stress relief in the military

[intertribal]

He was a career Army man who joined up because it was a steady job, but he had fallen into debt paying off a $1,500-a-month mortgage, his father said. Now, just weeks from finishing his third tour in Iraq, Sgt. John M. Russell was in trouble with his commanding officer, who ordered him to turn in his gun and receive psychological counseling.

On Monday, after a confrontation with the staff at a clinic at Camp Liberty, a sprawling base on the outskirts of Baghdad, Sergeant Russell returned with a weapon, possibly wrestled away from his armed escort, and killed five people, Army officials said. It appeared to be the worst case of soldier-on-soldier violence among American forces in the six-year Iraq war.

“At the stress center they call you in and they sit you down and they tell you ‘You’re not the kind of person we need in the service, you’re not worthy of being here, how’d you ever get those stripes,’ ” [Sergeant Russell's father] Wilburn Russell said.

“They didn’t tell him they were there for his benefit, they were there as a friend to him to find out if he had any psychological problems as a result of his third tour of duty. They didn’t want him to come back home and kill his wife or himself and this kind of stuff.”

Mr. Russell said that his son became argumentative with the staff at the clinic, and at some point was escorted out by a person who was carrying a gun.

“That’s the worst thing they could have done because they trained him to kill,” he said.

source

Comments

[royinpink.livejournal.com]

what? i am confused by this.

[intertribal.livejournal.com]

it's about a soldier in Baghdad who recently killed 5 other soldiers at a combat stress center. the guy "talking" is the soldier's dad.