More casualties of these wars? The ones at home

[shadowknows69]

Fort Drum Soldier Accused In Stabbing Deaths Of Two Other Soldiers

<http://www.wwnytv.com/news/local/78340212.html>

Fort Drum Soldier Found Dead In Barracks

<http://www.wwnytv.com/news/local/78349532.html>

[shadowknows69]

1. Nothing? K+R. This is "collateral damage" too.

[niyad]

2. the ft carson murder spree

It was just after closing time on Saturday night when the four soldiers staggered out of the Rum Bay nightclub ("Southern Colorado's largest supply of rum!"), piled into a gray Audi A4 and lit a blunt. Since they had returned from fighting in Iraq, where they had seen some of the bloodiest action of the war, nights like this had become common. There are more than 50 bars in downtown Colorado Springs, and on some nights thousands of people, many of them troops from nearby Fort Carson, pour out onto the streets after last call, looking for trouble. Rum Bay was one of the worst dives in town: Infamous for brawls involving drunken soldiers, locals called it "Fight Club." That night, the bar offered a special dispensed by shooter girls in denim cutoffs, who carried trays filled with test tubes of vodka mixed with apple schnapps. "We drank an ungodly amount," one of the men, Kenneth Eastridge, later recalled. "Like, hundreds of shots."

Eastridge and the others were members of the same Army unit, and they had all served together in Baghdad during the most volatile phase of the war. A 24-year-old specialist known as a "crazy bastard with no remorse," Eastridge had been court-martialed for stockpiling 463 pills of Valium in his barracks. Two of his buddies from Charlie Company carried equally sketchy reputations: Bruce Bastien, a 21-year-old medic who had been arrested for beating his wife while on leave, and Louis Bressler, a 24-year-old private who "started acting like King Kong," in the words of a fellow soldier, after being diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder. Tucked beneath the driver's seat of the Audi was a .38 revolver registered to Bressler's wife.

The fourth soldier, a quiet specialist named Kevin Shields, wasn't really friends with the other men. A computer geek and EverQuest enthusiast, Shields had been shipped home after suffering multiple concussions in Iraq. He didn't go out much, tending to stay in with his wife, Svetlana, and their three-year-old son, but tonight was his 24th birthday. At a downtown bar, Shields ran into the three soldiers from Charlie Company and quickly ingratiated himself by buying everyone rounds of drinks.
. . . . .

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/30794989/the_fort_carson_murder_spree

[niyad]

3. and, also from ft carson--one of the earliest murder-suicides of the war, and, just to pick one

of many, a young iraq vet, severe ptsd, drives her car the wrong way on I-25, gets killed. also "collateral damage"--because the damned military does not include people once they are off the ground in whatever combat situation they were in. so the true number is very difficult to find.

[Arctic Dave]

4. Talked with one of the guys I work with on the phone today,

I guess his younger brother was kicked out of the army for drug abuse(hard drugs, not weed) after returning from Iraq. That is another type of collateral damage.

[shadowknows69]

5. If I may be so bold. Read this.

Back from Iraq looking for crack.


<http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=364x1719172>

[Arctic Dave]

6. Excellent post.

His brother pretty much went off the cliff when he returned. Booted out of the military, booted out of his parents house but not after stealing around 60,000 dollars from them.

On edit:
From what I understand, getting high over there isn't as hard as we would think.