From the link above... click link for entire story....
TOOELE, Utah — Not long after Lance Cpl. Walter Rollo Smith returned from Iraq, the Marines dispatched him to Quantico, Va., for a marksmanship instructor course.
Mr. Smith, then a 21-year-old Marine Corps reservist from Utah, had been shaken to the core by the intensity of his experience during the invasion of Iraq. Once a squeaky-clean Mormon boy who aspired to serve a mission abroad, he had come home a smoker and drinker, unsure if he believed in God.
In Quantico, he reported to the firing range with a friend from Fox Company, the combined Salt Lake City-Las Vegas battalion nicknamed the Saints and Sinners. Raising his rifle, he stared through the scope and started shaking. What he saw were not the inanimate targets before him but vivid, hallucinatory images of Iraq: “the cars coming at us, the chaos, the dust, the women and children, the bodies we left behind,” he said.
Each time he squeezed the trigger, Mr. Smith cried, harder and harder until he was, in his own words, “bawling on the rifle range, which marines just do not do.” Mortified, he allowed himself to be pulled away. And not long afterward, the Marines began processing his medical discharge for post-traumatic stress disorder, severing his link to the Reserve unit that anchored him and sending him off to seek help from veterans hospitals.
The incident on the firing range was the first “red flag,” as the prosecutor in Tooele County, Utah, termed it, that Mr. Smith sent up as he gradually disintegrated psychologically. At his lowest point, in March 2006, he killed Nicole Marie Speirs, the 22-year-old mother of his twin children, drowning her in a bathtub without any evident provocation or reason.
“There was no intent,” said Gary K. Searle, the deputy Tooele County attorney. “It was almost like things kept ratcheting up, without any real intervention that I can see, until one day he snapped.”
Saturday, January 19, 2008
Friday, January 18, 2008
2 Below-
There are two articles below this one. One is about the violence perpetrated by rogue veterans after serving in Iraq and Afganistan. One is a strong reaction agains that kind of reporting. Both are valid arguments.
Is it responsible journalism to sensationalize the few killers who have returned from battle in foreign lands, only to unleash that fury on Americans?
Is it responsible journalism to highlight the plight of PTSD affected veterans who have returned from war only to find that they can't fit back into society, and find it easier to revert to their skill, stealth killing, as a solution to the new stress?
Is it responsible to rant about how that makes these people lepers and it just isn't fair to defame these valiant heroes?
I am on the fence. I am on the fence after living, breathing and co-existing with a veteran. I am on the fence about telling people honestly what anger can do. I am on the fence of personal privacy, which keeps me from saying yes, they sure are armed, wouldn't you be if you if your gun meant your life...
Not everyone comes back and shifts right in. On the contrary, going to Iraq fresh out of high school, a young adult has little coping strategies for making it in society. Also, upon return the young person sees friends that are more established and it is frustrating. Especially if he or she is still taking a knee at the boom of the fourth of July show, or when a car backfires. You start to feel like a freak, a freak who has lost time. A freak that has valuable skill on a battle field and no commensurate skill or task in society.
It seems easier to just go back.
Not only might these folks lack everyday coping strategies and decision making skills, but they have all new burdens. A combat vet can have exposure to spent uranium, traumatic brain injury, digestion problems, and PTSD. A combat vet can have fewer limbs, constant pain, and the possibility of never returning to what was known before deployment. How many deaths, howmany friends lost, how many images are stuck in that man or woman's head? It just isn't easy or pretty for many returning home.
"Two years of shells and bombs, a man's not
likely to peel that off like a sock" from All Quiet on the Western Front
Not all veterans are the same. My friends in blue seem to have limitless support to help them with any and all prolbems. My friends in green, the ones with the pretty blue braid or the ones with the medic patch, they aren't the same.
If they aren't the same, we can't generalize. What we can do as a society is provide real loving support, real medical support, real lifetime support. It means more than waving a flag on that one day, or visiting that one memorial that one time. It means work, and when it really comes down to it, most folks would rather pop open a drink and zone out to the boob tube.
We really shouldn't fear the unknown veteran, we should fear the unknown consequences of knowingly turning our back on our own creations.
When you get past all the blue state red state, gun ownership, self-righteousness, what we lack is a logical connection between our actions, our politics and the outcomes in society. We seem to get far enough to question authority, but we don't question who benefits from the lobbyists and the business behind the authority.
Who really benefits from this war, would they benefit from recognizing a problem with the combat veterans, their quality of life or what we really owe them in society? Would they?
Is it responsible journalism to sensationalize the few killers who have returned from battle in foreign lands, only to unleash that fury on Americans?
Is it responsible journalism to highlight the plight of PTSD affected veterans who have returned from war only to find that they can't fit back into society, and find it easier to revert to their skill, stealth killing, as a solution to the new stress?
Is it responsible to rant about how that makes these people lepers and it just isn't fair to defame these valiant heroes?
