"The Killing of Jamie Dean" (Salon)

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http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2007/09/05/james_dean/

Police in rural Maryland staged a military stakeout and shot a troubled Army vet. As his family plans to sue, they are asking how a soldier being treated for PTSD could be shipped to Iraq.

By Julia Dahl

Sept. 5, 2007

Jamie Dean had been holed up in his childhood home for six hours when the tear gas canisters came crashing through the windows. It was a little after 4 a.m., the day after Christmas 2006, and Sgt. James Emerick Dean, 29, formerly of the 25th Infantry Division, knew he was surrounded. The white farmhouse was tucked beside a grove of trees in Leonardtown, a rural hamlet in southern Maryland, where Dean's family once raised tobacco. Now, from behind the blinds, Dean could see cops with flashlights creeping around his backyard. He could see police cars on the dirt road outside the house. He could hear the sirens and the shouting and the buzz of the police radios.

It had been a month since Dean had gotten word he'd have to go back to war. He had already served a year in Afghanistan. He'd done and seen things over there he couldn't talk about, and now they were sending him to Iraq. Like tens of thousands of soldiers fighting the post-9/11 wars, Dean was being treated by the Department of Veterans Affairs for post-traumatic stress disorder -- but the Army didn't know that because the Army and the V.A. don't typically share medical records.

Before joining the Army, Dean was a merry prankster with a contagious smile. But the terror he felt clearing caves in Afghanistan followed him home to Maryland, and despite having a loving family, a new wife and a good job, when Dean got called back up, he began to crack. On Christmas night, he snapped. The outcome would be tragic. The Maryland State Police would be cited for flawed and overly aggressive military tactics. And the whole sorry state of America's need for fighters in Iraq would be exposed.

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