20 year old Iraq veteran held in homicide: had requested stress treatment

[Bluebear]

Matthew Sepi, Army veteran carried assault rifle on a beer run to a 7-Eleven

20-year-old suspect in double shooting had requested treatment for stress disorder

When Matthew Sepi returned from Iraq a few months ago, he spoke to his family reluctantly of gunbattles and the "weird noises" children make when they die. He never told relatives whether he killed anyone during combat but said he recently had been diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder and had been placed on a waiting list for treatment.

To help shield his psyche from images of bodies, family members said, the 20-year-old soldier had adopted a simple technique: Just don't think about it.

But early Sunday morning, Army Spc. Sepi found himself thinking about killing in front of homicide detectives. They interrogated Sepi about a double shooting in a neighborhood near Las Vegas Boulevard and Sahara Avenue.

Based on Sepi's version of events, a 1 a.m. walk to a 7-Eleven proved nearly as dangerous as his tour of duty in Iraq. According to an arrest report filed in Clark County District Court, Sepi told investigators he dressed in a black coat, tucked an assault rifle under his arm and left his apartment for a beer run........

http://www.reviewjournal.com/lvrj_home/2005/Aug-02-Tue-2005/news/26983251.html

[pocket]

1. like 68Saigon said...

these guys are a bunch of time-bombs!

[Bluebear]

2. "the 'weird noises' children make when they die"

No 20 year old should face this. No one should face this.

[GreenPartyVoter]

4. *crying*

[me b zola]

14. *crying with you*

Everyday at least one thread has tears streaming down my face.

Sadness

Anger

Helplessness



It really is becoming overwhelming.



So many that are there seeing/hearing things that no one should endure (including, of course, the Iraqis)

So many of these men & women coming home who need help that is not there for them.

So many family members who will not know how to help them.

So many others who will be the target of these people who need help.

[julialnyc]

17. NOBODY!

[frazzledmom]

3. Great.. time bombs on a waiting list for help....

Woo Hoo we're supporting the troops... :puke:

[Bluebear]

5. Welcome to DU mom. Wish it were better circumstances, eh?

[frazzledmom]

8. Thank you BB...

Yes, circumstances could be better but we are slowly gaining ground.. I'm not sure whats worse, having a glimmer of hope, only to have it dashed like in the election, or just having to watch while our Country is destroyed....

[Kraklen]

7. the guy who said it...

was a vet. Way to support the troops.

[Der Blaue Engel]

6. "120-pound Sepi"

And he's 20 now, after serving perhaps two years in Iraq. Children ordered to kill children.

Aren't we a proud country.

:cry:

[pocket]

9. maybe I spoke too soon, might be self-defense

As the 120-pound Sepi journeyed on foot and passed through a dark alley, a man and woman confronted him and yelled for him to leave the alley, police said in the report.

Sepi said the man, identified by authorities as 26-year-old Kevin Ratcliff, produced an object that he thought to be a gun and opened fire.

"(Sepi) explained that he had been trained in the military that in a situation in which he was ambushed, he was to engage the targets and retreat from the area," police wrote in the report. "He felt that the situation in the alley was an ambush, and he reacted the way he had been trained."

Sepi recalled firing four shots. Sharon Jackson, 47, fell to the ground and died at the scene of multiple gunshot wounds, police said.

Some evidence might lend credence to Sepi's self-defense story.

"We do know the victim's boyfriend (Ratcliff) got off a few rounds as well," police Lt. Tom Monahan said.

Police said they recovered a 9 mm pistol and three spent 9 mm casings at the crime scene.

[DELUSIONAL]

10. he was on a "waiting list"

damn -- how many more of these stories will we be reading?

It didn't take a whole lot of skill to predict that things like this were going to happen when the troops return.

Bushie is responsible for this --

[julialnyc]

18. It should be mandatory

not something you have to sign up for!!

[julialnyc]

11. he's not the first

did you read this months Rolling Stone?

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/_/id/7504249

[julialnyc]

12. quote from article

from rolling stone piece:

More than a half million U.S. soldiers have now done at least one tour of duty in Iraq. The universal nature of combat there -- the war zone is the whole country -- damages every soldier who serves, regardless of assignment. Before January 9th, the violence committed by Iraq War veterans fell along a limited continuum: Soldiers came home and killed themselves; they assaulted people; they abused their spouses. Then Andy Raya came home and created an approximation of the combat environment he had just left, and the continuum seemed to lose its limits.

[Old Vet]

13. All these articles don't even scratch the surface..........

They will throw him in jail and forget him. Somehow saying I didn't vote for bush doesn't cut it. Iraq is a bad spot getting worse, Theres no good way out of this one.

[julialnyc]

15. This quote is scary

I think this quote is a scary look into this:


By the time Raya got to Iraq, in February 2004, the Marines had invested scores of hours in teaching him how to kill other human beings and desensitizing him to the act. The military now excels at overriding the nearly immutable human instinct against intraspecies killing: In World War II, at least seventy-five percent of American soldiers under fire did not shoot their weapons; today, nearly ninety-five percent do. Five decades of military research has produced photo-realistic targets, complex and visceral virtual-reality scenarios, three-dimensional human mannequins that bleed and fall, and exercises in which live humans believably die when hit by simulated ammunition. Recruits kill in this way many hundreds of times, until destroying a manifestly fragile human form becomes automatic and affectless and associated with honor. They never have to label their marks humans or people or soldiers or even them. They shoot at targets or positions or hostile fire or the enemy. They are not killing; they are not even shooting: They are attriting, suppressing, returning, engaging.

[julialnyc]

16. and just for the record

I wanted to post that at no disrespect to our soldiers...... it just seems that there has to be a better way to teach. I know it is a hard task when these kids are, well, kids


Did anyone see Murderball? The wounded soldiers looked like they were pre-teens. They by no means look like they could handle that mind fuck of training to kill (not like youth is the only thing that would prevent you from handing that, but jeez!)!!!

[ArkDem]

19. Your statistics have the look and feel of be pulled out of your

ass.