I am on the fence. I am on the fence after living, breathing and co-existing with a veteran. I am on the fence about telling people honestly what anger can do. I am on the fence of personal privacy, which keeps me from saying yes, they sure are armed, wouldn't you be if you if your gun meant your life...
Not everyone comes back and shifts right in. On the contrary, going to Iraq fresh out of high school, a young adult has little coping strategies for making it in society. Also, upon return the young person sees friends that are more established and it is frustrating. Especially if he or she is still taking a knee at the boom of the fourth of July show, or when a car backfires. You start to feel like a freak, a freak who has lost time. A freak that has valuable skill on a battle field and no commensurate skill or task in society.
It seems easier to just go back.
Not only might these folks lack everyday coping strategies and decision making skills, but they have all new burdens. A combat vet can have exposure to spent uranium, traumatic brain injury, digestion problems, and PTSD. A combat vet can have fewer limbs, constant pain, and the possibility of never returning to what was known before deployment. How many deaths, howmany friends lost, how many images are stuck in that man or woman's head? It just isn't easy or pretty for many returning home.
"Two years of shells and bombs, a man's not
likely to peel that off like a sock" from All Quiet on the Western Front
Not all veterans are the same. My friends in blue seem to have limitless support to help them with any and all prolbems. My friends in green, the ones with the pretty blue braid or the ones with the medic patch, they aren't the same.
If they aren't the same, we can't generalize. What we can do as a society is provide real loving support, real medical support, real lifetime support. It means more than waving a flag on that one day, or visiting that one memorial that one time. It means work, and when it really comes down to it, most folks would rather pop open a drink and zone out to the boob tube.
We really shouldn't fear the unknown veteran, we should fear the unknown consequences of knowingly turning our back on our own creations.
When you get past all the blue state red state, gun ownership, self-righteousness, what we lack is a logical connection between our actions, our politics and the outcomes in society. We seem to get far enough to question authority, but we don't question who benefits from the lobbyists and the business behind the authority.
Who really benefits from this war, would they benefit from recognizing a problem with the combat veterans, their quality of life or what we really owe them in society? Would they?
The New Lepers (New York Post) click title for link
THE NEW 'LEPERS'
THE TIMES' TROUBLE WITH VETS
Defending America: That's why the Times insists he's a freak.
January 18, 2008 -- I'VE had a huge response to Tuesday's column about The New York Times' obscene bid to smear veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan as mad killers. Countless readers seem to be wondering: Why did the paper do it?
Well, in the Middle Ages, lepers had to carry bells on pain of death to warn the uninfected they were coming. One suspects that the Times would like our military veterans to do the same.
The purpose of Sunday's instantly notorious feature "alerting" the American people that our Iraq and Afghanistan vets are all potential murderers when they move in next door was to mark those defenders of freedom as "unclean" - as the new lepers who can't be trusted amid uninfected Americans.
In the more than six years since 9/11, the Times has never run a feature story half as long on any of the hundreds of heroes who've served our country - those who've won medals of honor, distinguished service crosses, Navy crosses, silver stars or bronze stars with a V device (for valor).
But the Times put a major investigative effort into the "sensational" story that 121 returning vets had committed capital offenses (of course, 20 percent of the cases cited involved manslaughter charges stemming from drunken driving, not first- or second-degree murder . . . ).
Well, a quick statistics check let the air out of the Times' bid to make us dread the veteran down the block - who the Times implies has a machine gun under his bathrobe when he steps out front to fetch the morning paper. In fact, the capital-crimes rate ballyhooed by the Gray Lady demonstrates that our returning troops are far less likely to commit such an offense.
Again, the Times' smear certainly wasn't an accident. The paper's staff is highly paid and highly experienced. Its editors know that a serious news story has to put numbers into context. But their sole attempt at context was to note that offenses by former soldiers have ticked up since we went to war.
The Times is trying to make you fear our veterans (Good Lord, if your daughter marries one, she's bound to be beaten to death!). And to convince you that our military would be a dreadful place for your sons and daughters, a death-machine that would turn them into incurable psychopaths.
To a darkly humorous degree, all this reflects the Freudian terrors leftists feel when confronted with men who don't have concave chests. But it goes far beyond that.
Pretending to pity tormented veterans (vets don't want our pity - they want our respect), the Times' feature was an artful example of hate-speech disguised as a public service.
The image we all were supposed to take away from that story was of hopelessly damaged, victimized, infected human beings who've become outcasts from civilized society. The Times cast our vets as freaks from a slasher flick.
The hard left's hatred of our military has deteriorated from a political stance into a pathology: The only good soldier is a dead soldier who can be wielded as a statistic (out of context again). Or a deserter who complains bitterly that he didn't join the Army to fight . . .
