Thursday, February 14, 2008

Iraq Veteran Seeks Help Then Shot By Police After Stabbing

Update
Sanabria was redeployed under stop-loss. He didn't want to go back. He was already having problems.

Sanabria joined the Army after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks and, as part of the 41st Field Artillery Regiment, was in Iraq five years ago as part of the U.S. invasion.

He did not plan to re-enlist after he came home. But he was later sent back to Iraq as part of the military’s stop-loss policy. He told The Press of Atlantic City in a 2004 interview that he did not want to go back. He was not afraid, he said, but he had been having nightmares about combat.
http://www.armytimes.com/news/2008/02/ap_vetkilled_080215/




Police Kill Veteran Stabbing His Stepfather

POSTED: 8:26 am EST February 14, 2008

BRIDGETON, N.J. -- In the last 10 days of his life, German Sanabria told his family that someone was trying to kill him.

It turned out to be a self-fulfilling prophecy.

A Bridgeton police officer fatally shot the 26-year-old Iraq war veteran Wednesday morning after being unable to stop the man as police say he stabbed his stepfather repeatedly with a steak knife.


A relative said that Sanabria came back a different, harder man when he returned from his second tour of duty in Iraq about a year ago.

But it was only after he watched the Super Bowl at a club in Vineland on Feb. 3 that he seemed deeply paranoid and suicidal, said Celia Ray, a cousin of Sanabria's mother who lives nearby.

"He got in trouble at this place," Ray said. "He thought someone from there was after him to kill him."

Ray said she did not know whether the trouble was real or imagined -- but it did concern the family enough that relatives sought psychiatric help for him at two places in the last week.

On Feb. 8, she said, the family called a crisis center at a local hospital. He was taken there by ambulance, but was discharged after a few hours.

Three days later, Ray and other relatives were there when they took him to the Veterans Affairs hospital in Philadelphia. The family stayed in a waiting room while he went for tests. But he never returned, she said.

He had left the hospital, a staff member told them.

go here for the rest
http://www.nbc10.com/news/15299590/detail.html

Discharged after a few hours? Why would they do that? Then the VA let him just walk out the door? The family did every thing right. They tried to get him help. Why didn't the VA do their job? Why does this keep happening?

linked from ICasualties.org

2 comments:

  1. WHERE IS THE JUSTICE AND THE PROPER MEDICAL CARE FOR THESE VETERANS WHO GIVE THEIR LIFE FOR THEIR COUNTRY. HE LEFT THE HOSPITAL AND NOBOBY TOLD THE FAMILY. HOW SAD IS THAT?!??!? POST-TRAUMATIC STRESS DISORDER - IT IS CALLED POST TRAUMATIC, BECAUSE IF YOU LOOK IT UP IN THE DICTIONARY POST MEANS - AFTER, LATER. THE ONLY CONSOLATION TO THIS IS THAT THIS SEVERELY TRAUMATIZED MAN IS NOW AT PEACE. LET US PRAY FOR HIS FAMILY.

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  2. It's appalling! It's a sin to treat them like this! But they won't stop unless the American people in this country show their outrage by contacting their politicians from their own Mayor all the way up to the President. Bush will be the President until January and he has a responsibility to the men and women he sends to risk their lives. Every elected official has a responsibility to them. Hold them all accountable! It's up to you and me to get this right for the sake of the troops and our veterans.

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