[NYTr] The Uncounted US Dead in Bush's Wars

[All the News That Doesn't Fit]

Democracy Now via Granma Daily - Aug 10, 2007
http://www.granma.cubaweb.cu/english/news/art20.html

The Uncounted Casualties of War

By AMY GOODMAN

U.S. Marine Lance Cpl. Jeffrey Lucey is not counted among the Iraq War
dead. But he did die, when he came home. He committed suicide. His
parents are suing the Department of Veterans Affairs and R. James
Nicholson, the secretary of Veterans Affairs, for wrongful death,
medical malpractice and other damages.

Kevin and Joyce Lucey saw their son's rapid descent after he returned
from combat in Iraq in June 2003. Kevin said: "Hallucinations started
with the visual, the audio, tactile. He would talk about hearing camel
spiders in his room at night, and he actually had a flashlight under
his bed, which he could use to search for the camel spiders. His whole
life was falling apart."

Jeffrey told his family that he was ordered to execute two Iraqi
prisoners of war. After he killed the two men, Jeffrey took their dog
tags and wore them until Christmas Eve 2003, when he threw them at his
sister, calling himself a murderer. A military investigation concluded
the story is without merit, but Kevin Lucey says: "An agency
investigating itself, I have a lot of problems with that. We fully
believe our son." Joyce Lucey added: "It really, to us, didn't make a
difference what caused Jeffrey's PTSD [post-traumatic stress disorder].
We know that he came back different, so something happened to him over
there."

Jeffrey got worse, secluding himself in his room, watching TV and
drinking heavily. Jeffrey was reluctant to seek care, fearing the
stigma that he felt accompanied mental-health treatment. Finally, on
May 28, 2004, the Luceys had Jeffrey involuntarily committed. The
Veterans Affairs hospital released him after three days.

On June 5, 2004, Jeffrey had deteriorated significantly. His sisters
and grandfather brought him back to the VA. Joyce said the VA "decided
that he wasn't saying what he needed to say to get involuntarily
committed. Later we were to find out that they never called a
psychiatrist or anybody that could have evaluated him. And they have
this all on the record. It said that the grandfather was pleading for
his grandson to be admitted."

The Luceys later learned from staff notes that Jeffrey talked about
three ways to commit suicide. His father explained: "He told them that
he would suffocate himself, he would overdose or he would hang himself.
He also shared with the psychiatrist how he had bought a hose. And, of
course, on June 5, when we tried to admit him the second time and the
VA declined, Joyce and I went through the house, we took everything
that he could hurt himself with, but we never thought of a hose."

Turned back by the Veterans Affairs Medical Center, Jeffrey spent his
last two weeks alive at home. Kevin Lucey describes the night before
his son killed himself: "It was about 11:30 at night, and I was
exhausted, Jeff was exhausted. He asked me if he would be able to sit
in my lap. And so for 45 minutes we rocked in silence, and the
therapist told us after Jeff died that that was no doubt his last place
of refuge, his last safe harbor that he felt that he could go to."

The next evening, after returning home from work, Kevin raced inside:
"I went to his bedroom, and the one thing I noted was that his dog tags
were laying on his bed." He made his way to the cellar, where he found
his son Jeffrey dead, with a hose double-looped around his neck.

Three years later, his parents have filed suit. They are not alone. A
separate class-action suit was filed by Veterans for Common Sense and
Veterans United for Truth on behalf of hundreds of thousands of
veterans who have been denied medical benefits.

Jeffrey Lucey's suicide note begins, "Dear Mom and Dad, I cannot
express my apologies in words for the pain I have caused you but I beg
for your forgiveness. I want you to know that I loved you both and
still do but the pain of life was too much for me to deal with."