At the risk of turning to anecdotal evidence - a technique much-abused by the left - I have to declare that I personally know hundreds of veterans. (Can anyone at the Times head office make that claim?) Not a single one of them has committed a crime worse than exceeding the speed limit on the Interstate.
Not one vet I know is in prison for a crime he or she committed after taking off the uniform. And in nearly 22 years of active service, I encountered only two soldiers who committed violent crimes (no murders).
Contrary to the Times, veterans are consistently among the most upstanding members of their communities. They volunteer. They vote. They take pride in being good neighbors. And those I know have raised their children more successfully than the average liberal household.
But what's the image that the left, whether the Times or the silly people in Hollywood, presents to us? Vets are nuts. Violently nuts. They kill their neighbors. They kill their own kind. And they're just waiting for the right moment of madness to kill you.
A longstanding goal of the left, recently invigorated, has been to drive a wedge between our military and our society. The real vet is the neighbor who fixes your kid's bike (or your computer). But the left's archetypal vet is the Marine colonel in "American Beauty" who, frustrated in his suppressed gay passions, murders poor Kevin Spacey.
Yes, war is a terrible crucible. Some vets, past and present, do need help. And they deserve the best help our country can give them. But the left-wing fantasy of hordes of psychotics driven mad by drill sergeants and Army chow is just that: a fantasy.
Of course, if the Times responds at all to the storm of protests their insult to our veterans aroused, the editors will try to fudge the numbers in their favor. You just can't argue with ideologues. They lie and they cheat. And they justify it as being for the greater good of ignorant fools like us.
So let me suggest the best-possible revenge on the veteran-trashing jerks at The New York Times: Instead of fleeing in terror the next time you see a veteran you know, just thank him or her for their service.
And let's save the leper's bells for dishonest journalists.
Ralph Peters is a retired Army officer who has yet to kill any of his neighbors (although they'd better keep their grass cut).
THE TIMES' TROUBLE WITH VETS
Defending America: That's why the Times insists he's a freak.
January 18, 2008 -- I'VE had a huge response to Tuesday's column about The New York Times' obscene bid to smear veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan as mad killers. Countless readers seem to be wondering: Why did the paper do it?
Well, in the Middle Ages, lepers had to carry bells on pain of death to warn the uninfected they were coming. One suspects that the Times would like our military veterans to do the same.
The purpose of Sunday's instantly notorious feature "alerting" the American people that our Iraq and Afghanistan vets are all potential murderers when they move in next door was to mark those defenders of freedom as "unclean" - as the new lepers who can't be trusted amid uninfected Americans.
In the more than six years since 9/11, the Times has never run a feature story half as long on any of the hundreds of heroes who've served our country - those who've won medals of honor, distinguished service crosses, Navy crosses, silver stars or bronze stars with a V device (for valor).
But the Times put a major investigative effort into the "sensational" story that 121 returning vets had committed capital offenses (of course, 20 percent of the cases cited involved manslaughter charges stemming from drunken driving, not first- or second-degree murder . . . ).
Well, a quick statistics check let the air out of the Times' bid to make us dread the veteran down the block - who the Times implies has a machine gun under his bathrobe when he steps out front to fetch the morning paper. In fact, the capital-crimes rate ballyhooed by the Gray Lady demonstrates that our returning troops are far less likely to commit such an offense.
Again, the Times' smear certainly wasn't an accident. The paper's staff is highly paid and highly experienced. Its editors know that a serious news story has to put numbers into context. But their sole attempt at context was to note that offenses by former soldiers have ticked up since we went to war.
The Times is trying to make you fear our veterans (Good Lord, if your daughter marries one, she's bound to be beaten to death!). And to convince you that our military would be a dreadful place for your sons and daughters, a death-machine that would turn them into incurable psychopaths.
To a darkly humorous degree, all this reflects the Freudian terrors leftists feel when confronted with men who don't have concave chests. But it goes far beyond that.
Pretending to pity tormented veterans (vets don't want our pity - they want our respect), the Times' feature was an artful example of hate-speech disguised as a public service.
The image we all were supposed to take away from that story was of hopelessly damaged, victimized, infected human beings who've become outcasts from civilized society. The Times cast our vets as freaks from a slasher flick.
The hard left's hatred of our military has deteriorated from a political stance into a pathology: The only good soldier is a dead soldier who can be wielded as a statistic (out of context again). Or a deserter who complains bitterly that he didn't join the Army to fight . . .
At the risk of turning to anecdotal evidence - a technique much-abused by the left - I have to declare that I personally know hundreds of veterans. (Can anyone at the Times head office make that claim?) Not a single one of them has committed a crime worse than exceeding the speed limit on the Interstate.
Not one vet I know is in prison for a crime he or she committed after taking off the uniform. And in nearly 22 years of active service, I encountered only two soldiers who committed violent crimes (no murders).
