Russell, Army sergeant accused of killing five fellow soldiers in Iraq, is seen in military photo provided by his father, Wilburn in Sherman
(JESSICA RINALDI, REUTERS / November 19, 2012)

TACOMA, Washington (Reuters) - A U.S. soldier accused of killing five fellow servicemen at a military combat stress center in Baghdad in 2009 entered no plea at an arraignment on Monday at a military base in Washington state.

Sergeant John Russell is accused of going on a shooting spree at Camp Liberty, near the Baghdad airport, in an assault the military said at the time could have been triggered by combat stress.

Russell, of the 54th Engineer Battalion based in Bamberg, Germany, faces five charges of premeditated murder, one charge of aggravated assault and one charge of attempted murder in connection with the May 2009 shootings. Six months ago, he was ordered to stand trial in a military court that has the power to sentence him to the death penalty, if convicted.

Two of the five people killed in the shooting were medical staff officers at the counseling center for troops experiencing combat stress. The others were soldiers.
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Combat stress unit at center of Iraq slaying trial
May 17, 2009
The trial of Pfc. Steven Green may end up explaining part of what was behind Sgt. Russell's action at Camp Liberty's Stress Clinic. If doctors are under pressure to return soldiers back to duty, they are not getting the kind of care the doctors are trying to give them. What good do stress clinics do if the commanders are more interested in getting them back into action instead of being healed enough first before sending them back?

Fort Levenworth hearing set for Sgt. John Russell

Baghdad Shooting Spotlights Combat Stress

Joint Base Lewis-McChord soldier killed by police

UPDATE March 27, 2013
Fatal police shooting of JBLM medic justified says prosecutor

Man fatally shot by police was JBLM soldier
The Associated Press
Posted : Sunday Sep 2, 2012 15:41:41 EDT

TACOMA, Wash. — A man fatally shot by a Tacoma police officer last week has been identified as a 29-year-old Army sergeant stationed at Joint Base Lewis-McChord in Washington state.

A base spokesman says Sgt. Prince Gavin, of Chicago, deployed twice to Iraq. The combat medic was preparing to move to Fort Carson, Colo., before he died.

Gavin was killed Friday afternoon in a confrontation with Tacoma police. A police spokesman told the News Tribune that Gavin had a gun in his hand when he got out of his truck and ran toward a house in the Hilltop neighborhood.
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UPDATE September 3, 2012
Man Tacoma police shot ‘follows the rules,’ girlfriend says Army Sgt. Prince Gavin was moving from Tacoma on the day he was shot and killed by a police officer, his girlfriend said Saturday.


This article mentions there was another domestic situation police had to respond to. This happened around the same time.
Lewis-McChord Family members say soldier fatally stabbed wife

Army Dumps Special PTSD Screenings

Army Dumps Special PTSD Screenings
Austin Jenkins
OPB News
July 31, 2012

The U.S. Army is revising the way it diagnoses soldiers with post traumatic stress disorder. In the Northwest, it means the Army will no longer use a special psychiatric unit at Madigan Army Medical Center near Tacoma.

Some soldiers at Madigan complained the psychiatric team downgraded or reversed their PTSD diagnoses. That limited what benefits they are eligible for.
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also

Army reinstates medical center head in PTSD investigation

Veterans turn to families to help cope with PTSD

With V.A. budget stretched thin, veterans turn to families to help cope with PTSD
Military families and veterans met at a conference in Tacoma
Jeff Van Sant
Q13 FOX News reporter
9:50 p.m. PST, February 4, 2012

TACOMA—
With the war in Iraq over and operations in Afghanistan winding down, there is an influx of veterans from both conflicts – estimated to be well over a million after a decade of war. Many are dealing withpost-traumatic stress disorder.

The United States Department of Veterans Affairs has estimated that as many as one in five veterans suffer from the disorder. And those numbers are causing an underfunded and unprepared VA system to be stretched thin.

Many veterans have turned to outside help. Military families and veterans gathered to discuss the challenges they faced at a conference in Tacoma.

“We need to be proactive instead of reactive, and get these young men and woman the help they need,” said Lauri Turner, whose son Jacob Andrews was an Afghanistan veteran.
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PTSD veterans get review after Madigan Army Medical Center changes diagnosis

Army is reviewing Madigan's reversal of PTSD diagnoses
The Army plans to review a Madigan Army Medical Center psychiatric team that reversed the PTSD diagnoses of more than a dozen soldiers, potentially weakening their case to receive a medical retirement.

By Hal Bernton
Seattle Times staff reporter

The Army is reviewing the actions of a Madigan Army Medical Center psychiatric team that reversed the diagnoses of more than a dozen soldiers previously found to have post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).

