This thing keeps getting worse, doesn't it...
For anyone who thought all our girls and boys had to do was get home alive, now you know that getting home alive's just half the battle:
On January 16th, after having talked quite normally on the phone with at least two other people that same day, Douglas Barber, a member of Iraq Veterans Against the War (IVAW) living in Lee County, Alabama, changed the answer-message on his telephone. "If you're looking for Doug," it said in his Alabama drawl, "I'm checking out of this world. I'll see you on the other side." He then called the police, collected his shotgun, and went out onto his porch to meet them.
From the sketchy reports we have now, it seems the police wouldn't oblige him with a "suicide by cop" and tried to talk him down. When it became apparent he wasn't able to commit cop-suicide, 27-year-old Douglas Barber did an about-face, rotated the shotgun and killed himself. There is a hell of a lot that we just don't know about how this happened. I talked to Doug on the phone earlier this month, and he described how excited he was to have joined IVAW, how he looked forward to taking up the pen and speaking out. Others had spoken with him only days and hours before he permanently quieted the chaos in his head. None of the "classic" signs of suicidal thinking were manifest. He was gregarious and upbeat, playful.
The full story from Truthout.
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See, some people get mad when I say this is one facet of the chucklenutz's war on my generation. Debt, draining the education system, and sending kids my age and younger to die or come home REALLY messed up. Post Traumatic Stress Disorder ain't some shit to laugh about.
And a gentle reminder from the formerly suicidal guy: people who express "classic signs of suicidal thinking" are often the ones who are on the fence about it.
On January 16th, after having talked quite normally on the phone with at least two other people that same day, Douglas Barber, a member of Iraq Veterans Against the War (IVAW) living in Lee County, Alabama, changed the answer-message on his telephone. "If you're looking for Doug," it said in his Alabama drawl, "I'm checking out of this world. I'll see you on the other side." He then called the police, collected his shotgun, and went out onto his porch to meet them.
From the sketchy reports we have now, it seems the police wouldn't oblige him with a "suicide by cop" and tried to talk him down. When it became apparent he wasn't able to commit cop-suicide, 27-year-old Douglas Barber did an about-face, rotated the shotgun and killed himself. There is a hell of a lot that we just don't know about how this happened. I talked to Doug on the phone earlier this month, and he described how excited he was to have joined IVAW, how he looked forward to taking up the pen and speaking out. Others had spoken with him only days and hours before he permanently quieted the chaos in his head. None of the "classic" signs of suicidal thinking were manifest. He was gregarious and upbeat, playful.
The full story from Truthout.
---
See, some people get mad when I say this is one facet of the chucklenutz's war on my generation. Debt, draining the education system, and sending kids my age and younger to die or come home REALLY messed up. Post Traumatic Stress Disorder ain't some shit to laugh about.
And a gentle reminder from the formerly suicidal guy: people who express "classic signs of suicidal thinking" are often the ones who are on the fence about it.
posted by Ruby K at 5:14 PM
4 Comments:
is this your interview? or a quote?
Schedule1,
This is an article from truthout.
oh. a lot of your posts make it seem as if you're doing first-person reporting.
nah dude, that's why a lot of them will have "the full story, from paper xyz" with a link to it. It's a combo of news I find, personal commentary and whatnot.
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