Contrary to the Times, veterans are consistently among the most upstanding members of their communities. They volunteer. They vote. They take pride in being good neighbors. And those I know have raised their children more successfully than the average liberal household.
But what's the image that the left, whether the Times or the silly people in Hollywood, presents to us? Vets are nuts. Violently nuts. They kill their neighbors. They kill their own kind. And they're just waiting for the right moment of madness to kill you.
A longstanding goal of the left, recently invigorated, has been to drive a wedge between our military and our society. The real vet is the neighbor who fixes your kid's bike (or your computer). But the left's archetypal vet is the Marine colonel in "American Beauty" who, frustrated in his suppressed gay passions, murders poor Kevin Spacey.
Yes, war is a terrible crucible. Some vets, past and present, do need help. And they deserve the best help our country can give them. But the left-wing fantasy of hordes of psychotics driven mad by drill sergeants and Army chow is just that: a fantasy.
Of course, if the Times responds at all to the storm of protests their insult to our veterans aroused, the editors will try to fudge the numbers in their favor. You just can't argue with ideologues. They lie and they cheat. And they justify it as being for the greater good of ignorant fools like us.
So let me suggest the best-possible revenge on the veteran-trashing jerks at The New York Times: Instead of fleeing in terror the next time you see a veteran you know, just thank him or her for their service.
And let's save the leper's bells for dishonest journalists.
Ralph Peters is a retired Army officer who has yet to kill any of his neighbors (although they'd better keep their grass cut).
Monday, January 14, 2008
Report: 121 vets charged in deaths after tours
The Associated Press
Posted : Monday Jan 14, 2008 12:56:22 EST
NEW YORK — At least 121 Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans have committed a killing or been charged in one in the U.S. after returning from combat, The New York Times reported Sunday.
The newspaper said it also logged 349 homicides involving all active-duty military personnel and new veterans in the six years since military action began in Afghanistan, and later Iraq. That represents an 89 percent increase over the previous six-year period, the newspaper said.
About three-quarters of those homicides involved Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans, the newspaper said. The report did not illuminate the exact relationship between those cases and the 121 killings also mentioned in the report.
The newspaper said its research involved searching local news reports, examining police, court and military records and interviewing defendants, their lawyers and families, victims’ families and military and law enforcement officials.
Defense Department representatives did not immediately respond to a telephone message early Sunday. The Times said the military agency declined to comment, saying it could not reproduce the paper’s research.
A military spokesman, Lt. Col. Les Melnyk, questioned the report’s premise and research methods, the newspaper said. He said it aggregated crimes ranging from involuntary manslaughter to murder, and he suggested the apparent increase in homicides involving military personnel and veterans in the wartime period might reflect only “an increase in awareness of military service by reporters since 9/11.”
Neither the Pentagon nor the federal Justice Department track such killings, generally prosecuted in state civilian courts, according to the Times.
The 121 killings ranged from shootings and stabbings to bathtub drownings and fatal car crashes resulting from drunken driving, the newspaper said. All but one of those implicated was male.
About a third of the victims were girlfriends or relatives, including a 2-year-old girl slain by her 20-year-old father while he was recovering from wounds sustained in Iraq.
A quarter of the victims were military personnel. One was stabbed and set afire by fellow soldiers a day after they all returned from Iraq.
Posted : Monday Jan 14, 2008 12:56:22 EST
NEW YORK — At least 121 Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans have committed a killing or been charged in one in the U.S. after returning from combat, The New York Times reported Sunday.
The newspaper said it also logged 349 homicides involving all active-duty military personnel and new veterans in the six years since military action began in Afghanistan, and later Iraq. That represents an 89 percent increase over the previous six-year period, the newspaper said.
About three-quarters of those homicides involved Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans, the newspaper said. The report did not illuminate the exact relationship between those cases and the 121 killings also mentioned in the report.
The newspaper said its research involved searching local news reports, examining police, court and military records and interviewing defendants, their lawyers and families, victims’ families and military and law enforcement officials.
Defense Department representatives did not immediately respond to a telephone message early Sunday. The Times said the military agency declined to comment, saying it could not reproduce the paper’s research.
A military spokesman, Lt. Col. Les Melnyk, questioned the report’s premise and research methods, the newspaper said. He said it aggregated crimes ranging from involuntary manslaughter to murder, and he suggested the apparent increase in homicides involving military personnel and veterans in the wartime period might reflect only “an increase in awareness of military service by reporters since 9/11.”
Neither the Pentagon nor the federal Justice Department track such killings, generally prosecuted in state civilian courts, according to the Times.
The 121 killings ranged from shootings and stabbings to bathtub drownings and fatal car crashes resulting from drunken driving, the newspaper said. All but one of those implicated was male.
About a third of the victims were girlfriends or relatives, including a 2-year-old girl slain by her 20-year-old father while he was recovering from wounds sustained in Iraq.
A quarter of the victims were military personnel. One was stabbed and set afire by fellow soldiers a day after they all returned from Iraq.
