Police: Decorated Marine opened fire on noisy crowd

[sabra]

http://www.eyewitnessnewstv.com/global/story.asp?s=3720338&ClientType=Printable

Police: Decorated Marine opened fire on noisy crowd

LAWRENCE, Mass. A Lawrence man who was named "Marine of the Year" last month is charged with firing a shotgun at a crowd of revelers outside his second-floor apartment, wounding two people.

Thirty-three-year-old Daniel Cotnoir allegedly fired a bullet at the crowd only minutes after he called police to complain about the noise they were making as they left a nearby nightclub and restaurant early Saturday.

The Lawrence Eagle-Tribune reports that a 15-year-old girl and a 20-year-old man were injured by bullet fragments from the shooting.

....

Cotnoir, now a Marine reservist, was a military mortician in Iraq. During his deployment last year, he was responsible for preparing soldiers for open-casket funerals.

[madmax]

1. I don't condone what he did but, this explains a lot...

'Cotnoir, now a Marine reservist, was a military mortician in Iraq. During his deployment last year, he was responsible for preparing soldiers for open-casket funerals.'

[saigon68]

9. HERE'S DUDE

2005 Marine Corps Times Marine of the Year


http://www.militarycity.com/promos/smoy05/moyone05.php?loc=mc


For his work, Cotnoir was selected as the 2005 Marine Corps Times Marine of the Year, an annual award recognizing an "everyday hero" who exemplifies outstanding professionalism, concern for other service members and community service.

Back in Devens, Mass., where Cotnoir drills, his superiors say he is a dedicated Marine with an outstanding work ethic. He's a natural leader who motivates junior Marines to get things done, said Chief Warrant Officer 4 Edward Williamsc.
"They respect him," he said "He's just an all-around example of an excellent Marine."


apparently this idiot with "with an outstanding work ethic" likes to discipline his fellow members of the community.

BY SHOOTING THEM

[Media_Lies_Daily]

27. Chest full of medals, and the echelon on his sleeve indicates...

...4.0 Marine with no previous issues.

[saigon68]

38. Hell of a Present issue tho

My 10,000 post

[blue sky at night]

2. buckle your seat beats folks....

just the start of a never ending story. I really feel for the guys coming back, you know they nixed the idea of having each returnee being given a quick psychological work up to see where they stand. Oh well, an ounce of prevention..........

[Jackpine Radical]

16. Just as us drug-crazed Vietnam vets are beginning to wind down

and die off, our replacements are arriving..

[MnFats]

41. Jesus! I was trying to keep that thought out of my head!

But I'm afraid you're right.
Our Vietnam vets endured so much....the war went on and on even after the U.S. left...

[Barkley]

31. "U.S. troops bring back resistant bacteria" - NY Times

New York Times
Aug. 5, 2005 12:00 AM

U.S. troops wounded in Iraq and brought back to military hospitals in the United States have unexpectedly high rates of infection with a drug-resistant type of bacteria, doctors are finding.

The bacteria, Acinetobacter baumannii, are not unique to Iraq. They live in soil and water in many parts of the world and had already been known to cause trouble in hospitals and on battlefields in Vietnam. They can invade wounds, the bloodstream, bones, the lungs and other parts of the body. Antibiotics can cure the infection, but doctors must use the right ones, which include amikacin and imipenem.

(snip)

http://www.azcentral.com/news/articles/0805iraq-bacteria05.html

[Doremus]

3. Here's a sampling of what we're in for when this is over.

You can't subject human beings to two, three or more tours of duty under godforsaken conditions and expect them to come away unscathed.

So sad. :(

[indepat]

5. Especially considering what they have been called upon to routinely do

[girl gone mad]

4. PTSD.

My father had it after the Vietnam war. Experts say it doesn't cause men to act violently or become substance abusers, but from my experience it does.

By all accounts, my father was a straight-laced, shy and sweet guy before the war. He came back a short-tempered bully who drank almost constantly and chased my mom through parking lots with knives.

[spuddonna]

8. Holy crap!

I'm so sorry for you! :(

My uncle is the nicest guy, but when he came back from Nam he slept under his bed, with a knife, and when my mom went to wake him in the mornings, he warned her to poke him with a broom because he would wake up fighting, slashing at the air with the knife.

Apparently, after a few months he was better, and my memories of my childhood with him make me laugh. He's such a cool guy.

This man is an ARTIST, he paints beautiful pictures, and that's what serving in combat did to him. I have no idea how most people can experience the things they do in combat and NOT be affected by it somehow...

[DrZeeLit]

35. My bro-in-law still sleeps on a mat on the floor.

I love him dearly. He was a Marine serving in Vietnam; saw his best friend blown up. He's had so many difficulties (nightmares, also cannot do 4th of July -- the fireworks freak him out). He is by far the kindest, FUNNIEST guy.

