Colonel Chooses Death Before Dishonor?

[koda]

rockrivertimes.com/index.pl?cmd=viewstory&cat=2&id=11752

Excellent story - see excerpt below. Full story at above link.

As reporter Christian Miller phrased it, Westhusing, 44, was an unusual case, “one of the Army’s leading scholars of military ethics, a full professor at West Point who volunteered to serve in Iraq to be able to better teach his students. He had a doctorate in philosophy; his dissertation was an extended meditation on the meaning of honor.”

and continued

In e-mails to his family, Miller wrote, “Westhusing seemed especially upset by one conclusion he had reached; that traditional military values such as duty, honor and country had been replaced by profit motives in Iraq, where the U.S. had come to rely heavily on contractors for jobs once done by the military.”

 

[gilliam]

Strange story. Something odd about it that I can’t put my finger on. But he was escallating issues and then shot himself because he felt dishonored, doesn’t ring true to me. Got to be more to the story…

 

[koda]

gilliam:

Strange story. Something odd about it that I can’t put my finger on. But he was escallating issues and then shot himself because he felt dishonored, doesn’t ring true to me. Got to be more to the story…

It mentions his family being on the internet. Maybe I’ll try to find them and see if there are more details.

 

[gilliam]

koda:

It mentions his family being on the internet. Maybe I’ll try to find them and see if there are more details.

Suicides, if that is indeed what it was, are weird things. Often the cause is very complex and very personal.

 

[koda]

gilliam:

Suicides, if that is indeed what it was, are weird things. Often the cause is very complex and very personal.

I know. My dad committed suicide.

 

[gilliam]

koda:

I know. My dad committed suicide.

I am very sorry.

 

[koda]

gilliam:

I am very sorry.

Thanks, I appreciate your sympathy. It will be 9 years next Saturday (12/10). It doesn’t hurt as much as it did but it still hurts.

 

[mjdonnelly]

Just read the article. This in particular is interesting:

Westhusing’s colleagues had grown concerned about his health by June because he had lost weight, grown nervous and fidgety, stared into space and seemed very withdrawn.

Sounds like depression,a mental illness. None of his colleagues thought of having him looked at, or reported it to doctors as signs of battle fatigue.

Doesn’t sound right to me.

 

[gilliam]

mjdonnelly:

Just read the article. This in particular is interesting:

Sounds like depression,a mental illness. None of his colleagues thought of having him looked at, or reported it to doctors as signs of battle fatigue.

Doesn’t sound right to me.

What is odd is that we probably have the best medical care ever in a battle zone in Iraq right now. He could have gotten professional help almost immediately.

 

[Derek_Flint]

Post-Traumatic Stress Syndrome is real and manifests itself in many ways. Maybe this poor man had seen too much.

I point to the following article, excerpted:

"*The variety of PTSD called combat-induced PTSD turns out to be, in my professional experience, its most incurable form, for engaging in the legalized killing of war eventually comes back to haunt the soul and psyche – and that psychological trauma keeps on repeating itself in the intrusive, indelible, recurrent memories, with transient respite only possible when using brain-altering drugs, alcohol or mind-numbing, addicting activities.

One only has to ponder the estimated 200,000 suicides that have occurred among Vietnam War veterans – after they came home from the war – to appreciate the mental anguish caused from being involved in that atrocity. Combat-induced PTSD meets my definition of dying by the sword. As one Vietnam veteran said “having PTSD is like having been annihilated in the killing fields of Vietnam, and then having to wait 25 years to finally lie down and die.” After so much never-ending psychological and spiritual pain it feels good to finally lie down, even if it is to die.

War and violence sicken people whether they are victims, bystanders or perpetrators. War and violence are equal opportunity destroyers of the soul.

The spiritual costs of war are too high.*"

lewrockwell.com/orig5/kohls4.html

 

[gilliam]

You may be right. He may be sick, which would explain his being wrong and being so outspoken about it. In which case it would not border on treason, he is simply ill. It is also possible that others in government know this and are cutting him a lot of slack. If this is true, I wish they would let us in on it.

The “border on treason” assumes he is well and knows what he is doing.

 

[Derek_Flint]

gilliam:

You may be right. He may be sick, which would explain his being wrong and being so outspoken about it. In which case it would not border on treason, he is simply ill.

But was he wrong?

 

[gilliam]

Derek Flint:

But was he wrong?

I deleted my post. Got my threads mixed up and thought you were talking about Murtha.

In the Col. case, he wasn’t in a front line position so I don’t know about Post-Traumatic Stress Syndrome. But he obviously had some kind of problem.

 

[Derek_Flint]

gilliam:

I deleted my post. Got my threads mixed up and thought you were talking about Murtha.

In the Col. case, he wasn’t in a front line position so I don’t know about Post-Traumatic Stress Syndrome. But he obviously had some kind of problem.

My uncle passed away in July, 1967, being two months away from his promotion to brigadier general in the Air Force. He flew numerous missions aboard a B-26 in the Pacific Theatre. For a while he was stationed at the Pentagon, specifically in weapons. He told my father that what he saw made him sick.

 

[gilliam]

Derek Flint:

My uncle passed away in July, 1967, being two months away from his promotion to brigadier general in the Air Force. He flew numerous missions aboard a B-26 in the Pacific Theatre. For a while he was stationed at the Pentagon, specifically in weapons. He told my father that what he saw made him sick.

What did he see? Where? In the Pentagon?

 

[Derek_Flint]

gilliam:

What did he see? Where? In the Pentagon?

I don’t know the specifics as my father didn’t tell me. However, my uncle was involved in weapons systems while stationed at the Pentagon. The gist of what I got was that the destructive power of our weapons was horrendous.