The legacy of Iraq at home: On a cold December night, Sgt. Spencer Kohlheim hangs himself in his gra

[unhappycamper]

Read Part I, Part II, and Part III of the story: "One soldier's harrowing journey from the Iraqi battlefield to suicide"


The legacy of Iraq at home: On a cold December night, Sgt. Spencer Kohlheim hangs himself in his grandmother’s garage
By Sahil Kapur
Friday, September 10th, 2010 -- 7:36 am

It was a cold December night, and the last of Sgt. Spencer Kohlheim's life. He was at the Detroit Street Bar with his brother, when he called his ex-girlfriend Krissy to come to meet him. He was clearly intoxicated, she said and he talked non-stop about getting back together.

“I told him being drunk one night in a bar is not going to solve it,” Krissy said. “He didn’t have any patience. He thought if I said, okay, (the problems) would all go away. He said he wanted to come home with me. I told him my Dad didn’t approve of that. He got in the truck with me and we started arguing. I told him to get out and to call me in the morning. He got out of the truck and punched the passenger side door. I called my friend who was the bartender, and she told him to calm down before the cops came. He said, ‘Call the fucking cops, I don’t care!’ Then he went to his car and tried to give me his ATM card. He said, ‘Take it, and you’ll be fine.’ I told him I didn’t need his money, I needed him to be ok. He said, ‘I know, but I don’t know how to fix it.’”

“They denied me anyways,’ he said, ‘I have nowhere to go,’” Spencer told her. “Three days prior he called me at 1:00 a.m. in the morning and said he was going to kill himself, and I got up and went to his grandma’s. He was passed out in his car in the driveway.”

"This time he turned his car sideways in the middle of the street to block me from leaving,” Krissy said. “He’d never done anything like that before. I started to get mad and a little scared. I called my Dad. My Dad said the first place he was going to go was to our house, so he told me to go to a family friend’s house.”

Krissy eventually made her way back to her parents that night, and Spencer continued to call her in an increasing panic. “By the time he got to his grandma’s, I had 52 missed calls from him in eight minutes. He called my parents home phone at 3:14 am. He was a nervous wreck. 'I need to talk to you,' he said, 'I don’t know how to fix this, I don’t know how to fix this.' We talked for maybe six minutes. He said, 'I can’t fix this.' I told him I loved him and to go to sleep. He said he was out in the garage and had just opened one of his lockers from Iraq. There was silence for a little bit. Then he was balling hysterically. He said, 'I want to say I love you, and you were the one I wanted to be with for the rest of my life.' I asked him why he was saying this. 'I can’t take it Krissy,' he said, 'I hope that everything will be okay for us and you too. Just remember I love you, I will be in my garage,' he said. 'I’m going to chill out here for a while, I love you, I love you.'”

[thecrow]

1. He was "balling hysterically"...........?!?

I wish they would proofread before publishing.
This one phrase is now etched on my memory.
A sad story, though, to be sure.