Across America, Deadly Echoes of Foreign Battles (Killings by Vets)

[RamboLiberal]

Late one night in the summer of 2005, Matthew Sepi, a 20-year-old Iraq combat veteran, headed out to a 7-Eleven in the seedy Las Vegas neighborhood where he had settled after leaving the Army.

This particular 7-Eleven sits in the shadow of the Stratosphere casino-hotel in a section of town called the Naked City. By day, the area, littered with malt liquor cans, looks depressed but not menacing. By night, it becomes, in the words of a local homicide detective, “like Falluja.”

Mr. Sepi did not like to venture outside too late. But, plagued by nightmares about an Iraqi civilian killed by his unit, he often needed alcohol to fall asleep. And so it was that night, when, seized by a gut feeling of lurking danger, he slid a trench coat over his slight frame — and tucked an assault rifle inside it.

“Matthew knew he shouldn’t be taking his AK-47 to the 7-Eleven,” Detective Laura Andersen said, “but he was scared to death in that neighborhood, he was military trained and, in his mind, he needed the weapon to protect himself.”

-----

As Mr. Sepi started home, two gang members, both large and both armed, stepped out of the darkness. Mr. Sepi said in an interview that he spied the butt of a gun, heard a boom, saw a flash and “just snapped.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/13/us/13vets.html?hp

Sad - these vets are the walking wounded and perhaps even the walking dead from this stupid, stupid war!

[angrycarpenter]

1. Put a patriotic spin on this Mr. Bush

I dare you.

[ixion]

2. it took us 20 years to work the crazy Vietnam Vets out of society

we can expect another 20 years or better. And it'll be worse now, because the social makeup is now far more violent.

[flashl]

5. Your point will be missed completely as dialog continues. n/t

[screembloodymurder]

3. Sounds like he did a good thing.

He was attacked and defended himself and took out two bad guys. You got a problem with this?

[Bobbieo]

4. And, this is just the tip of the iceberg. Thank you, George!!!

[CJCRANE]

7. It comes to something

when you have to pack an AK-47 to go to the local 7-Eleven!

If it were a comic book he would be Captain Kalashnikov. In real life it's not so glamorous.

[RamboLiberal]

8. I think the first case the NYT cited was not a good example

except for the fact he packed an AK to go to the 7-11. Most of us who carry don't pack more than a handgun. I have no problem with the self-defense. As I said bad example by the NYT. The point of the article though is the number who are coming back damaged in mind and body and are taking it out on innocent people like their spouses, kids, etc.

[Diclotican]

10. RamboLiberal

RamboLiberal

I don't need to pack a handgun when I go to 7-11.. Even that I have to walk for 15 minutes, if I then don't take the car.. And I have never needed to have a weapon to go to the store, or something else... And it may be because in our country, contrary to the fact that it is almost 1.5 million weapon in a population of 4.6 million don't have tradition to use weapon the same way that is "tradition" in the US?:..

Diclotican

Sorry my bad English, not my native language

[BB1]

11. Neither do we.

In Holland, things are just rosy... But you see the problem, right? In a couple of years time, when the US has spent over fifteen years in Iraq (and the casualties will be down as in Korea), the vets are the #1 pariahs in the US. 'Thanx for fightin' and all guys, but now you're a menace to society so please shut up and die or go to prison.'

I'd be a sad day if Europeans have to 'pack' or 'carry'. Fortunately we have the US as an example for how not to regulate guns.

[Diclotican]

12. BB1

BB1

Yes I se the problem, with a lot of veterans, with all sorts of mental problem, after served in a WAR they may never recover from... They would be nr 1 pariah in US.. As in other wars they have been into in the past. How many soldiers from the Vietnam year was starving, and freezing to death in the year following 1975?.. How many veterans was putting to prison, and then be a pariah for the rest of the world..When they was coming out in the 1980s..

How many veterans from US wars, have ended up as de-solute, poor and homeless, and been spitend on, when they are asked after help.. How many have been dead before the help arrived? IN US because they are "worth" it?

US, and this gun laws, is prow enough that not everyone in a country should have allowed to use, and to hold permit to gun.. I don't know how the law ar in Holland, but for the most part, they who have gun here in Norway, have hunting license to use the gun, and for the most part have a decent control over where the gun are... Many in my family have hunting license, but I have never seen their gun, if they was not out for hunting.. They are locked down, and secured..

Even home, we do had a gun, for some reason or other.. When me and my brother was at school age, they was telling us, that they had a gun in the house.. We even have the opportunity to feel it and look at it. And was told that this gun would be locked down, and if we ever was to "discover it" we should KNOW that this was not a toy, this was a really weapon who may kill people if used.. And that was the last time I was seeing the gun... And home we never "played" with guns anyway.. The old folks had some resentment about gun and would rather let us play with some other, more friendly things then toy-gun. And we was growing up to decent grownups we too.. ;)

I hope that we never have to carry gun's as it looks as they have to do it in the US. And it is a difference between have a Small gun, or to have a rifle for hunting, then to have a AK47... You don't hunt with a AK47 anyway.. Well not animals, maybe humans:eyes:

Diclotican

Sorry my bad English, not my native language

[tomreedtoon]

9. I'm pretty sure the vet did NOT enjoy this.

I have PTSD myself - not combat-caused, but bad nevertheless. And until I learned to keep away from the triggering impulse that sets it off, and how to manage my emotions if it triggered by accident, I was sleepless, worried for unexplained reasons, emotionally chilled, and I often snarled at people who didn't really deserve it.

It can only be worse for someone in combat. Read a few of the accounts of vets with PTSD. Sometimes they suicide, sometimes taking their family and loved ones with them. The idea that they might shoot a criminal this way is almost coincidental. It could just as easily have been the 7-11 clerk if she dropped a coffee carafe and it shattered on the ground.

That "attacked" and "defended" stuff absolutely does not apply.

[Prophet 451]

6. Bush's Legions

PTSD isn't new, it's been around since at least WWI (when it was called "shell shock") but before, people would get treatment or at least some help. A little while ago, the Bush admin reclassified PTSD as a pre-existing condition so they didn't have to pay for it and this is the inevitible result.