At one point a few years ago, he tried talking to high school students. I can't believe he did it, he's so soft spoken. It broke his heart -- he was trying to get them to see how war is hell and all that, but many of the guys wanted that gung-ho Marine thing. He just shook his head, tried to tell them the truth. I don't think he does any more talks.

I hope and pray he'll win his war. I know most of the nightmares began again when the bombs fell on Iraq -- shock and awe put another nail in his future coffin. However, this past year, my sister finally got him to go to therapy, She says he's sleeping better, talking about retirement. He still works himself to the bone, and looks so tired.

I cannot imagine his pain. I cannot imagine the pain to come for these Iraq vets -- who are all different ages, not just the Vietnam era's "19."

[0007]

13. Did your father finally come to terms with himself?

[girl gone mad]

14. My parents got divorced..

and my mother gave me up for adoption shortly afterwards. I was just a toddler. She didn't have family to turn to, and she was pressured by her church and by social workers who told her children were better off with two parents than with one under any and all circumstances. That was the mainstream view of the time.

My father also suffered injuries in Vietnam. He died before I was old enough to make any contact with him. I don't know all of the details of his death and I'm not sure that I'm ready to deal with it yet. I do know that he was a good person from a good family who ended up in the wrong war at the wrong time.

It's funny, when I was younger I always thought of that war as a fluke. In my mind, it was something that happened back before people knew any better. And maybe there is some truth to that sentiment. But by now people absolutely should and do know better, yet it's happening all over again. I'm very heartbroken for the people who are having their lives torn apart by the war in Iraq, the children especially. If they are anything like me, they will have many opportunities to look back and wonder "what if things had been different?"

[leftchick]

30. that is so sad

I am so sorry. I took care of several Vietnam Vets at a VA hospital in the 80s who suffered from PTSD. Each case had families torn apart and lives ruined. :(

[Conservativesux]

6. And some of these time-bombs will be coming out of police academies

Some of us will be casualties of Bush's oil war long after he is gone; beat, shot and tazered by the monsters he created in Iraq.

[Media_Lies_Daily]

7. Poorly written/researched. Most shotguns use shells that are filled...

...with shot of varying sizes depending on the target. Based on the very low number of people hurt, I'd say he was probably using bird-shot, a smaller size pellet. If he had fired a solid shot, called a slug, someone would have been very badly wounded or killed.

Back to the story at hand. PTSD. Learn what it is, and learn what it can make people do. We're going to see a lot more of this.

[IndianaGreen]

10. Exactly, this is another case of PTSD and for a Marine

it is particularly tough to admit that there is a problem.

How many more ticking time bombs are out there?

[Media_Lies_Daily]

26. More than we know....the only ones we know about are the ones that...

...have become public. Heck, some of these folks won't have symptoms for another 10 or more years.

[0007]

29. This whole country is a ticking time bomb and the time is

two minutes to twelve.

[LisaL]

11. Looks like he learned in Iraq on how to control the crowds.

:sarcasm:

[deadparrot]

12. I'm going to go ahead and assume that

his actions are the result of some sort of mental disorder from the war.

Healthy people don't fire weapons at noisy neighbors.

[progressivebydesign]

15. Sounds like that guy in Crawfrod.

Geez... get some ear plugs dude.

[sintax]

17. The madness of war is coming home

noone is immune.

Occupied planet

kick

[FlemingsGhost]

39. "Gunmetal Grey"

Look to the sky
it's been painted
gunmetal grey
Don't ask why
it just might
blow you away ...

Sharp-shooter
Firepower!
Hiding out
in your belltower

Makes complete
self-defeat
snuffing life
by the hour

[alarcojon]

18. A reminder that even coming home alive

doesn't mean you're coming home the same person you were.

[brentspeak]

19. Seemed like he wanted to "decorate" the crowd

(bad joke) :blush:

[Placebo]

20. strange

[Sabriel]

21. He's got a long road ahead of him

My mom just confided the other day that my dad still ocassionally wakes up screaming from a Korea dream. He's 76.

Look at this guy's job...it's no wonder.

[Corgigal]

22. OMG

My daughter's boyfriend is doing that job for the USAF. We are watching his apt and hamster for him. He was suppose to come back in October. Shit.

[TexasLawyer]

23. Be sure to check out the Rolling Stone article

this month on a similar incident.

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/_/id/7504249?pageid=rs.Politics&pageregion=single1

A free ad for Rolling Stone-- subscribe for the great political reporting. This is an incredibly sad and fascinating story.


Marine Gone Mad

Andy Raya didn't kill anyone while stationed in Iraq. He waited until he returned home

By JEFF TIETZ


Raya fashioned a sign in his barracks to express his growing hatred of the war





On Sunday, January 9th of this year, Marine Lance Cpl. Andy Raya left Camp Pendleton, took a one-way flight from San Diego to Sacramento, grabbed an SKS semiautomatic assault rifle he had obtained illegally, and made his way home to Ceres, a farming town in the Central Valley. Three months earlier he had returned from Iraq, where he had spent seven months driving supply trucks in the Sunni Triangle. Other than Marine Corps barracks, Ceres was the only place Raya had ever lived. He was nineteen.

