Parents Mourn Son's Suicide After Returning From Iraq Duty:.......

[ElsewheresDaughter]

"He's a Casualty of War But He'll Never Be Known As That"

http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=04/08/11/145205

During the Democratic National Convention in Boston, the parents of Jeffrey Lucey, a U.S. soldier who killed himself after returning home from military duty in Iraq, spoke publicly for the first time on Democracy Now!
Lucey signed up for the Marine Reserves straight out of high school. In February 2003, one month before the invasion, he was shipped out to Iraq. He was deployed there for five months, during which he fought in the battle of Nasiriyah. He returned to the U.S. later that year.

A few months after his return, Jeffrey's parents, Kevin and Joyce, began noticing signs of what they later came to know as post-traumatic stress syndrome. In late May 2004, they had Jeffrey involuntarily committed to a military veteran's hospital after he ignored his parents' and sister, Debbie's pleas to seek help. The hospital discharged him after a few days.

Three weeks later on June 22nd, Jeffrey Lucey took his own life. He was 23 years old. His father, Kevin came home to find his son had hung himself with a hose in the cellar of their house. The dog tags of two Iraqi prisoners he said he was forced to shoot unarmed, lay on his bed.

Shortly after his death, Kevin and Joyce Lucey joined us on the program to talk about their son. After the broadcast, we continued our conversation with them.

[Sequoia]

1. How terrible is this?

Very. I heard a little of it on the program this morning, but I didn't know that he had to kill the unarmed men. Poor man, and his family too. He could be living a happy life now, and so could all those others who really died in vain.

[Stew225]

2. How sad. It is also a scathing indictment of

our health care system. Great move on shipping him out of the hospital.

[Mizmoon]

30. The hospital was of no help to him

It says right in the transcript that he described his hospital stay this way:

Jeff told us – “I was treated like a prisoner. Here I am a veteran, they won't let me have cigarettes.” They wouldn't let him go to church. They wouldn't let him go to memorial services.

JOYCE LUCEY: He had to stay alone with somebody on the unit while the other vets went.
---------------
This man does not have a biological medical problem that a hopital could treat. What he needed was a sanitorium in the old fashioned sense of the word ... a place to go for refuge, sanctuary, quiet conversation, and talk therapy. At the hospital they see everything as biological, give you drugs, and put you in a sterile setting. Oh, and if you don't take their drugs it's a sign you're insane and should stay longer so they can force you to take more drugs because you're insane, and so the circular logic goes.

It's a failure of the healthcare system, all right. It;s a failure of the system to recognize that many mental illnesses really are emotional.

[Bridget Burke]

32. Except he didn't really have a mental illness.

He was pretty sane but couldn't deal with being forced to commit murder.

[Mizmoon]

33. I guess it depends on your definition

He had emotional issues and I think that the definition of mental illness is very broad - including everything from PTSD to depression to being emotionally distrubed to schizophrenia. I was trying to get at what you're getting at - he wasn't mentally ill before he was forced to commit murder, but afterwards he spiralled into a emotoinal condition and he needed help. He wasn't the kind of ill that needs pills, he was the kind of ill that needs community and therapy. He needed a plan to recover.

I am reminded of the scene from the film Gandhi where another man who has killed talks of his dispair:

Hindu Man: I'm going to Hell! I killed a child! I smashed his head against a wall.
Gandhi: Why?
Hindu Man: Because they killed my son! The Muslims killed my son!
Gandhi: I know a way out of Hell. Find a small boy, about this high, whose parents have been killed, and raise him as your own. But make sure he is Muslim, and raise him as one.

[Pathwalker]

3. And so it begins....

This sorrow will be repeated all too often in the future, and before you know it more soldiers will return home - only to commit suicide - than were killed in this war. This is the future; read it and weep, America.

[TahitiNut]

4. It's more than many people can deal with ...

... to confront the destruction of all the illusions and myths one is taught as 'truth' during childhood - and then to find that the society one comes back to is not demonstrably concerned about the impact of such disillusionment.

Let's not let our children see the coffins - instead, send 'em recruiters for the "Army of One."

Let's not publish the gruesome photos of the dead and maimed from wars we wage - but show 'em "Death at Any Speed" during driver's training. After all, war is more fun than driving, right?

Those military brass bands are pretty and fun. Don't let the kids see people in a Veteran's Hospital.

Yeah ... it's about "Be(ing) All You Can Be."

Sure it is.

:puke:

[MODemocrat]

Shame on you - George W. Bush

Unfortunately, this is just one sad story out of thousands. How can Bush's administration have such intense hatred for the military? My heart goes out to this brave man's loved ones, and all the others who are dying and being maimed. Apparently in the rush to war, Bush had no hint of an exit strategy, and look how people are having to pay for something which was no fault of theirs. :cry:

[0rion]

5. He must have been terribly affected....

the suicide rate of returning troops is VERY high.

[AspenRose]

15. One of my high school classmates committed suicide after Desert Storm

My goodness..how many more are there out there?

God have mercy on this kid's soul. :cry:

[0rion]

17. I'm sorry to hear about your loss.

My condolences to his family and friends. Soldiers see and do terrible things in war and they bring the burden home with them and it never leaves their minds.

It's a loss beyond measure to have to take your own life to silence those demons in your head.

Again, my condolences.