All these soldiers have been under consideration for medical retirement, which offers considerably more financial benefits than alternative forms of discharge.

Some have complained that doctors at the hospital, south of Tacoma on Joint Base Lewis-McChord, unfairly stripped them of the PTSD diagnoses, which would help qualify them for a medical retirement, and instead tagged them as malingerers.

In an unusual intervention, the office of the Army Surgeon General has arranged for the soldiers to fly to Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in Bethesda, Md., where they are scheduled to be examined by another team of Army doctors.

Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., confirmed details of the review to The Seattle Times.
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Joint Base Lewis-McChord Facebook page spreads false crash rumor

McChord Facebook page spreads false crash rumor
The Associated Press
Posted : Saturday Jan 21, 2012
TACOMA, Wash. — A rumor of a cargo jet crashing into military housing was quickly spread on a popular Facebook page at Joint Base Lewis-McChord just a month after a helicopter crash killed four Army aviators near the base.

Someone wrote on a garrison Facebook page that a C-17 Globemaster IIIs plane had crashed on Thursday, The (Tacoma, Wash.) News Tribune reported.
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Disabled veterans concentrated in Tacoma area

Disabled veterans concentrated in Tacoma area
The communities surrounding Tacoma have the highest per capita population of seriously disabled Iraq and Afghanistan veterans on the West Coast, according to Department of Veterans Affairs records obtained by McClatchy Newspapers and analyzed by The News Tribune.

By ADAM ASHTON
The News Tribune

TACOMA, Wash. —
The communities surrounding Tacoma have the highest per capita population of seriously disabled Iraq and Afghanistan veterans on the West Coast, according to Department of Veterans Affairs records obtained by McClatchy Newspapers and analyzed by The News Tribune.

Veterans come to the region for reasons that are obvious on a drive down Interstate 5. Some finish their military careers at Joint Base Lewis-McChord; others seek medical care at the base's Warrior Transition Battalion before they leave the service.

They stay for the resources at Puget Sound Veterans Affairs hospitals and clinics, as well as for the region's diverse economy and its generally supportive attitude toward veterans.

"They live here because they're welcome here. I honestly believe that," said retired Army Lt. Col. Jake Holeman, 66, a Vietnam veteran and an officer in Lakewood's chapter of Disabled American Veterans.
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Coffee shop is talk therapy for vets in distress

Coffee shop is talk therapy for vets in distress
By Barry Petersen
October 26, 2011
(CBS News) TACOMA, Wash. - Deborah Flagboam is still traumatized by a sexual assault during during boot camp, and needs a post-traumatic stress disorder therapy dog to help her cope with her thoughts of suicide.

"It wasn't just a cry of help, it was real," Flagboam tells CBS News correspondent Barry Petersen. "My life really wasn't the same, I couldn't really find a way to live any more."

But the former Marine was told by military officials there was a two-month waiting list for long-term psychiatric therapy. So she came to Coffee Strong, a coffee shop just outside Joint Base Lewis McChord.

Iraq war veteran Jorge Gonzales is executive director of Coffee Strong. The veteran-owned shop opened three years ago to serve free coffee to soldiers and Marines. Over time, it became a place for troops to share their problems and treat the mental scars of war. Veterans at Coffee Strong found help for Flagbom within 24 hours.

"I dont think i would be alive today to be honest," Flagboam said, "I could have ended up like Sgt. Jared Hagemann. Army Ranger Jared Hagemann killed himself this past June. He was facing his eighth combat deployment as a member of the Special Forces.
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Tacoma native awarded Silver Star in Afghanistan

Tacoma native awarded Silver Star in Afghanistan

MIKE ARCHBOLD; THE NEWS TRIBUNE
Published: 12/25/10


It was a typical morning in Afghanistan and Spc. Nicholas Robinson was just about finished with a six-hour guard duty shift at an Afghan police compound near his combat outpost.

Then all hell broke loose.

A mortar round landed roughly 20 meters in front of his guard tower.

“It knocked me back and when I got up I saw an explosion like nothing I had ever seen before going off,” the Tacoma native told a public affairs writer with the 101st Airborne Division’s Task Force Leader Rakkasan. “Then gunfire erupted from every possible side you could imagine.”

Over the next seven minutes in the first combat action he had seen, Robinson killed one insurgent carrying a rocket launcher and then held off 15 to 20 insurgents, killing two of them. One of them was a suicide bomber who got to within 50 feet of Robinson.

For his heroism and bravery, Army Chief of Staff George Casey presented Robinson Thursday with a Silver Star, the Army’s third highest award for valor in combat.



