War stress blamed for shootings by vets

[Autonomy]

Some question whether Army doing enough to help soldiers

Monday, August 22, 2005; Posted: 9:50 a.m. EDT (13:50 GMT)

(AP) -- One was a skinny 20-year-old discharged from the Army who couldn't shake the piercing rat-a-tat-tat reminders of combat. The other, a decorated Marine family man whose job preparing bodies of U.S. soldiers for burial had caused clammy, restless nights.

Both home from duty in Iraq, they were on opposite ends of the country, but their stories have much in common.

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Marine of the Year

Cotnoir helped recover the remains of soldiers blown up by roadside bombs. He picked up body parts from battlefields and trained other Marines to do the same. He even helped cut down the burned bodies of civilian contractors hanging from a bridge in Fallujah -- a scene that horrified the world.

When Cotnoir returned home last October to Lawrence, he went back to working in the funeral home and back to his wife and two daughters. Friends said he seemed a little quieter, but still the same nice guy who helped them plow their driveways and handed out toys at Christmastime to needy children.

He was even named "Marine of the Year" by the Marine Corps Times, a national award.

That was the surface. Cotnoir told longtime friend Shaun Hamilton he suffered from nightmares, shakes and cold sweats.

Sometimes in traffic, he looked at other drivers suspiciously.

"I just get a little jittery, a little nervous," Cotnoir told The Boston Globe in November. "I try to take deep breaths and let it go and remember this is Lawrence. Car bombs don't go off here."

Then, just before 3 a.m. on August 13, Cotnoir pointed a 12-gauge shotgun out his second-floor window and fired a single shot into a crowd of noisy revelers leaving a nightclub and a nearby restaurant. Witnesses said someone had thrown a bottle through Cotnoir's window, shattering the glass, before Cotnoir fired.

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http://www.cnn.com/2005/HEALTH/conditions/08/22/vets.trauma.trigger.ap/index.html

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