Winter Soldier

by Iraq Veterans Against the War

  The VA’s mission to care for our nation’s veterans is one of awesome responsibility. I personally believe that the best preventative health care for our soldiers is not to use them to fight illegal occupations. But so long as our government is going to force soldiers to continue fighting, I would call upon all workers at the VA to remember our pledge to serve and provide for our returning veterans.

  It’s also important to realize that we do not lose our free speech rights just because we’re federal employees. We all know that behind the red tape there are just not enough resources to treat people. It is incumbent upon all VA employees to continue fighting, and fighting vocally, until we have all the resources necessary to take care of our veterans.

  Joyce and Kevin Lucey, parents of Jeffrey Lucey

  Corporal, United States Marine Corps Reserve, MOS (convoy driver), 6th Motor Transportation Battalion

  Deployments: February–July 2003, from Kuwait to Iraq

  Hometown: Belchertown, Massachusetts

  Date of Death: June 22, 2004 (23 years old)

  Joyce Lucey

  Jeffrey’s death should never have happened. He was caught between the humanity of what he saw and what he had to do. My son was let down first by the government, who sent him to fight their war of choice and destroyed his soul, and then by the VA.

  The tragedy is not that one marine has committed suicide, but that this continues to happen four years after our son’s death, countless others’ names that will never be placed on a memorial wall, though they are causalities of the emotional battlefield that rages on well after the guns and missiles have been silenced.

  Jeffrey told me that he only wanted to help people. His voice is now silenced, but ours is not, and we intend to follow Jeff’s wishes by adding our voices to others, demanding that our government be held accountable for its actions or lack thereof.

  Jeffrey Lucey, the young man who in January 2003 was sent to Kuwait to participate in an invasion that he did not support was not the same young man who stepped off the bus in July. Our marine physically returned to us, but his spirit died somewhere in Iraq. As we celebrated his homecoming, Jeff masked his anger, guilt, confusion, and pain behind his smile.

  Jeff was a convoy driver and participated in the invasion of Iraq. On March 20, he entered in his journal, “At 10:30 p.m. a scud landed in our vicinity. We were just falling asleep when a shock wave rattled through our tent. The noise was just short of blowing out your eardrums. Everyone’s heart truly skipped a beat, and the reality of where we are and what’s happening hit home.” His last entry is, “We now just had a gas alert and it’s past midnight. We will not sleep. Nerves are on edge.” The invasion had begun and Jeff never had time to put in another entry.

  The letters we received from him were brief and sanitized, but in April 2003 he wrote to his girlfriend of six years, “There are things I wouldn’t want to tell you or my parents, because I don’t want you to be worried. Even if I did tell you, you’d probably think I was just exaggerating. I never want to fight in a war again. I’ve seen and done enough horrible things to last me a lifetime.” This is the baggage that my son carried when he stepped off that bus that sunny July day at Fort Nathan Hale, New Haven, Connecticut.

  Over the next several months we missed the signs that Jeffrey was in trouble. In July he went to Cape Cod with his girlfriend, and she found him distant. He didn’t want to walk on the beach. He later told a friend at college that he had seen enough sand to last a lifetime.

  At his sister’s wedding the following month, he told his grandmother that “you could be in a room full of people, but still feel so alone.” That fall we learned that Jeff had been vomiting nearly every day since his return. That continued until the day he died.

  On Christmas Eve his sister found him at home, drinking. He was standing by the refrigerator. He grabbed his dog tags, and he tossed them to her and called himself a murderer. Later we learned that the dog tags belonged to two Iraqi soldiers that he felt or he knew he was personally responsible for their death. He was wearing these to honor the men, not as a trophy, he told the therapist he saw for the last seven weeks of his life. In February he told me he dreamed that these men were coming after him in an alleyway.

