Say Anything Blog

There is no doubt that for some people the emotional scars of war can twist their personalities, some even becoming terribly violent. It is an unfortunate aftermath of war for a few!

So, let us assume this mother is right, her son is no longer the sweet boy she raised and sent off to war. We should have sincere, heartfelt compassion on the mother, the son and most of all for the young girl and her family. I know that Medal of Honor winner Ira Hayes came back a drunk and his drinking ruined his life, all because his best friend was killed. War does change some people!

Now that my sincere compassion for everyone involved is made clear, the young man, no matter the inner demons he had to fight, has to take responsibility for his actions. The full weight of the law must cause him to suffer the just penalty for his deeds. We can consider the emotional condition of the young man, but before the law he must face responsibility for what he’s done.

This scenario is not new, we have faced it in every war, some men are of such fragile natures that when faced with the ugliness of war they become changed. It was not the war, it is not because of his military service, it is because of a flaw in his character and choices he made. Compassion? Yes! Understanding? Yes? Excuses? No!

No matter the age or state of health, for a military man it is always glorious to tilt at windmills, rescue a fair Dulcinea and be a gallant knight in armor in a glorious cause.

mom,

Williams told the television station that her son hasn’t been the same after serving 16 months in Iraq. She says her son had been living with her in Smiths Station, Ala., since returning from the war.

Let me tell you something.

Your wayward, piece-of-shit-scum-son was far more influenced your influence than he was by the US Army.

Stop blaming other people and organizations for your failings in life.

Neiman:  Sorry, friend. But I don’t recall waves of murderers, rapists and thieves returning from WWII or from Korea and blaming their service experience. Do you?

Frankly, we have become a society where something else, anything else, is always the excuse for wrong-doing.

"Here lies, in honored glory, an American soldier, known but to God.”

THIS ELECTION IS ABOUT TWO THINGS: WINNING THE WAR ON TERRORISM AND SAVING THE SUPREME COURT.

Pparets: (a) I don’t recall talking about waves of anything. (b) I used the word ‘few,’ and it is undeniable that a few from every war have come home to commit acts of violence which thaey hadn’t committed before or other illegal acts like the ones you mentioned.

After Vietnam by highly decorated Marine Corps brother came back physically injured and emotionally changed, even beat his wife a round a bit for a few years. He got help and has lived a very decent life since, but it is ignorant not to understand these things happen after every war. As I said, these people had fragile emotional natures before they went, so in one way we can say the war brought out these violent tendencies and in another way, it was their weak character.

Your wayward, piece-of-shit-scum-son was far more influenced your influence than he was by the US Army.

That comment is what I wished we could avoid.

No matter the age or state of health, for a military man it is always glorious to tilt at windmills, rescue a fair Dulcinea and be a gallant knight in armor in a glorious cause.

Pparets: I ask you to remember that I believe we are all sinners, and looking at any man, I must in sincere thanksgiving say, ‘there but for the grace of God go I.” I believe in redemption, in forgiveness, while expecting each man to take full reponsibility for thier actions in life.

I am not willing to easily throw any one onto the ash heap, as I want to treat them as I would hoped to be treated in similar circumstances, with justice tempered by some small degree of charity.

No matter the age or state of health, for a military man it is always glorious to tilt at windmills, rescue a fair Dulcinea and be a gallant knight in armor in a glorious cause.

Neiman: As a Christian, I have no argument with that.

"Here lies, in honored glory, an American soldier, known but to God.”

THIS ELECTION IS ABOUT TWO THINGS: WINNING THE WAR ON TERRORISM AND SAVING THE SUPREME COURT.

The sad truth for this mother is that her son is a murderer, but not because he’s a veteran.

That’s a pretty bold statement. War does indeed change people. Vietnam produced a lot of broken people. Killing is bad enough, but watching women and children get blown up in a suicide bombing. Picking up body pieces of infants in supermarkets is a life changing experience. Iraq may very well have produced a monster in this case.

Your wayward, piece-of-shit-scum-son was far more influenced your influence than he was by the US Army.

Stop blaming other people and organizations for your failings in life.

Besides being a very awful thing to say, it flies in the face of what we know. We know of no past crimes he committed before serving, and now after serving, he kills someone.

It’s almost never fair to blame the parents for a child’s decisions later in life. It would be unfair to point to the South Side Rapist’s mom and say “you did this”, but even more so this woman.

At first blush, the mothers’ complaint is a cop out and a case of misplaced blame.  That being said, the experience of war can and does affect those who have gone through it—some more than others—since the mental fortitude of each of us is different going into battle, some more and some less steeled for the experience. 