[aquart]

6. We made him a murderer.

So he executed himself.

This is what happens when we deny justice. This is what it does to our good sons.

[tom_paine]

7. Shooting unarmed prisoners? Why am I not surprised?

Imperial Amerika is Nazi Germany, Kinder and Gentler Ver 2.0

Madness.

[Rainbowreflect]

8. My heart is breaking for this poor kid & his family.

He's soul was sacrificed for those without.

[prolesunited]

9. He's not alone

This was published in April, so I'm sure the numbers are even higher. This also doesn't take into account those who come home and start abusing wives and children. And don't forget that both McVeigh and Mohammed were both vets of the first Gulf War.

Humans are NOT designed to be killing machines and you can't just flip a switch to turn them off. What a tragic, senseless loss of so many lives.


Troops in Iraq on Suicide Watch
24 U.S. personnel known to have killed themselves But Pentagon's psychiatric team finds `no crisis'

Twenty-four Americans — 20 army personnel, two Marines and two sailors — are known to have taken their own lives in Iraq in the past year. Two of them were female. Four other deaths are being investigated.

That means a suicide rate of 17.3 per 100,000, a figure far in excess of last year's overall U.S. military rate of 12.8.

It doesn't include the deaths of newly States-sided troops, which the Pentagon doesn't count. There have been seven such suicides, including those of two soldiers who killed themselves while patients at Walter Reed Army Hospital. Another three deaths are under investigation.

Already, one in every 10 soldiers evacuated out of Iraq for medical care is suffering from mental-health problems. Outraged veterans groups say the military is totally unprepared for the onslaught of post-traumatic stress disorders coming in the months ahead as more troops return home.

http://www.commondreams.org/headlines04/0411-03.htm

[proud patriot]

10. That's tragic

:cry: I hate this fucking war

[Massacure]

11. Why the hell do they want unarmed soldiers shot?

[merh]

13. This is not meant as an insult to the Guardsmen and Reservist

serving in Iraq, but let's face it, they did not have the proper training. They are known as weekend warriors. Because they needed extra money to support their families or they wanted to get an education, folks signed up to report once a month to act as if they were military.

These are the same poor guys sent to fight this war.

No or very little training, results in abuse of power, torture, murder, havoc, panic ....

GWB will burn in hell for this. We must get him out of office. We must....

[BeyondGeography]

12. This is such a tragedy. RIP, Jeff. You were a good soul.

From the article:

KEVIN LUCEY: My understanding was that there was a higher ranking official who told Jeff, and this is the quote that is etched in my mind, “pull the trigger, Lucey.” And it was two unarmed Iraqis. He shot them from about five feet away, and he watched them die. It was the first time, well, that he shot anybody. He told me those deaths he knew he did. That's what he said.

JOYCE LUCEY: One of them, he--Debbie just told me on the phone that he said he was looking at this boy's eyes and the boy was shaking. He was shaking.

KEVIN LUCEY: He told me about how that haunted him. “It's somebody's son, it's somebody's brother, pa. It's somebody’s father.” Jeff, I think was writing down when he came back, he didn't see dead soldiers. He saw dead people. That was one of the things that I guess concerns somebody. That's where--that was the beginning of the cancer--the Post-Traumatic Stress.

[ElsewheresDaughter]

14. Jesus wept

[DrWeird]

16. No sympathy for the devil.

If an Al Qaeda operative killed himself after shooting two unarmed American POWs I doubt he'd get much sympathy.

[ElsewheresDaughter]

18. who said anything about fucking "POWs?"...wierd?

[DrWeird]

19. Alright "enemy combatants."

But really, I don't see any need to resort to Bushspeak.

[Bridget Burke]

20. "Al Qaeda operative"

How many of those are there in Iraq, really?

[BeyondGeography]

25. We're not human to al Qaeda, we're heathens

There are no Jeff Lucey's in al Qaeda, Dr. Weird. Your comparison is hopelessly inept.

[0007]

21. Bring the troops home and stop these tragedies from happening again.

[luaneryder]

22. This young man's death,

all the other military and civilian deaths and injuries and upheavels that have occured because of one man's (I cannot call him human) arrogance. One man is responsible for it all and he doesn't give a shit. There must be a special hell reserved for * and the rest of his cronies, there must be. Why can't the world see the evil that is George Bush?

[LisaL]

24. World sees it.

It seems to me that world can see it.
It's the US that is blind.

[Logansquare]

23. This is a record of a war crime, as well as a story about a tragic suicide

He was told to kill a trembling, unarmed boy. I wish this story would go farther than Democracy Now.

[ElsewheresDaughter]

26. kick

[Mari333]

27. Oh, good luck getting the US media to tell any truths

another kid dead for nothing. In the meantime, Bush , spoiled fratboy, goes fishing, and the media covers for him.

[Matilda]

28. I'm so sorry for this boy's family.

But I hope this story gets out there. It needs to be told.

[wicket]

29. This breaks my heart

:( So very very sad.

[KoKo]

31. His country sent him out without proper training and he was told to do

something against his conscience. Who knows what the training was for the officer who ordered him to shoot, or did he panic in a situation and not realize they were unarmed?

Meanwhile the "chicken hawks" see these folks as expendable. The cost of war is only $$$'s to them and not the blood that is on their miserable manicured hands.

[ElsewheresDaughter]

34. outraged kick!