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Chaz
Trad climber
greater Boss Angeles area
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Criminals think different than the rest of us. Mentally ill? Maybe, but that's no excuse.
You wouldn't steal something from somebody, even if you knew for sure you would get away with it, because we don't think that way. You wouldn't shoot someone who didn't have it coming either.
Mental health care is available for anyone who asks for it - especially veterans.
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healyje
Trad climber
Portland, Oregon
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Profoundly tragic events all the way around. But no one should think for a minute this isn't a consequence of war. It is one of many suicides and murders which will unfold over the next several decades no differently than we've experienced with the vets of previous wars who never really adjusted back to civilian life.
Regardless of prior life experiences and circumstances, war is never a stabilizing influence on the lives it touches. That fact, as well as today's rates of IED survival with varying degrees of TBI, represent an enormous individual and collective toll on our society long into the future that will hopefully give our leaders pause the next time there is a rush to war.
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Chaz
Trad climber
greater Boss Angeles area
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People who lack basic self-control will never adjust. No matter what.
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nick d
Trad climber
nm
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PitonRon is an azzhole....
sorta?
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the goat
climber
north central WA
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Mr. Barnes was a train wreck waiting to happen. Throw in the right circumstances and he explodes, unfortunately an innocent pays the ultimate price for his "indiscretion." Like I said before, too bad it couldn't have been settled in Skyway 9 hours earlier.
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Risk
Mountain climber
Olympia, WA
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I’d hate to see our national parks turned into a perpetual federal crime scene needing constant LE surveillance at every turn out or trailhead just because some Iraq Vet went sideways after a party in Seattle on New Year’s Eve.
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Chaz
Trad climber
greater Boss Angeles area
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Tami writes:
"Doesn't the US military have any sense of parsing the crazies from the men & women who wish to serve????
The Canadians do............... "
The Army discharged this dude as soon as they found out he was an ass-hole. They got rid of him poste-haste.
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apogee
climber
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What's yer point, Chaz?
Like I posted upthread, when psychos do this kinda shite, I'm generally down with the 'BlueringDropEm®' approach.
How exactly does that help the countless other vets out there with similar PTSD-related demons lurking? More relevant...how does that approach ensure that anyone else in our society isn't affected by their demons?
'Off 'em' is such a simple solution. Too bad the problem is so much more complex than that.
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Jan
Mountain climber
Okinawa, Japan
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This guy was recognized as a problem by the military and was discharged for driving under the influence and improperly transporting weapons while in the military so obviously he had problems before he went to Iraq.
Meanwhile I wanted to correct something Tami said. Support by the family is not enough in real cases of PTSD. If anything family sympathy may aggravate things as it only emphasizes the difference between normality and what the combat veteran has been through and the view that no one but but another combat veteran can really understand.
In fact, the main problem within the military is suicide by combat veterans. It seems they mainly take out other people when they get back in the civilian world. Over and over again what I hear is guys saying they are closer to their platoon members than they have ever been or will be with their families with whom they've never shared such intense experiences.
Anyway, I'm pretty sure if Tami or anyone else knows someone with PTSD, it's dramatic enough you will realize you're in over your head.
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sandstone conglomerate
climber
sharon conglomerate central
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That numbnuts couldn't even spell odin right...any time anyone posts pics of themselves brandishing guns and white supremecist tats, with that shitty look on their face, watch the fuk out. This dude was looking for an excuse to play hard ass, and no doubt was angry and easily irritable before he went into, and then subsequently was kicked out of, the army. Sorry, I don't buy the PTSD one bit, not with this guy. I'll bet a Chessler Swiss Army climbing rope this fool wasn't even in combat... If he was so tough, why didn't he take on the Seattle PD with all his guns? Mt. Rainier did handle it niclely; too bad he he had to take the ranger out before it swallowed him up and spat him out a popsicle.
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healyje
Trad climber
Portland, Oregon
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It should also be noted that the military repeatedly lowered it's enlistment standards during the wars and recruiters were once again trolling for any warm bodies they could find. He likely would have never been accepted into the military prior to the wars. Another consequence...
SLATE / WAR STORIES : MILITARY ANALYSIS.
Dumb and Dumber - The U.S. Army lowers recruitment standards … again.
By Fred Kaplan|Posted Thursday, Jan. 24, 2008, at 5:25 PM ET
The Army is lowering recruitment standards to levels not seen in at least two decades, and the implications are severe—not only for the future of the Army, but also for the direction of U.S. foreign policy.
The latest statistics - compiled by the Defense Department and obtained through the Freedom of Information Act by the Boston-based National Priorities Project—are grim. They show that the percentage of new Army recruits with high-school diplomas has plunged from 94 percent in 2003 to 83.5 percent in 2005 to 70.7 percent in 2007. (The Pentagon's longstanding goal is 90 percent.)
The percentage of what the Army calls "high-quality" recruits - those who have high-school diplomas and who score in the upper 50th percentile on the Armed Forces' aptitude tests—has declined from 56.2 percent in 2005 to 44.6 percent in 2007.
In order to meet recruitment targets, the Army has even had to scour the bottom of the barrel. There used to be a regulation that no more than 2 percent of all recruits could be "Category IV" - defined as applicants who score in the 10th to 30th percentile on the aptitude tests. In 2004, just 0.6 percent of new soldiers scored so low.
