"You're a pussy and a scared little kid"

[babylonsister]

"You're a pussy and a scared little kid"

John Needham returned from Iraq, suffering from combat stress. If he had received proper care, would he be standing trial for murder?

Editor's note: This is the third installment in a weeklong investigative series called "Coming Home." Read a note written by John Needham here. You can also read the introduction to the series, and the first and second installments, which appeared Monday and Tuesday.

By Michael de Yoanna and Mark Benjamin


Photo courtesy Mike Needham

John Needham at home in San Clemente, Calif., in January 2007, during a two-week leave from his tour of duty in Iraq.


Feb. 12, 2009 | FORT CARSON, Colo. -- Fellow soldiers in Iraq called John Wiley Needham "Needhammer" for his toughness. They also saw him as somehow charmed, because the tall blond Army private from Southern California always seemed to be just far enough away from danger. People died next to Needham; Needham survived.

But "Needhammer" was not indestructible after all. He struggled with the aftereffects of the explosions he'd dodged. He survived a suicide attempt while in Iraq, and, after being shipped out of the country in 2007, was diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder and a brain injury. He took so many prescription meds he could barely hold his head up. According to Needham's father, Mike, the Army's response to the soldier's problems was punishment rather than treatment.

Last year, just weeks after his discharge, he allegedly beat 19-year-old aspiring model Jacqwelyn Villagomez to death in his California condo.

A Salon investigation has identified several trends involving Fort Carson soldiers who became homicidal. There are failures by healthcare workers and commanders to provide proper care to soldiers struggling with hidden wounds such as PTSD and brain injuries. There is a tendency to overmedicate soldiers struggling with stress or other injuries. Behind it all is an Army culture that punishes problematic soldiers instead of aiding them.

Needham is one of at least 13 current or former Fort Carson soldiers to serve in Iraq and then be convicted, accused or linked to a murder in the past four years. Victims like Villagomez who died at the hands of Fort Carson-based soldiers might be alive today if the Army had played closer attention to their mental state, providing necessary healthcare. In another story in the "Coming Home" series that will be published tomorrow, Salon details the cases of several soldiers involved in homicides whose preexisting problems raise the question of whether they should ever have worn a uniform. The story of John Needham, however, is the story of a young man who seemed stable and unscarred until he had driven down too many bomb-laden roads in Iraq.

more...

http://www.salon.com/news/special/coming_home/2009/02/12/coming_home_three/

[seabeyond]

1. and whoever is calling them a pussy is a dick. n/t

[bunnies]

2. yeah. What an asshole. nt

[gratuitous]

3. Ms. Villagomez will never be listed as a casualty of war

But she's earned a spot in Arlington as much as anyone interred there.

[firedupdem]

4. You're actually right on that. How horrible. They send these kids

off to war and treat them like shit while pretending to be so patriotic. Disgusting.

[TahitiNut]

5. 2.7 million of us "came home" 40 years ago .... will people NEVER learn???

:grr:

Forty years ago this evening I was dodging incoming indirect fire.
Thirty-nine years ago this evening I was having trouble sleeping, and wondering where I'd be sleeping next.

It's not fun being a leper -- being looked at as some alien creature by others.

[rufus dog]

6. what pulled you though?

[TahitiNut]

7. Inez ... and my Honda 350

:shrug:

Inez was a survivor of child abuse. She was a VERY special soul.

[Maru Kitteh]

8. In my childhood it was "normal" to awake to the sound of my father's terrified shreiks

What he saw in war, he could never talk about.

He was a hard man with a tender soul that never recovered, and I miss him.