`Jeffrey Was Really Messed Up'

[Rose Siding]

snip>
When she hugged him goodbye, her brave soldier son - the boy who had grown up respecting the uniform, in the sprawling shadow of Tinker Air Force Base - had crumpled in her arms.

"I don't want to go back," he sobbed. "I don't want to go."

She told him she loved him and that everything would be OK.

And then she did what she was supposed to do:

She left him there.

"I will never forget the look on his face when he looked at me. It eats all over me," says Kay, 57, who works at the deli counter of the local Wal-Mart. "Why didn't I turn the car around, bring him home, and say the hell with them, the hell with the Army?" Her breath catches in her throat. "I didn't know."

No one knew that Jeffrey, 25, would be flown back to Tinker less than two months into his second deployment - in a box. Shortly after noon on Feb. 8, 2005, he shot himself through the mouth with an M-16 rifle at an Army camp in Balad, Iraq, according to the military.

http://www.courant.com/news/specials/hc-mental1b.artmay14,0,4911039,print.story

[xray s]

1. The Bush legacy...

...evil bastard that he his

[MadMaddie]

2. This poor mother.....the burden she must feel...it's not her fault...

This administration is destroying the military...and destroying these young lives....by not acknowledging mental issues....

Sigh...it makes me so sad..:-(

[chaumont58]

4. She will never forgive herself

This poor woman is not going to have many good days for the rest of her life.

[MadMaddie]

6. Sadly you are right....

[Rose Siding]

12. Did you see what his dad said?-

Warren has gone head-to-head with Arlington Memory Gardens, a non-military cemetery in Midwest City, for refusing to let him put an American flag on Jeffrey's grave. Every time he plants one, someone comes by and removes it. Warren is so offended by the cemetery's policy barring such displays, he has written letters to his state legislators, who have promised to try to help.....

"Let's face it, how many people really care about these soldiers?" he says matter-of-factly. "I mean, it's not your kids, right? Not that many people are being affected. They're out of sight, out of mind.

"You're down at Wal-Mart, you're over at Target, just like always," he finishes. "This is somebody else's kid."

[Maraya1969]

14. I hope she goes for help. There are bereavement groups that can help her

God I hope she goes for help.

[bliss_eternal]

8. Those Army recruitment ads on television make me

want to lose my mind. :puke:

It is sad and horrible. No one acknowledges this, yet continually they seek more meat for their grinder. :cry:

[Tom Joad]

3. Immoral, Illegal, Stupid fucking war. Bring the troops home, fight the

domestic enemy.

[TomInTib]

5. Dead children in combat situations can have a growing

debilitative effect that you cannot escape.

I know how awful it can be.

[NanceGreggs]

7. Thanks for the Mother's Day gift, BushBastard.

It'll make a great HallMark card someday ...

[Poll_Blind]

9. OMG what a messed-up sick story. Read the whole article if you dare.

Man, there are so many things wrong with what happened.

Shit, what are we doing to our youth? We're building a weaker and weaker America...have been since, what, after WW II? It's showing- to our friends, adversaries, enemies- but when will it dawn on us?

PB

[Divernan]

10. That is the saddest story - now multiply it by 100,000

It's a long, very well-written article. It talks about how empty his eyes were after he returned from his first tour in Iraq. I've met a lot of men who did a tour in Vietnam. It had a lasting negative psychological effect on every one of them. Of course very few of them committed suicide, but they live their lives under the shadow of what they saw and what they did. If you read the notes they've left at the Vietnam Memorial Wall in DC, it breaks your heart. It's happening the same way or worse for the soldiers who have served or are serving in Iraq. Take the time to read it this whole article. His family are facing the reality of it - not deep in denial waving a flag and boosting Bush the way some family members of dead soldiers are doing.
Here's another excerpt from it:

His sister, Shannon Austill, had found him in the living room, laughing at a CD he had brought back from his first combat tour - images of Iraqi adults and children who had been shot, dismembered, burned beyond recognition. "Jeffrey," she remembers chastising him, "that's immoral. That's disgraceful. Why do you have these pictures?" He had shrugged her off. "I don't know - because I can't believe it," she recalls him saying. "Anyway, c'mon, they're all dead."

Trisha Fish, his ex-wife, had seen the anguish in his eyes when he jolted awake from a nap, grabbed her by the shoulders and appealed for absolution - for killing a young Iraqi boy, about the same age as their son. He told family members he was tormented by memories of shoving a boy off a moving tank and watching his limp body slip under the track wheels.

"Jeffrey wasn't the same - he was really messed up," says Trisha, 27, who remained close to Jeffrey after their breakup. "I knew he wasn't right, but I didn't know what I could do."

[babylonsister]

11. *, may you burn in hell! nt

[Tsiyu]

13. Now how do these people who have turned our chidren into KILLERS

claim to have any affinity for LIFE?

[GCP]

15. Oh God - that poor woman

And her poor poor son. I can hardly see to type through my tears.
God-damn Bush to hell.

[Lisa]

16. how many lives has Bush messed up?

The poor woman -- she will remember all of this until her dying day. Meanwhile, the people whose scheming brought it about will not only walk away, but with overflowing wallets.

[Raster]

17. with the bush* family and their evil cohorts, it will ALWAYS be some other

mother's son. It willl ALWAYS be another family's sacrifice. It will ALWAYS be someone else that pays for the mistake. It will ALWAYS be someone else expected to pay the ultimate price.

EVIL. EVIL. BASTARDS. May they ALL rot in hell.

[mikita]

18. so so so sad... times ALL the senseless deaths

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