I would imagine in this day and age of re-directed blame and victimhood, our young soldiers are not as conditioned prior to as would the youngsters of yesteryear, where the upbringing reflected laconic stocism and moral grit.

There are a few references in book and film that describe, accurately at least for some, the mindset of the freshly-returned combat vet:

1) In the book by James Webb, Fields of Fire, Webb describes the sense of frustration and exasperation that one vet feels after being stopped for a minor infraction upon returning to the World (as the US was called by Vietnam-era troops). 

What chicken-shit bullcrap—being stopped for speeding—after having spent the last year avoiding a moment-by-moment dance with death that a combat infantry tour in Vietnam entailed.

2) Chris Walkens’ similar reaction to the seemingly-inane questions by a medical orderly in Deer Hunter.

3) Guy Sajer’s self-description of his soldier-persona as a Monster of Indifference as he recounts the psychological aftermath of a young Alsatian who has been fighting on the Russian Front in his book, The Forgotten Soldier.

4) Ernest Hemingway’s depiction in ”Soldier’s Home” of one young man’s inability to adjust to coming home after undergoing the meatgrinder that was WWI trench warfare.

Also more tellingly, and I am afraid I do not have the link to this, was a study that compared the combat experience of the WWII vet versus that of the Vietnam vet. 

There was a vast disparity in their combat experiences: WWII vets normally would have something on the order of 59 days of uninterrupted combat.  Mind you, this was generally with a ‘front’ that could be delineated on a map with US and Brit flags on one side and Nazi flags on the other.

Vietnam, in contrast, had no real front, since the Viet Cong were disguised as villagers and merchants during the day and black-pajamaed, SKS / AK and B-40 toting Victor Charlies at night.  Patrolling was a moment-by-moment waiting for a sniper or mine attack, a punji-pit lined with shit-covered stakes, a Malaysian gate that might swing out and impale you in the chest, against an elusive enemy that nickle and dime’ed your platoon and avoided a stand-up fight unless they had overwhelming local superiority. 

More to the point, the average Viet vet was younger in average age (19 versus WWII’s 25) and underwent something like 320 days of uninterrupted combat at a stretch.  Othertimes, troops would have their uniforms and boots rot off their bodies under the unremitting Vietnam heat and humidity.

Now, how the combat conditions stack up in Afghanistan and Iraq to Vietnam, I suppose, will require yet another detailed study by subject matter experts, but I can imagine how combat can really put the zap on your brain. 

This is not to say that everyone will come back a slavering killer, but many combat veterans come back from their experience indelibly marked by it. 

The concept of life will never be the same, even the sight of raw hamburger, the sound of tractor engines and treads, even car backfires bring experiences to the fore.

I do think that there has got to be a study of the psychology of combat and a way of re-acclimatizing troops coming back from a combat area—perhaps to include perhaps a 15-to-30 day mini-tour to unwind in Diego Garcia or some such relaxing, yet relatively isolated spot.

...for great justice

If my parents had named me Courtney, I would probably be a little bit crazy too.  It’s a perfectly fine name for a girl, but not so much for a guy.

"No Sane man will dance.”—Cicero

It sounds to me that a major part of this killers
problem is his mother.  She’s probably covered his
rear his entire life and here she is again.  No one made him commit this crime...not the war, his friends, his mother or anyone else.  He made a viable decision to pull the trigger...no one else.
Every man in my family is a combat veteran and theres not a cold blooded killer in the group..
and my mother certainly wouldn’t have covered for them if they had become one.  I wouldnt cover for my 2 sons..they need to take responsibility for their own actions.
Besides, what kind of mother names a boy Courtney?
good grief...that in itself says a lot about her.

More to the point, the average Viet vet was younger in average age (19 versus WWII’s 25) and underwent something like 320 days of uninterrupted combat at a stretch.

I just spent an evening listening to my 90+ year old grandfather recount his experiences during WWII. He was in the Army before the war, began fighting in North Africa, and ended up in Berlin. I think that veterans of that war also also had to endure less stress than Vietnam veterans because the war wasn’t being run in Washington with Washington rules.

If a WWII soldier found a Waffen SS commando in civilian clothes (or allied uniform), they were under no obligation to treat the SS guy like anything but walking Sh*t. My grandfather told me that as a seargant he slugged an SS officer (a POW) in the face in front of a bunch of other German soldiers, because the SS officer gave him attitude.