Thursday, January 03, 2008
Moms in the Service to Their Wounded... from Military.com. click link
Moms in Service to Their Wounded
Associated Press | January 02, 2008
SAN ANTONIO, Texas - Rose Lage swears it is true:
Suddenly, in the midst of a fitful night of sleep last
June, she knew that her son had been injured in Iraq.
"I heard my son's voice," she recalls. "It might sound
weird, but I heard him holler 'Mama!'"
It turned out U.S. Army Staff Sgt. Michael Lage was
the only survivor of a blast that killed four others.
He suffered third-degree burns to nearly half his
body; part of his nose and ears were missing, and his
face, scalp, arms and torso were seared. His left hand
had to be amputated.
Rose Lage, 54, understood her son's life would change.
But she did not understand how much her own quiet life
- a life spent playing with grandkids, fishing and
preparing for her husband's retirement - would change,
as well.
She would exchange her two-story house in Atlanta for
a hotel room on an Army post, watch her nest egg
shrink and spend her days helping a 30-year-old son
change bandages and wriggle into garments meant to
reduce scarring.
The sacrifices of injured Soldiers, airmen and Marines
are recognized with medals and commendations. But the
mothers and wives who arrive here wide-eyed and afraid
make their own sacrifices - abandoning jobs and homes
and delaying retirement to help their wounded children
reclaim their lives.
"The women here are the heroes, every bit the heroes
as their Soldiers," said Judith Markelz, who runs a
4-year-old program to aid the families of injured
Soldiers sent here for treatment. "These kids could
not survive without their women."
---
The patients who arrive at Fort Sam Houston are among
the worst wounded in war, suffering the kind of
injuries that killed their predecessors in earlier
conflicts.
So far, about 600 burn victims and 250 amputees have
been sent here to recover at the Army's only burn
center and at an amputee rehabilitation program set up
since the start of the Iraq war.
Their injuries will take multiple surgeries and months
or years of recovery and rehabilitation.
When the injured arrive, fathers and siblings often
come for the first surgeries. But the wives and
mothers most often stay, Markelz said. They quit jobs,
give up health insurance and abandon homes.
"None of us realized people were going to be here two
years. That's not your normal hospital stay," Markelz
said. "They didn't want to make San Antonio their
home. Now, they can vote here."
Markelz, the wife of a retired army officer, was hired
four years ago to start the Warrior and Family Support
Center, a program that has grown from a few computers
in converted conference rooms to a catchall program
for families of the wounded.
The Army provides housing for families in a post hotel
or at one of the Fisher Houses, family-style dorms
with a living room, kitchen and dining room. But most
arrive with few or no friends and with little
understanding of what they or their wounded family
member will face.
"They come in with their purses like this," said
Markelz, hugging her chest. "They look like a deer in
headlights."
The assistance center - which will move to a new
12,000-square-foot (110-square-meter) building next
year - provides meals, a place for baffled family
members to seek advice, rides to shopping, just about
anything Markelz's staff can do to help.
Among the family members here for the long haul, about
half are wives and half mothers.
Markelz said it is especially hard on wives of
guardsmen and reservists and on middle-aged mothers of
Soldiers - women who had well-established civilian
lives away from the typically nomadic life of active
military families.
"They didn't sign up for that," she said.
---
Staff Sgt. Michael Lage had always been an independent
kid. The youngest of three and the only boy, he was
the first to leave home. He joined the Army at 18.
He served two full tours in Iraq, first in 2003 and
again two years later.
Through both tours, his mother prayed and lit a yellow
candle every day at a shrine fashioned from his photo,
angel figurines and military mementos in front of her
fireplace in Atlanta. She continued the ritual when he
was deployed a third time in May.
But less than a month later, his Bradley Fighting
Vehicle was hit by a bomb in Baghdad. Lage was the
only one who managed to crawl out or get blown free of
the wreckage. He was on fire, still carrying his gun,
witnesses later told his family.
Rose Lage and her husband, Larry, arrived in San
Antonio to find Michael in intensive care in a
medically induced coma. He was covered in bandages
with tubes coming in and out of his body.
His mother recognized her son by his long dark
eyelashes.
But she wasn't allowed to touch him, couldn't embrace
him the way she longed to.
"It took everything I had to be strong," she said, her
voice breaking.
Now, six months have passed since she arrived in San
Antonio with one large suitcase.
Her husband stayed as long as he could, but he had to
return to work after the couple tapped their
retirement savings for months.
Her two daughters, too, have come to help, but they
have their own homes and young children to care for.
Rose has not gone anywhere.
Pieces of her wardrobe have arrived with family
members as the seasons changed and as she lost weight
from crisscrossing the post on foot. A few photos of
grandchildren have gone up around the hotel room,
along with American Indian charms meant to protect
against nightmares.