In 2005, as the Army had a hard time recruiting, the cap was raised to 4 percent. And in 2007, according to the new data, the Army exceeded even that limit - 4.1 percent of new recruits last year were Cat IVs.
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philo
Trad climber
Somewhere halfway over the rainbow
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Tami writes:
"Doesn't the US military have any sense of parsing the crazies from the men & women who wish to serve????
The Canadians do............... "
Unfortunately Tami the US military is unsurpassed at voiding people's innate moral compass and creating killing machines. They are also unsurpassed at abandoning the human wreckage to fend for themselves as badly as they can. If you are going to truly "support the troops" then you have to do so when they return home. We should be ashamed that we bandy about with political sloganisms instead of real support.
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Hardman Knott
Gym climber
Muir Woods National Monument, Mill Valley, Ca
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I'll bet a Chessler Swiss Army climbing rope this fool wasn't even in combat...
LOL!!
You know, I've been wondering the same, ever since the excuses started flying.
What exactly brought on the loser's supposed PTSD? Getting out of bed every morning?
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Largo
Sport climber
The Big Wide Open Face
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In trying to understand this guy, and people like him, folks make a fatal mistake when they think in terms of blame, or guilt, or "wrong doing." This subtly implies that the killer was basically ok, or sane, or capable, but because he didn't man up, or take responsibility, or seek help, he committed crimes that he himself could have prevented. This is giving the guy WAY too much intentionality or self command, when in fact he was suicidal on many occasions. The guilt approach is no good here because it doesn't address the underlying problems and bears no fruit save that we have someone to finger as the perp.
I saw this a lot during the Michael Jackson epic, all these people getting bent about the guy, silently thinking he was really and truly a normal guy or potentially normal dood who was acting poorly. But normal folk don't surround themselves with zoo animals, buy skeletons, sleep in hyperbolic chambers, live off pain killers and sleep with little boys and feed them "Jesus Juice." Applying guilt to such freaks is like blaming a scorpion for stinging you.
The guy who killed that ranger was a whack job, in dire mental health, in need of immediate professional help. The fact that the US Army could find some little use for him as cannon fodder doesn't change his status as a freak. And yes, gangs and prisons are full of such folks. Punishing them is like punishing someone with diabetes. WE are responsible for them, at least at the outset, for left alone, they do things like kill rangers. If you're okay with that, blame the whacko and see what changes.
JL
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Toker Villain
Big Wall climber
Toquerville, Utah
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Yeah.
I've said it here before; the way to win the war on drugs is to endeavor to create a world that people want to be a part of rather than escape from.
Same thing goes in general. We can't achieve perfection but we have to keep on trying to create a more just, tolerant and rewarding world.
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Hardman Knott
Gym climber
Muir Woods National Monument, Mill Valley, Ca
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The guy who killed that ranger was a whack job, in dire mental health, in need of immediate professional help. The fact that the US Army could find some little use for him as cannon fodder doesn't change his status as a freak. And yes, gangs and prisons are full of such folks. Punishing them is like punishing someone with diabetes. WE are responsible for them, at least at the outset, for left alone, they do things like kill rangers. If you're okay with that, blame the whacko and see what changes.
Unfortunately, the only alternative for someone who refuses "help" would be involentary incarceration in a mental health facility, replete with medication to mute the symptoms. The very people screaming "PTSD" would knott stand for that, even if we could afford it.
As the old saying goes, you can bring a horse to water...
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High Fructose Corn Spirit
Gym climber
-A race of corn eaters
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It's easy to see human behavior from two perspectives:
(1) the ultimate cosmic perspective (in which we're evolutionary products of nature, fated by our makeup and circumstances, just like the proverbial frog, scorpion, etc.).
(2) the in-game perspective (in which, largely for practical reasons, we have to take sides, lay blame, and "drop" the opposition).
These two perspectives will always conflict. For the defining reason: their points of view are different.
.....
It is interesting to read these threads to follow STers to see which perspective they choose to take (or simply to emphasize) on these kinds of issues.
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WBraun
climber
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My speculation is he got to the chain control checkpoint and he assumed that a BOLO was already out on him and they knew who he was?
Was there a BOLO on him before he entered the park?
If he assumed he was going to be arrested at that check point therefore ran thru it.
As they chased him down, (unknowingly?) that he's wanted for an earlier action.
He see's the the ranger making the road block and thinking/reacting he's going to get arrested and shoots.
He might not even had the "intent to kill" when he shot but only the intent to give himself enough time to get away.
The ranger probably never knew he was armed and dangerous on the run since they were going after him for a chain control infraction?
This is why here in Cali they broadcast statewide BOLO's (be on the lookout) so much.
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Gary
climber
That Long Black Cloud Is Coming Down
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Unfortunately, the only alternative for someone who refuses "help" would be involentary incarceration in a mental health facility, replete with medication to mute the symptoms. The very people screaming "PTSD" would knott stand for that, even if we could afford it.
Knott, you are entitled to your own opinions, but not your own facts. You have a source of that fact, other than Glenn Beck?
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