<big snip>

When he came home again for Christmas, he said he didn't want to return to Iraq. With no elaboration, he said the war was not right. "The only thing I think about is dying out there," he told his cousin Rebeca. "That's the worst thing that could happen to me is that my mom sees me die in Iraq." In public, he often said, unprompted, "These are all civilians." Many times he declared to family members, "You guys are considered civilians." He called men "males" and women "females" and sometimes spoke in Marine slang: zero-dark-thirty, gungy, deuce gear. His family kept saying, "We don't understand you," and he kept saying, "Oh, yeah, you guys are civilians," but he never really stopped. Sometimes he just sat and stared at nothing for four or five minutes.

One day, Andy pulled a metal ball out of his pocket and threw it hard at his cousin Alex. Before Alex had a chance to respond, Andy said, "How you felt it is how I felt it." It was a piece of shrapnel that he said had shattered the body armor covering his chest. Andy often carried it, holding it in his palm and metronomically tossing it up and down.

Andy was most like his old self when he was with his friends, hanging out smoking and drinking. One night they broke into the high school gym, tore up an American flag and used the strips to spell "Fuck Bush" on the floor. Andy said things to his friends he didn't say to anyone else. He said, "Bush is a fucking devil. People just don't realize how much power he's got and how much he's using it." He said, "You can't picture hell any worse than Iraq -- that is hell." He had known very little of the world before he went to Iraq, but the world, he said, wasn't right: There was no point in it; it was full of sin; it was going to end.

<snip>

[Mairead]

24. What a saddening and horrifying story

The poor kid was driven mad by his experiences, and then demonised and abandoned by the Marines. The Marines are perfect, of course, so anything non-perfect must be the fault of the individual, not The Corps.

And now the goddamned cops have been driven mad--but they don't recognise it, because they're all mad together and so their madness seems normal and correct to them.

A couple of cops died because that poor kid was driven mad. How many innocent citizens will now be killed or maimed or their lives made miserable by the mad cops?

Our nation is being made into one gigantic abscess, oozing pathology.

[girl gone mad]

25. Wow.

These stories should be in the MSM. People should know just what the war is doing to many of those who are fighting in it.

Soldiers were supposed to be taken care of this time, so that things like what happened to my family wouldn't happen again. I guess it was all just PR lies.

[karlrschneider]

28. That was a rough read and so terribly sad.

I can't think of anything to say about it right now.

[LibDemAlways]

34. Thanks for sharing this.

The LA Times magazine last Sunday ran a piece called Back From Iraq about a small group of soldiers who had returned, but who all believed in "the mission," and were ready to go back and complete it -- in other words a propaganda piece. The American public needs to hear more stories like this.

[krkaufman]

40. How sad... though police reaction is the scariest part

The police reaction seems to mimic US Military tactics in Iraq, which only lead to increased separation and violence.

[Javaman]

32. It's the story that never ends...

I had a great uncle in WWI he was gassed and fought some bloody hand to hand combat in the trenches, my great aunt would say, long after he passed away, that he would wake up in the middle of the night gasping for air thinking he was under a gas attack. After a while, she told me that they had to sleep in separate beds because he would try choking her at night, while he was still sleeping.

My Uncles who where in WWII, one Pacific theater the other in Europe. Both until the week before they died, would wake up screaming trying to fight an unseen intruder. They both would call out various things as if they were still in battle.

A friend of mine who lived down the block from me, nicest guy in the world. He took two tours in Vietnam as a medic. He was never the same, not even close. He brother told me, that in the middle of the night they would find him crouched down in the corner of the living room with night terrors thinking he was still in the jungle. Many times, his brother told me, that they would have to physically restrain him in his bed so he wouldn't go around scaring the shit out of the rest of the family. He did eventually get help, but he was never the same guy.

I weep for our future.

[northzax]

33. you are all missing the overarching point of tihs story

they made a mortician Marine of the Year? that's gotta be a message, right?

[E-Z-B]

36. Check out the conservative bias in the media

Why did they use a picture of this "psycho" marine with John Kerry?



http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20050815/ts_nm/crime_marine_dc

[karynnj]

37. Not bias

He's a MA marine. That he was photographed with one of his Senators When he was honored in Washington is common place. Kerry would have been criticised if he didn't meet with honored MA soldiers. I would image he and the other soldiers honored likely had some ceremony with Pentagon people. I do hope that Kerry makes a major issue of the inadequacy of PTSD treatment available - that was a major issue that Kerry talked about to the Senate when he was young.

Although this is the worst photo I ever saw of Kerry, even the RW would not imply that meeting Kerry, not the horrors of Iraq, had something to do with this. Kerry posing with a marine from is state is just Kerry doing him job as a Senator.