Rose has cobbled together an unexpected life here,
learning her way around town and building new routines
and friendships.
Days of housekeeping and care for grandchildren have
been replaced with new routines: the careful wrapping
of gauze around reddened skin, vigilant adherence to
medication regiments, the zipping and buttoning of
Michael's clothes.
"We've given up a lot for him," Rose concedes, sitting
in a hotel room where a giant flag signed by her son's
unit hangs. "We'd give up a lot more for him."
Michael is grateful for his mother's help, but parents
and adult children living together can get on each
other's nerves. The close quarters and the stress
chafe.
"I appreciate her being here, but living in a small
hotel room with your mom tends to wear on you a bit,"
Michael says.
A career Soldier and divorced father of 8-year-old
twins, he never dreamed he'd be living with or reliant
on his mother at age 30. (His son and daughter live in
Tennessee with their mother.)
Even as a child, he was never good at asking for help,
Rose says.
"That's what annoys her most: I never ask for help,"
he says.
Rose struggles, too, because she knows he doesn't tell
her everything. He holds back some of the emotional
and mental struggles that come with such serious
injuries and with the memories of friends lost at war.
"It's been very hard because I know he is frustrated
because I'm a mom and I haven't been there. I guess he
thinks I don't know what's going on," she says.
"They forget that you're a person. You have a life,
that you have feelings."
---
The Lages both finally left San Antonio on Dec. 15 for
a Christmas trip to see Michael's children and other
family and friends.
But Michael must return in January to face a series of
surgeries to reconstruct his elbow, and eventually his
amputated arm and his nose and ears. It will probably
take another year of treatment and rehabilitation.
That means Rose will be back, too.
"I will always be here for him no matter what. He can
always depend on me. I will never leave him," she
says, looking at Michael. "I'll be here for my other
kids, too. That's what a mom's for. I would give up my
life for him, and if I could give him my other hand, I
would."
At that, Michael quickly brushes away a tear, and his
mother adds one last thing: "He's my baby."
Associated Press | January 02, 2008
SAN ANTONIO, Texas - Rose Lage swears it is true:
Suddenly, in the midst of a fitful night of sleep last
June, she knew that her son had been injured in Iraq.
"I heard my son's voice," she recalls. "It might sound
weird, but I heard him holler 'Mama!'"
It turned out U.S. Army Staff Sgt. Michael Lage was
the only survivor of a blast that killed four others.
He suffered third-degree burns to nearly half his
body; part of his nose and ears were missing, and his
face, scalp, arms and torso were seared. His left hand
had to be amputated.
Rose Lage, 54, understood her son's life would change.
But she did not understand how much her own quiet life
- a life spent playing with grandkids, fishing and
preparing for her husband's retirement - would change,
as well.
She would exchange her two-story house in Atlanta for
a hotel room on an Army post, watch her nest egg
shrink and spend her days helping a 30-year-old son
change bandages and wriggle into garments meant to
reduce scarring.
The sacrifices of injured Soldiers, airmen and Marines
are recognized with medals and commendations. But the
mothers and wives who arrive here wide-eyed and afraid
make their own sacrifices - abandoning jobs and homes
and delaying retirement to help their wounded children
reclaim their lives.
"The women here are the heroes, every bit the heroes
as their Soldiers," said Judith Markelz, who runs a
4-year-old program to aid the families of injured
Soldiers sent here for treatment. "These kids could
not survive without their women."
---
The patients who arrive at Fort Sam Houston are among
the worst wounded in war, suffering the kind of
injuries that killed their predecessors in earlier
conflicts.
So far, about 600 burn victims and 250 amputees have
been sent here to recover at the Army's only burn
center and at an amputee rehabilitation program set up
since the start of the Iraq war.
Their injuries will take multiple surgeries and months
or years of recovery and rehabilitation.
When the injured arrive, fathers and siblings often
come for the first surgeries. But the wives and
mothers most often stay, Markelz said. They quit jobs,
give up health insurance and abandon homes.
"None of us realized people were going to be here two
years. That's not your normal hospital stay," Markelz
said. "They didn't want to make San Antonio their
home. Now, they can vote here."
Markelz, the wife of a retired army officer, was hired
four years ago to start the Warrior and Family Support
Center, a program that has grown from a few computers
in converted conference rooms to a catchall program
for families of the wounded.
The Army provides housing for families in a post hotel
or at one of the Fisher Houses, family-style dorms
with a living room, kitchen and dining room. But most
arrive with few or no friends and with little
understanding of what they or their wounded family
member will face.
"They come in with their purses like this," said
Markelz, hugging her chest. "They look like a deer in
headlights."
The assistance center - which will move to a new
12,000-square-foot (110-square-meter) building next
year - provides meals, a place for baffled family
members to seek advice, rides to shopping, just about
anything Markelz's staff can do to help.
Among the family members here for the long haul, about
half are wives and half mothers.