  Throughout the spring and summer of 2004, our family watched Jeff fall apart. He was depressed and drinking. Attending community college was very difficult. He had panic attacks, feeling that the other students were staring at him. He started taking Klonopin and Prozac. He had trouble sleeping, nightmares, poor appetite, and he was isolating himself in his room. He couldn’t focus on school and was unable to take his final exams. Although he had previously been an excellent athlete, now his balance was badly compromised by Klonopin and alcohol.

  He confided in his younger sister that he had picked out a rope and a tree near the brook behind our home, but told her, “Don’t worry. I’d never do that. I wouldn’t hurt Mom and Dad.”

  He was adamant that we not tell the marines of his condition, fearing a psychological discharge and the stigma associated with PTSD. He was reluctant to go to the VA for the same reason.

  His dad called and explained what was happening with our son, and they said it was classic PTSD. He should come in as soon as possible. They assured Jeff that they would not discuss his condition with his marine command. The problem was getting Jeffrey to go in. Every day it was, “Tomorrow. I’ll go in tomorrow. I’m tired.”

  The day he went in he blew a 0.328 blood alcohol content, and VA administrators involuntarily committed him for four days. It took six employees to take Jeffrey down. He had gotten out the door and ran out into the parking area.

  During his four-day stay, he felt like he was being warehoused. He saw the admitting psychiatrist and did not have another appointment until his discharge. He told the VA about the three methods of suicide he had contemplated—overdose, suffocation, or hanging. When he was admitted, he even told them he had a hose to choke himself. None of this was relayed to us. Instead, on Tuesday, June 1, 2004, he was released.

  The VA told us that he would not be assessed for PTSD until he was alcohol free. But as with so many veterans, Jeff was self-medicating. He often told us that alcohol was the only way he could sleep at night. The VA said that we might consider kicking him out of the house so he would hit rock-bottom and then realize he needed help.

  Jeff said he had wanted to tell the psychiatrist conducting his discharge interview about the bumps in the Iraqi road that were the children his marine convoy was told not to stop for and just not look back. He decided not to reveal this deeply sensitive information when the psychiatrist interrupted their session three times to answer phone calls.

  On June 3, on a Dunkin’ Donuts run, two days after he was released from the hospital, he totaled our car. Was it a suicide attempt? We’re never going to know. No drinking was involved. I was terrified I was losing my little boy. I asked him where he was. He touched his chest and he said, “Right here, Mom.” On the 5th he arrived at Holyoke Community College to watch the graduation of his sister. This was supposed to be his graduation also, but he wasn’t able to take his finals. How he drove his car there we’ll never know. He was so impaired.

  We managed to get him home, but his behavior got worse. He was very depressed. His sisters and brother-in-law and my dad took him back to the VA.

  When they arrived at the VA, he refused to go inside the building. VA administrators decided that he was neither suicidal nor homicidal without ever consulting anyone with the proper medical expertise. Our daughters called home in a panic saying it didn’t look like the VA was going to keep their brother.

  In their records the VA says Jeffrey’s grandfather pleaded for someone to help his grandson. My father lost his only brother in World War II. He was twenty-two years old. He was now watching his only grandson self-destructing at twenty-three.

  When we learned Jeff was coming back, Kevin and I went through each room in our house. We took his knives, his bottles, anything we felt
he could use to harm himself. I took a step stool, a dog leash, anything I thought could trigger something. We disabled his car, not only to protect Jeff but to protect others from him.

  Kevin called the civilian authorities. They said they couldn’t do anything because he was drinking. My child was struggling to survive, and no one would help us. The VA did not follow up with us even though he was in crisis. We had no guidance about what to say to him or how to handle the situation. We felt isolated, abandoned, and alone. While the rest of the country lived on, going to Disneyworld, shopping, living their daily lives, our days consisted of fear, apprehension, helplessness, watched this young man, our son, being consumed by this cancer that ravaged his soul.

  I sat on the deck of our home with a person who was impersonating my son, and listened to him while he recounted bits and pieces of his time in Iraq. Then he would grind his fist into his hand and say, “You could never understand.”

