PTSD led to deadly encounter over traffic ticket

If you want to know how everything can converge to fail, this is it.

Dusty was diagnosed with PTSD but didn't want to go for help. So much for the outreach the DOD has been doing all these years to make it ok to seek help.

Dusty had a supportive family and they tried to get him to the help he needed to heal from where he'd been. Family support is key to helping them heal but even that was not enough to prevent what was to come from a simple traffic ticket.

Dusty had faith and went to church. We tell them that they need to take care of their spiritual healing as much as their "mental healing" and that didn't work.

Dusty and his family were failed by everything we're told is being done for these veterans. The Sheriff's department was failed too because now they have to face the fact that another veteran was killed because he didn't get what he needed to heal.

Family: PTSD led to deadly encounter
WCAX.com
Posted: Jan 10, 2013
By Matt Henson

ALTONA, N.Y.
It's been an emotional two and a half weeks for Sheila and Edward Clark.

"My world is going to be radically changed," Sheila said.

"It's been tough, it's been tough," Edward said.

Their 28-year-old son, Dusty, was shot and killed by a Clinton County deputy sheriff two weeks ago. Dusty allegedly pulled a knife out when officers went to his home in Altona to arrest him for failing to appear in court for an ongoing traffic ticket.

"PTSD is what brought this all on, I think," Edward said.

The Clarks say their son was not a violent person, but a young man who struggled with post-traumatic stress disorder. He spent four years in the Marines. But in 2009 he was diagnosed with PTSD and was not allowed to re-enlist.

"His struggle to fit into this world and wanting to be still in the Marine Corps was just tough for him," Sheila said.

His parents say they noticed a dramatic change in his behavior. Dusty isolated himself, would go days without sleeping, thought people were after him and even walked 25 miles in the woods from his home in Altona to his mother's in Plattsburgh.

"I asked him, 'what are you doing for it? Are you getting help for it?' He said, 'I don't feel like I have anything wrong with me, mom,'" Sheila said.

Just a few weeks before the fatal encounter with police, Dusty Clark's father called the New York State Police to come check on his son. He told them he was acting strange.

"I told them, I think he needs to be medicated, and they tried, tried and tried again to get him to go to the hospital and get checked out," Edward said.

On Dec. 30, Dusty went to church with his mother like they did every Sunday. He served as an altar boy and was an active member of the church's fundraising efforts. After church, she gave him several hundred dollars to settle the traffic violations.
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Former Marine killed by sheriff's deputy had PTSD

Why does the NRA want you to be afraid?

There is a rumor going around that President Obama said he is going to take guns away. Not that it is anything new because the NRA folks have been pushing that for a lot of years now and it didn't matter if it was true or not back then anymore than it matters now. There is a nasty little trick being play on the American people, especially gun owners and it coming from "gun rights" advocates. They love to edit things to make them sound the way they want. The latest one is all over the web so if you received an email about it, this is the real video from what Joe Biden said.
Ask yourself why they want you to be afraid. It means you buy more guns from their contributors and load up on bullets too. The more you are afraid, the more money they make. Nice work coming out of a group that is all about defending yourself when they are the ones doing the nightmare on Elm street gig.

Soldier in Afghanistan marries wife in Georgia via Skype

Soldier, fiancé married over Skype
Jan 9, 2013
9NEWS

KUSA - A Georgia couple didn't let thousands of miles stop them from getting their happily ever after.

Jacqueline Durham's fiancé, Trey, is stationed in Afghanistan. When he proposed, after two years of dating, the couple decided they just couldn't wait for him to get home to have the wedding.

They decided to tie the knot via Skype.
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Tony Perkins wants Marines to "just pray"

Conservative Pundit Ridicules US Marines For Yoga PTSD Prevention
Business Insider
Geoffrey Ingersoll
Jan. 9, 2013

A few weeks ago we wrote about the U.S. Marines including Yoga in a prevention and therapy approach to post traumatic stress.

Well, conservative talk show host Tony Perkins, president of the Christian right think tank Family Research, decided that kind of mumbo jumbo has no place in 'Merica's fine military — and that instead soldiers should just pray.
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Canadian soldier's suicide subject of major hearing

Canadian soldier’s suicide should spur change, lawyer argues
Published on Wednesday January 09, 2013
Stephanie Levitz
The Canadian Press

OTTAWA—The pain and suffering endured by the family of an Edmonton soldier who killed himself should be used a springboard for systemic changes to the treatment of veterans and their loved ones, the family’s lawyer said Wednesday.

The investigation into the 2008 suicide of Cpl. Stuart Langridge was handled in an inept and inexperienced manner, retired colonel Michel Drapeau told the Military Police Complaints Commission hearing.

“It has created an extra layer of pain and turmoil that was preventable and correctable, had a modicum of transparency, accountability and basic compassion been displayed from senior military leaders,” Drapeau said.

After eight months of work and 92 witnesses, the hearing was on its final day Wednesday, with Drapeau and lawyers for the government pressing their case for a final time.

Langridge, a veteran of Afghanistan and Bosnia, hanged himself in March 2008 after being ordered back to base following treatment for drug and alcohol addiction in a civilian hospital.

His family contends the military treated him as a malcontent, and that helped drive him over the edge.

Langridge’s reasons for taking his own life aren’t for the hearing to decide, said Drapeau. What matters, he argued, is how the investigation was carried out.
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