Markelz said it is especially hard on wives of
guardsmen and reservists and on middle-aged mothers of
Soldiers - women who had well-established civilian
lives away from the typically nomadic life of active
military families.
"They didn't sign up for that," she said.
---
Staff Sgt. Michael Lage had always been an independent
kid. The youngest of three and the only boy, he was
the first to leave home. He joined the Army at 18.
He served two full tours in Iraq, first in 2003 and
again two years later.
Through both tours, his mother prayed and lit a yellow
candle every day at a shrine fashioned from his photo,
angel figurines and military mementos in front of her
fireplace in Atlanta. She continued the ritual when he
was deployed a third time in May.
But less than a month later, his Bradley Fighting
Vehicle was hit by a bomb in Baghdad. Lage was the
only one who managed to crawl out or get blown free of
the wreckage. He was on fire, still carrying his gun,
witnesses later told his family.
Rose Lage and her husband, Larry, arrived in San
Antonio to find Michael in intensive care in a
medically induced coma. He was covered in bandages
with tubes coming in and out of his body.
His mother recognized her son by his long dark
eyelashes.
But she wasn't allowed to touch him, couldn't embrace
him the way she longed to.
"It took everything I had to be strong," she said, her
voice breaking.
Now, six months have passed since she arrived in San
Antonio with one large suitcase.
Her husband stayed as long as he could, but he had to
return to work after the couple tapped their
retirement savings for months.
Her two daughters, too, have come to help, but they
have their own homes and young children to care for.
Rose has not gone anywhere.
Pieces of her wardrobe have arrived with family
members as the seasons changed and as she lost weight
from crisscrossing the post on foot. A few photos of
grandchildren have gone up around the hotel room,
along with American Indian charms meant to protect
against nightmares.
Rose has cobbled together an unexpected life here,
learning her way around town and building new routines
and friendships.
Days of housekeeping and care for grandchildren have
been replaced with new routines: the careful wrapping
of gauze around reddened skin, vigilant adherence to
medication regiments, the zipping and buttoning of
Michael's clothes.
"We've given up a lot for him," Rose concedes, sitting
in a hotel room where a giant flag signed by her son's
unit hangs. "We'd give up a lot more for him."
Michael is grateful for his mother's help, but parents
and adult children living together can get on each
other's nerves. The close quarters and the stress
chafe.
"I appreciate her being here, but living in a small
hotel room with your mom tends to wear on you a bit,"
Michael says.
A career Soldier and divorced father of 8-year-old
twins, he never dreamed he'd be living with or reliant
on his mother at age 30. (His son and daughter live in
Tennessee with their mother.)
Even as a child, he was never good at asking for help,
Rose says.
"That's what annoys her most: I never ask for help,"
he says.
Rose struggles, too, because she knows he doesn't tell
her everything. He holds back some of the emotional
and mental struggles that come with such serious
injuries and with the memories of friends lost at war.
"It's been very hard because I know he is frustrated
because I'm a mom and I haven't been there. I guess he
thinks I don't know what's going on," she says.
"They forget that you're a person. You have a life,
that you have feelings."
---
The Lages both finally left San Antonio on Dec. 15 for
a Christmas trip to see Michael's children and other
family and friends.
But Michael must return in January to face a series of
surgeries to reconstruct his elbow, and eventually his
amputated arm and his nose and ears. It will probably
take another year of treatment and rehabilitation.
That means Rose will be back, too.
"I will always be here for him no matter what. He can
always depend on me. I will never leave him," she
says, looking at Michael. "I'll be here for my other
kids, too. That's what a mom's for. I would give up my
life for him, and if I could give him my other hand, I
would."
At that, Michael quickly brushes away a tear, and his
mother adds one last thing: "He's my baby."
Monday, December 03, 2007
HOME FRONT: Far apart on special occasions: AHWATUKEE FOOTHILLS NEWS
I missed Halloween with my kids this year because I was sick in bed. I missed the whole shebang – sprinkling glitter on my princess’ hair, tightening my pirate’s sash and tying a bandana around my cowboy’s neck.
I missed the chicken shish kabobs grilled in a friend’s driveway, and the Tecate offered to the parents congregated in lawn chairs. And obviously I missed trick-or-treating.
Before heading out the door, my oldest son looked upset. He said he really wanted me to go. In 10 years of parenthood I had never missed this annual night on the town. But this year I queasily explained that sometimes life conspires against families, forcing them to be apart on special occasions. I kissed the top of his hat and sent him on his way, realizing the magnitude of my understatement.
Earlier I had spoken with my brother Mike in Iraq. He said a new sergeant had recently arrived from the States to command his vehicle on convoy security missions. This sergeant didn’t deploy with the rest of the unit last June because she was pregnant. She’s since delivered her baby and is now back on the job, joining her husband who is also deployed in Iraq.
