Sabra posted this story:
Source: AP
HERINGTON, Kan. - A veteran of the Iraq war who held his family hostage and wore military armor during a standoff with police surrendered only after being assured he would receive help for post-traumatic stress disorder, police said.
The Fort Riley soldier, whose name was not released because he had not been charged, locked himself and his family inside his Herington home Sunday night. He released his family shortly after the incident began, but surrendered only after talking to a Herington police officer who had befriended him, police Chief John Pritchard said.
Police went to the man's home about 8:30 p.m., after receiving a call that he was holding his wife and four children hostage. After releasing his family before officers arrived, he put on military body armor and said he wanted to "go down in a blaze of glory," Pritchard said.
Pritchard said the man had nine loaded firearms, including two assault rifles, in the house. The man did not point a weapon at officers during the standoff, but officers saw him with a weapon in a backyard several times, he said.
...
Pritchard said one of the conditions of the man's surrender was that he receive treatment for post-traumatic stress disorder, from which the man believed he was suffering because of his service in Iraq. Pritchard said he didn't know when or how long the man had served.
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http://www.kansas.com/197/story/46646.htmlPLEASE TAKE NOTE OF THIS DUer's RESPONSE
vickitulsa Tue Apr-17-07 05:44 PM
Response to Original message
6. Because vets do not receive and never have received adequate treatment for PTSD,
this is the sort of story we're going to be hearing more and more often now, imo.
I have a great many Vietnam vet friends who have suffered -- many in silence for decades -- from the disabling, maddening symptoms of PTSD. Most of them only got treatment at long last because others of their "brothers" who'd already begun dealing with PTSD's demons in treatment helped them toward that end.
Having been diagnosed with PTSD years ago myself (childhood trauma, not combat), and being of the same generation, having lived through those years of turmoil and horror that were Vietnam, I relate all too well to these vets. And by extension, I understand what all the soldiers, sailors, airmen and marines who have followed in their tracks since are going through as well. I've been talking about this subject to everyone who will listen ever since the first Gulf War.
The battles these veterans have to fight AFTER their tours of duty are in many ways even more difficult than combat experiences. And you have to consider that while they're involved in active fighting, especially on foreign soil, they have their close friendships with other troops to provide a great deal of support. This is something that is immediately gone when they return to their "normal lives back home."
Most of them find it very difficult to even talk about their experiences and the savage symptoms of PTSD that bring their lives to wrack and ruin in pretty short order after they get back. They know that others who haven't "been there" simply cannot understand in any deep way the emotional impact and effects of their war experiences.
They were also trained to the max to be strong and not to give in to normal human feelings of empathy or sympathy for others -- or for themselves! Signs of weakness were considered a very big liability, and so they learned very well the habit of stuffing their feelings, trying to ignore them. They contained as best they could their fear and sorrow and wrenching, roiling pain of losing buddies and witnessing atrocities of war. Maybe worst of all, they have to live with what they themselves have done -- the killing and wounding of others, the destruction of homes and livelihoods and taking of innocent lives.
But the fact is most humans don't do well when they continue to try to hold in and bury such powerful emotions. They try to carry on, but at some point their intrusive symptoms reduce them to a state where they simply can no longer cope with daily life.
I know from personal experience that hypervigilance alone can make you feel stark raving crazy. One Navy corpsman (medic) Nam vet I am very close to was so hypervigilant that he was constantly jerking his head around at the slightest noise even 30 years later and in the safe and lonely confines of his very own home of many years! He had three Purple Hearts and a Bronze Star, having performed heroic measures during several incidents incountry in the late 60's. He was one of the medics the Navy trains who "humped the boonies" right alongside the Marine grunts.
The VA ignored Ken until it was finally no longer possible for him to function -- then they started medicating him into a stupor. He had a car accident driving while overmedicated and nearly died. Then he lay in his own piss and shit in a VA hospital in Virginia, suffering the horrors of the damned alone, until a fellow vet visited him there and contacted a group of vets and friends online about Ken's deplorable conditions. We raised hell and made calls and wrote letters, and Ken was immediately rescued and given star treatment -- but I know the conditions for most others even in that same facility didn't improve much, if at all.
If they don't have someone close to them who can tolerate their behavior and stick it out with them, constantly helping them to cope and also to seek and persistently DEMAND the treatment that they need and deserve from the VA and the broader society in which they live -- what they were PROMISED when they signed up ("first rate health care for life!"), veterans can be left to endure the most horrible fates imaginable in this country they either volunteered or were drafted to "defend."
And remember the eruption of violence into the public domestic sphere like what happened at Virginia Tech yesterday tends to be "contagious" in some sense.
Imagine how many Iraq and Afghanistan vets are watching all this news coverage, and thinking about how close they sometimes feel to a personal explosion of "mindless" violence! The Korean man who caused so much death and destruction on that campus had only two handguns, too, according to reports so far. Imagine an angry, suffering vet's thoughts on how much damage HE could do with much more weaponry, such as the vet in this OP story had....
I started predicting such events as in the OP more loudly ever since I learned they were sending Iraq vets with PTSD symptoms right back into action over there, maybe with medication but with under-diagnoses that are disgracefully but intentionally given.
Their anger at the betrayal they're receiving at the hands of the VA and the government in general -- and possibly in their minds by the public as well, and I can't disagree with them on that for the most part -- just builds and builds as they continue on over time without adequate attention, intervention, and treatment. What they get instead of a proper response, when they do try to get help from the VA, is a cold shoulder at best and outright putdowns and denials of their suffering at worst.
Endless delays, screwed-up appointments, ignoring their urgent needs, treating them like flakes or defectives who should be ashamed ... all that is routine from the VA system. All the while the system is running out the clock on these vets, knowing many will either give up or die.
We're in for a very long time of seeing this sort of outrage in our country. I feel for the vets and their families from the deepest part of me, and I hope that America's citizens WAKE UP to this very serious problem before we see too many incidents like the above to count....
Iraq war veteran holds hostage, wants treatment
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