Read more: Tacoma native awarded Silver Star in Afghanistan

Madigan hospital expands PTSD screening to 12,000

Madigan hospital expands PTSD screening

By Scott Fontaine - The News Tribune
Posted : Tuesday Apr 6, 2010 10:21:58 EDT

TACOMA, Wash. — As some 12,000 soldiers from three Stryker brigades return to Joint Base Lewis-McChord from war this year, Madigan Army Medical Center will temporarily expand its staff and implement new screening programs to catch mental health issues.

Hospital staff will pay special attention to 5th Brigade, 2nd Infantry Division, which has lost a reported 35 soldiers and has seen frequent combat since it deployed to southern Afghanistan last July.

"It's no surprise the Army is searching for the right answer for this: How do you take care of soldiers and families during this whole cycle?" said Col. Mark Thompson, the hospital's deputy commander for clinical services.

Before each brigade returns to Lewis-McChord, platoon leaders and platoon sergeants will complete a questionnaire on each soldier that looks for potential mental health concerns.
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Madigan hospital expands PTSD screening

Police need help:Road rage leaves two year old girl shot

2-year-old girl shot in Tacoma road rage incident
By KOMO Staff
TACOMA, Wash. - A 2-year-old girl was shot in the leg during a road rage incident Sunday afternoon in southeast Tacoma.

Emergency personnel were called to the 600 block of E. 56th Street after 2 p.m., said Tacoma Fire Department spokesperson Jolene Davis.

Tacoma police spokesman Mark Fulghum said the driver of a black Ford Explorer became embroiled in a road rage incident with another vehicle that had a family inside.
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http://www.komonews.com/news/local/81934212.html

19,2000 mourners expected for memorial for fallen officers gunned down

Procession for slain Lakewood police officers arrives at Tacoma Dome
The memorial procession and service honoring four slain Lakewood police officers gets underway in Tacoma.

Seattle Times staff


Flag-draped caskets for the four slain Lakewood police officers were wheeled into the Tacoma Dome as hundreds of members of law enforcement, holding crisp lines in their dress uniforms, watched in silence.

The procession for the memorial service began at 10:05 a.m. at McChord Air Force Base as 2,000 law enforcement vehicles, red-and-blue lights flashing, crawled along a somber, 10.3-mile route. The procession was so sprawling that the tail end was still at the base as the hearses were parking at the Tacoma Dome.

Gov. Chris Gregoire, scheduled to speak at the memorial, called it "the darkest day in the history of law enforcement in Washington."

The service will begin about 45 minutes later than the planned 1 p.m. start time because of the size of the procession.

The enormous contingent represented more than 300 agencies and thousands of law-enforcement officers, among them an estimated 600 from British Columbia, 100 each from Chicago and New York, and others from Boston, Bozeman, Mont., Salem, Ore., and every corner of Washington state. FBI Director Robert Mueller planned to attend.

Lakewood police Sgt. Mark Renninger and Officers Tina Griswold, Gregory Richards and Ronnie Owens were gunned down by Maurice Clemmons on Nov. 29 at a Pierce County coffee shop. It was worst attack on law enforcement in the state's history.

About 19,2000 mourners, mostly law-enforcement officers, were anticipated at today's memorial, making it the biggest such event in state history. About 2,500 seats were set aside for the public, on a first-come basis. Others will be watching on live television and at three off-site viewing locations.
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http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2010453457_webmemorial08m.html

Bystanders beat up attempted abduction suspect

Bystanders beat up attempted abduction suspect
By Luke Duecy
Watch the story
TACOMA, Wash. -- Police here say two men who witnessed an attempted abduction of young girls couldn't just sit and watch, or even wait for the law.

The incident took place on Saturday afternoon in the 500 block of South L Street. A 5-year-old girl said she was standing outsider her home when a complete stranger grabbed her and her friend.

"(I) scratched him," she said.

The man wanted the pair to have sex with him, the girl said.

"He was trying to make us go to his house and go to bed," she said. "He said it to my sister, too."

But before the man could take the girls away, nearby kids who had seen what had happened began screaming at the man until he finally let the girls go.
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http://www.komonews.com/news/50689032.html

Irwin contractor arrested in Marine Pfc. Michael Firkins death

Irwin contractor arrested in Marine death

The Associated Press
Posted : Tuesday Jul 22, 2008 8:44:51 EDT

BARSTOW, Calif. — Police in Barstow have arrested a 50-year-old man on suspicion of murder in the shooting death earlier this month of a Marine stationed a Camp Pendleton.

Police arrested Issa Wajeel on Friday and he’s being held on $2 million bail.

Pfc. Michael Firkins, originally of Tacoma, Wash., was found in his truck outside of Wajeel’s house on July 3. The 20-year-old had been shot in the head.
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http://www.armytimes.com/news/2008/07/ap_marinedead_072208a/