These parents are missing more than their baby’s first Halloween; they’re missing the entire first year of their baby’s life. Years ago the Selective Service Board granted Dick Cheney a “hardship” exemption from serving in Vietnam – his hardship being that he was a new father. Policies are no longer so kind to children.
Recently a friend described a scene he observed at the airport. He noticed a commotion surrounding a soldier departing for war. A frantic mother wrestled to unpeel her screaming son who was clenching the soldier’s legs and begging, “Daddy, don’t go!” As soon as the mother ripped the child free, instead of spending the full amount of every last second embracing his family, the soldier had to quickly disappear to avoid more painful drama. My friend said it was the saddest scene he’d ever witnessed, yet it illuminates the grief children feel not just on departure day, but more subtly all deployment long.
People ask me if I think Mike should be in Iraq. It’s a loaded question, one that I can answer in a variety ways. I can start with the invasion and rant about how the president exaggerated threats, how most of the Congress ignored the data that told the truth, how the media did little to demand accountability and how the majority of the citizenry was (and still is) apathetic (elected officials report that very few constituents ever call or write to comment on the war).
Or I could just cut to my answer: Yes! The military is short staffed. To compensate, this year the Defense Department extended the length of deployments to 15 months, longer than any tour in Vietnam. Congress just failed to pass a bill to ensure that soldiers returning from war spend an equal amount of time at home before being redeployed. Soldiers are overscheduled.
So unequivocally yes. Mike should be in Iraq because our military is fighting there, he volunteered to serve, and in doing so he’s replacing a soldier who deserves a turn at home, a place where regular civilian clothes might feel like a costume, and to some child his or her presence is better than candy.
Missy Martin is an 11-year Ahwatukee Foothills resident, mother of three and editor of Bombshells: War Stories and Poems by Women on the Homefront. Her brother, U.S. Army Specialist Michael Dunn, attended Arizona State University and graduated from the University of Montana with a degree in accounting and now provides security on convoys in and out of Iraq. He can be contacted at Spec. Mike Dunn 7th Chem – APO AE09366.
I missed the chicken shish kabobs grilled in a friend’s driveway, and the Tecate offered to the parents congregated in lawn chairs. And obviously I missed trick-or-treating.
Before heading out the door, my oldest son looked upset. He said he really wanted me to go. In 10 years of parenthood I had never missed this annual night on the town. But this year I queasily explained that sometimes life conspires against families, forcing them to be apart on special occasions. I kissed the top of his hat and sent him on his way, realizing the magnitude of my understatement.
Earlier I had spoken with my brother Mike in Iraq. He said a new sergeant had recently arrived from the States to command his vehicle on convoy security missions. This sergeant didn’t deploy with the rest of the unit last June because she was pregnant. She’s since delivered her baby and is now back on the job, joining her husband who is also deployed in Iraq.
These parents are missing more than their baby’s first Halloween; they’re missing the entire first year of their baby’s life. Years ago the Selective Service Board granted Dick Cheney a “hardship” exemption from serving in Vietnam – his hardship being that he was a new father. Policies are no longer so kind to children.
Recently a friend described a scene he observed at the airport. He noticed a commotion surrounding a soldier departing for war. A frantic mother wrestled to unpeel her screaming son who was clenching the soldier’s legs and begging, “Daddy, don’t go!” As soon as the mother ripped the child free, instead of spending the full amount of every last second embracing his family, the soldier had to quickly disappear to avoid more painful drama. My friend said it was the saddest scene he’d ever witnessed, yet it illuminates the grief children feel not just on departure day, but more subtly all deployment long.
People ask me if I think Mike should be in Iraq. It’s a loaded question, one that I can answer in a variety ways. I can start with the invasion and rant about how the president exaggerated threats, how most of the Congress ignored the data that told the truth, how the media did little to demand accountability and how the majority of the citizenry was (and still is) apathetic (elected officials report that very few constituents ever call or write to comment on the war).
Or I could just cut to my answer: Yes! The military is short staffed. To compensate, this year the Defense Department extended the length of deployments to 15 months, longer than any tour in Vietnam. Congress just failed to pass a bill to ensure that soldiers returning from war spend an equal amount of time at home before being redeployed. Soldiers are overscheduled.
So unequivocally yes. Mike should be in Iraq because our military is fighting there, he volunteered to serve, and in doing so he’s replacing a soldier who deserves a turn at home, a place where regular civilian clothes might feel like a costume, and to some child his or her presence is better than candy.
Missy Martin is an 11-year Ahwatukee Foothills resident, mother of three and editor of Bombshells: War Stories and Poems by Women on the Homefront. Her brother, U.S. Army Specialist Michael Dunn, attended Arizona State University and graduated from the University of Montana with a degree in accounting and now provides security on convoys in and out of Iraq. He can be contacted at Spec. Mike Dunn 7th Chem – APO AE09366.
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