What would happen if an American GI did that to a Taliban fighter he caught. There would be a huge media outcry. The soldier might find himself court martialed.

The fact is that WWII soldiers knew their country was determioned to win, and didn’t care about the enemy’s feelings.

So yes, there’s a strong chance that American soldiers in Iraq are suffering more stress because they are facing the dangers that a soldier faces, but supposed to respond with the kind of restrain that a police officer lives under.

Having said that, I don’t think the war can be blamed for this murder. If the guy had lost it in a bar fight and killed the other guy, I could see where that was a delayed reaction to stress. But killing a defenseless coed is an entirely different thing.

More to the point, the average Viet vet was younger in average age (19 versus WWII’s 25) and underwent something like 320 days of uninterrupted combat at a stretch.  Othertimes, troops would have their uniforms and boots rot off their bodies under the unremitting Vietnam heat and humidity.

This is a myth the average age of the soldier in Viet nam was 22. Of people killed the ages are as follows:

(For those that do not know an 11B is an Infantryman)

Deaths Average Age
Total 58,148 23.11 years
Enlisted 50,274 22.37 years
Officers 6,598 28.43 years
Warrants 1,276 24.73 years
E1 525 20.34 years
11B MOS 18,465 22.55 years

No one in the army spend 325 day’s straight in combat.  It does not work like that.  You are rotated of the line for planning, rest and the like.

Just to back up Greg’s comment, my father (decorated Vietnam Vet with a silver star, three bronze stars and four purple hearts) talks about being rotated back from the front line often.  They’d come off the line for in-country R&R, and I think once during my father’s time he got to come back to visit my mom in Hawaii.

The war against illegal plunder has been fought since the beginning of the world. But how is… legal plunder to be identified? Quite simply. See if the law takes from some persons what belongs to them, and gives it to other persons to whom it does not belong. See if the law benefits one citizen at the expense of another by doing what the citizen himself cannot do without committing a crime. Then abolish this law without delay … If such a law is not abolished immediately it will spread, multiply and develop into a system.

Frédéric Bastiat, The Law

Rob’s recently listened-to songs:

This is only an issue because of the media.

kill this murderer mom .. rip the uterus out so no more killer scum can come out of the bitch

Well that was certainly nasty and uncalled for.

The war against illegal plunder has been fought since the beginning of the world. But how is… legal plunder to be identified? Quite simply. See if the law takes from some persons what belongs to them, and gives it to other persons to whom it does not belong. See if the law benefits one citizen at the expense of another by doing what the citizen himself cannot do without committing a crime. Then abolish this law without delay … If such a law is not abolished immediately it will spread, multiply and develop into a system.

Frédéric Bastiat, The Law

Rob’s recently listened-to songs:

Catherine Williams, the mother of suspect Courtney Lockhart,

Now I’m guessing a bit here from the last names, but five will get you ten that she never married her son’s father.  Guess what the #1 correlation to violent behavior is?

Yup, parents never married.

PTSD might be involved here, too.  I’ve done a touch of hunting with Vietnam vets, and it’s very real.  Killing people, and watching your friends get killed, damages a man’s soul.

That said, I think one must suggest that no serious analysis of what happened can ignore the way he was brought up.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, first blame the war in Iraq.  Next thing you know it will be George Bushs fault. 
It is my understanding that Courtney received a
dishonorable discharge for punching an officer in the face.  My guess is that, even if he never murdered someone before, he has a violent past.

Courtney?

AYSM?

What kind of a freak-show would name a male a freekin’ girls’ name?  Kinda’ reminds of Johnny Cashs’ ‘Man named Sue’ tune.

About those stats.  I did mention that I didn’t have the link to them.  I was going by memory.

Here are some of the stats and links:

Myth: The average age of an infantryman fighting in Vietnam was 19.

Assuming KIAs accurately represented age groups serving in Vietnam, the average age of an infantryman (MOS 11B) serving in Vietnam to be 19 years old is a myth, it is actually 22. None of the enlisted grades have an average age of less than 20. [CACF] The average man who fought in World War II was 26 years of age

More stats here and here, some overlapping.

Myth: The fighting in Vietnam was not as intense as in World War II.

The average infantryman in the South Pacific during World War II saw about 40 days of combat in four years. The average infantryman in Vietnam saw about 240 days of combat in one year thanks to the mobility of the helicopter.

The source goes on to limit that aspect to the South Pacific and another poster mentions that such a stat varied from unit to unit.

Still, there is a vast disparity, on average from the days in combat between the WWII and Vietnam combatant.

Courtney?????

...for great justice