  On Friday, June 11, a girl who’d grown up down the street called to say that Jeff had climbed out his window and gotten into her car, looking for beer. When Jeff came home, he was dressed in cammies with two Ka-Bars knives, a modified pellet gun, and he was carrying a six-pack. He had just wanted that beer. There was a sad smile on his face like a lost soul. When I told him how concerned I was about him, he said, “Don’t worry, Mom. No matter what I do I always come back.”

  Later, his girlfriend was talking to him on our deck, and she said tears were streaming down his face. The words to “.45,” a song by the heavy-metal group Shine Down, that he listened to over and over again described him:

  After Jeffrey died on June 22, we found a note in the cellar. It said, “I am truly embarrassed of the man I became, and I hope you can try to remember me only as a child, when I was happy, proud, and enjoyed life.”

  Kevin Lucey

  Jeffrey went through a lot during the intervening weeks. On June 22 the VA finally drafted a letter for Jeffrey, which was setting up an appointment for him on July 13. Regretfully, he wouldn’t be able to make that appointment.

  On the evening of Monday, June 21, I returned home and Jeffrey was in a total rage. I’ve never seen him like this. He was totally irate about the war, about his treatment at the VA, about so many different things. At about 7:30, I finally resorted to calling the Vet Center. The people at the Vet Center and the people at the VA are very, very good people. The angel who answered us at the Vet Center that evening calmed me down, and then got Jeffrey to calm down wonderfully.

  Just before midnight, Jeffrey asked me for the second time in ten days if he could sit on my lap and if I could rock him for a while, and we did. We sat there for about forty-five minutes and I was rocking Jeff, and we were in total silence. As his private therapist said, it was his last harbor and his last place of refuge.

  The next day I came home. It was about 7:15. I held Jeff one last time as I lowered his body from the rafters and took the hose from around his neck.

  • • •

  As a result of our family’s experiences in May and June 2004, and our attempts to help him, we offer these few observations. First, why must the veteran meet the system’s needs? Was not the VA health-care system developed to meet the needs of our veterans?

  We were promised that steps would be taken in a timely manner to assure there would not be another Jeffrey. But two-and-a-half years after our Jeff died, there was Jonathan Schulze of Stewart, Minnesota. He died on January 16, 2007, in the identical fashion of our son, being turned away from the VA..

  What was the purpose of the March 2007 Washington Post Walter Reed exposé and the government’s immediate verbal reaction that they would address the issues? And then the CBS News investigation in November, reporting that the most up-to-date data indicated that an average of 120 veterans commit suicide each week? In the midst of all this, the Dole-Shalala Report was issued. People took note and we asked, “What has been done?” The Joshua Omvig bill has turned into law, but that is only the first item on a long list of necessary improvements for soldier and veteran health care.

  Many say the words, “Honor and support our troops,” but very few mean them. All people do is talk. Even as we talk today, how many more of our beloved troops and veterans have put nooses around their necks or loaded bullets in their chambers, their eyes filled with tears as they seek refuge from their agonies?

  This is not moral. This is not ethical. We ask: Where is the rage? We call upon you to help us right this terrible wrong. Our family is suing the VA and this government for failing our son. Though there will never be a memorial to our loved ones, let their names never fade from your hearts or your memories: Walter Padilla, T.J. Sweet, Jason Cooper, Philip Kent, and so many more. Jeffrey is not the only tragedy. We are not the only family. We stand proudly with Military Families Speak Out and Gold Star Families for Peace and especially with all of you today.

  Carlos Arredondo, father of Alexander Arredondo

  Lance Corporal, United States Marine Corps, Fire Team Leader

  Deployments: January–September 2003; May–August 2004, Nassariya, Najaf

  Hometown: Randolph, Massachusetts

  Killed in Action: August 25, 2004, awarded Bronze Star with Combat V (20 years old)

  This is my family. This is my dream.

