Hell is for Heroes
by expatbrian
Dustin Thorson was a different kind of soldier and a different kind of hero. A loving father of two small boys and an Air Force technical sargeant, he was assigned to the 752nd Communications Squadron but was sent to Iraq and embedded with Army's 172nd Brigade Combat Team, 4th Infantry Division, in Baghdad.He was a computer wiz and was originally given a job fixing faxes and printers, but his abilities to hack into enemy communications was soon recognized and he was reassigned to do just that. He was nicknamed "Sponge Bob" for his ability to soak up information from the enemy.
Eventually, his skills helped identify and apprehend the 10th most wanted terrorist in Iraq who reputedly ran the largest IED manufacturing plant there. Thorson was able to track the terrorist by hacking into his cell phone and when it rang he pinpointed its location.
In 2006, Thorson was awarded the Joint Commendation Medal for his valuable service. In 2007, back in the US, he volunteered as an advocate against drunk driving and encouraged his fellow airmen to get involved in the Christmas in April program.
On Monday, at his home on Tinker Air Force Base, Dustin Thorson shot his two children, aged 4 and 9, in the chest and head killing each instantly. He then shot himself in the head. Their deaths, and others like them, will not be included in total Iraq body count statistics. But they should be.
PTSD is not always evident but the results are predictably horrific.
Cross posted from World Gone Mad
posted by Libby Spencer at 6:55 PM
8 Comments:
PTSD ... yes, my daughter had it when she returned from her second deployment.
Flashbacks to an IED incident she witnessed.
Couldn't sleep for months after she returned.
Didn't seek treatment for fear of having her career ruined.
That is what the military is like under the Bush dictatorship.
And why I hate these bastards!!!!!!
There are so many reasons. This war will be costing us in so many ways for the rest of my life and maybe much longer.
What might we have been if we had never gone?
Oh that is so sad. The failure of the gov't to care for the returning vets is one of the worst crimes of this administration.
It's nice that at least now you care about the returning vets. In the Vietnam era, you called them baby killers.
Some of them were.
Some of them still are.
The Vietnam era is not over.
You on the other hand, have no idea who I am or what I've said, much less what is true. All you have is the myths that evil men provide for stupid men to believe and the cynicism mediocre people use to simulate intelligence.
Do you think this man shot his family because he was proud of what he did? This is a country that rallied behind the people who slaughtered civilians at Mi Lai and never learned the name of the man who stopped it. This is a country that has forgotten that it slaughtered 2 million people to preserve dictatorial colonialism and stifle democracy while bragging about how we were protecting "freedom."
I hope you're proud.
It certainly is convenient to leave a comment under the name anonymous. You can say whatever you like and no one can debate with you.
I don't know who anonymous is referring to with a comment about baby killers. Libby? Me?
How would you know, Mr. A. if Libby or I had called vets that. There were no blogs then, not even any internet. I don't think Libby has ever said that on her blog here and I certainly haven't. I try to avoid referring to myself as a baby killer.
No Mr. A, you are just an anonymous jerk who has no idea what you are talking about.
In the future, please identify yourself in some way. Better yet, just stay the hell out of my posts.
Anon - Libby and I had an uncle who did three tours of duty in Viet Nam. We both had friends who were drafted; some went to Canada, some went to the war. To my knowledge neither one of us ever called a soldier a "baby killer." I also can't recall anyone I knew ever using that term. You are probably too young to remember Viet Nam, but that whole baby killer episode happened one time in one airport and was screamed by one person.It was latched on to by right wing politicians because it made good propaganda for their cause. I'm sure you are just trolling here, but I've decided to take the time, along with my esteemed contemporaries here, to set the record straight.
We had many soldiers come back from Viet Nam suffering from PTSD and getting little help from our government who simply turned a blind eye and pretended it wasn't happening. There were tragic consequences for this type of blindness that played out for years. Amazing how some things never change. "Those that forget history are doomed to repeat it."
The comment by "anonymous" has the markings of one Donald Douglas, another drive-by shooter of the ad hominem and non sequitur type. Anyone care to wager?
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