  I was born in Costa Rica. I came here as an illegal alien, and I did the best I could to take care of my family. It is the most beautiful thing that happened in my life. I call my sons my American dreams, and I thank God every minute for my experience with them, because they are my greatest teachers.

  This is my son Alexander.

  That was the moment the recruiters went to his high school to seduce him with $20,000 cash to sign up—so many thousands of dollars for him to go into the military at the age of seventeen. They only required one parent to sign the consent form for a minor to join the military. The other parent is left behind. That’s what happened to me.

  I am not a sperm donor. This is my son, who I loved very much. They didn’t have the respect to ask me if it was okay for him to go. They expect that they can grab our sons and daughters from anywhere they want, no matter if they’re English or Spanish. They’re seducing our sons with so many fake promises.

  My son never had the opportunities they promised when he joined. He didn’t get the cash and he didn’t go to school. The signing bonus they promised is not even enough to go college, unless you’re going to a community college. The liars! They didn’t tell him. My son is one more victim of this immoral, illegal war. It is affecting the whole world.

  Alexander wrote many, many letters home. In these letters, he speaks for himself. In one he wrote, “Tonight we were in a car chase and we picked up a guy with a grenade. I watched the whole damn thing. It didn’t have to happen. I love you and miss you.”

  This is Alexander during his final days in the battle with Mutqtada al-Sadr in the old city of Najaf. My son is being carried in this truck like a guinea pig. He is anyone’s target. This is outrageous, how they put our sons and daughters in this kind of situation.

  One more letter from Alexander. “It looks like I am going to be stuck in Iraq forever. It sucks, it’s hot, it smells, and I’m quite miserable.” Alex’s letters start changing from proud and honorable to miserable.

  In another letter, Alexander explained the circumstances in which he was living. He was hoping to come home and go back to school. There was his girlfriend, Sheila. He was hoping to take care of his family.

  Alexander was killed on August 25, 2004, in the old city of Najaf, where the marines’ one-four battalion was cut off for four days in a four-story building. He was struck by a bullet in his left temple, which opened his head an inch and a half. Alexander was twenty years and twenty days old when he died. He spoke through his last few hours and told of the miserable life he was living there.

  Many sons and daughters are coming back from war with broken bodies and broken minds. If my son were back home today, he probably would be in the VA system, in which c
ase I’d be very concerned about our situation as well.

  But my son took up his own path in life. He’s resting in peace.

  This is something that happens every few hours to families across the nation. Five years of war in Iraq, with more than four thousand casualties.

  I say thank God for this picture, because it teaches me a lot. It’s been helping me a lot as well. This is the cost of the war at home. My son, Lance Corporal Alexander Arredondo, is lying in an open casket. And I thank God for the opportunity, because not many families in Iraq or the United States have the precious moment to say one last thing to your son with an open casket. I shared this moment with many other families and my heart goes to every single one.

  This is the casualty at home. This is what happened when they came to notify me about the death of my son. That day also was my birthday. When I saw them coming, I thought my son was back because I saw their uniforms. I asked them to leave my house after they delivered the news.

  I asked them to leave for more than a half-hour, and their pity was deep. They told me to go and nap for a half-hour. They left. I locked myself in their Marine Corps van, covered myself with gasoline, and set myself and the van on fire. I ended up more than 20 percent burned, with second- and third-degree burns. Because of what happened that day I spent one week in the hospital. They charged me $43,710.00. I didn’t have the money. They put a lien on my house. A week later I buried my son in Boston. This was in Hollywood, Florida.

  This is only one story of over four thousand families. They each go through the notification moments, when they come to tell you.

  This is how I’m going around the country grieving my son. This is my pain. This is my loss. This is the First Amendment of the Constitution. They allow me to participate. As a father it’s an obligation to honor my son and this country, to do anything I can to end this war. We can do it.