February 17, 2009
“I FACED THE ENEMY AND LIVED!”
“I FACED THE ENEMY AND LIVED!” Lieberman painted on the wall in big, black letters. “IT WAS THE DEATH DEALERS THAT TOOK MY LIFE!”
Soldiers called Lieberman’s unit, the 1st Battalion, 67th Armored Regiment, the Death Dealers. Adam suffered serious mental health problems after a year of combat in Iraq. The Army, however, blamed his problems on a personality disorder, anxiety disorder or alcohol abuse — anything but the war. Instead of receiving treatment from the Army for his war-related problems, Adam faced something more akin to harassment. He was punished and demoted for his bad behavior, but not treated effectively for its cause. The Army’s fervent tough-guy atmosphere discouraged Adam from seeking help. Eventually he saw no other way out. Now, in what was to be his last message, he pointed the finger at the Army for his death.
It would be a voice from beyond the grave, he thought, screaming in uppercase letters. The last words, “THAT TOOK MY LIFE!” tilted down the wall in a slur, as the concoction of drugs seeped into Adam’s brain.
Late last month the Army released figures showing the highest suicide rate among soldiers in three decades. The Army says 128 soldiers committed suicide in 2008 with another 15 still under investigation.
If Salon’s publication of these photos helps the military reform its culture and more effectively aid traumatized Iraq War vets before they get suicidal, this family will have done a great service. As the ultimate act of humiliation, the military promised Pvt. Adam Lieberman’s mother the charge of defacing government property would go away if she painted over his suicide note … then they charged him anyway.
See the rest of the photos taken by Heidi Lieberman’s sister from the Salon feature: “The Death Dealers took my life! ” Also from Salon’s week long “Coming Home” series: Intro: Death in the USA: The Army’s fatal neglect . part 1: The Death Dealers took my life!. part 2: Kill yourself. Save us the paperwork. part 3: “You’re a pussy and a scared little kid.“
(h/t: DSat)
(image: Lieberman family)
13 Comments Leave a comment
DennisQ said:
The high suicide rate is not about psychology or any neologism called post-traumatic stress, it’s about guilt. These guys aren’t monsters. However, caught up in monstrous behavior, the shame doesn’t catch up with them until the roar stops. And then they don’t know what to do with themselves.
This is what we don’t want to talk about. We have no business sending soldiers over to steal somebody else’s country. They’re not welcome there, and they know it. The lie comes home when the soldiers do. Unable either to put up a macho front or seek forgiveness, they go mad with guilt. And madness it is, no question about that. They exist in contradictory worlds, both of which scorn the other. Pulled apart, they don’t exist at all. Relief comes from drinking, if they are lucky enough that it works. If drinking doesn’t work, they kill themselves.
Of course, this is only a generalization. Lots of people don’t have a sense of guilt. They could run over a child and shrug. But the ones who do have a sense of guilt suffer terribly. Is the Veteran’s Administration prepared to offer forgiveness to people who know in their hearts they’ve done terrible things? Not likely.
Rafael said:
Well said Dennis. He may have survived combat, but his inner demons claimed his soul none the less.
lytom said:
US is still “Masters of War.”
“Is your money that good/Will it buy you forgiveness/Do you think that it could/I think you will find, when your death takes its toll/All the money you made/Will never buy back your soul.”
vcInCA said:
DennisQ- i agree with a lot of this, but don’t think that ending with the Veteran’s Administration is entirely fair–doctors, nurses & clinicians actually working with vets in VA clinics do a tremendous amount, but it seems, based on this report, that they are not sanctioned by the military to uncover all types of problems–that is, they’re not given the liberty to be specialists they are trained to be. Or maybe they are, and then their findings, their diagnoses are screened or reinterpreted–either way, what seem like reasonable diagnoses do not eventually get filtered out. However, the issue, inherently has to do with the military & the government, which offers massive incentives to join (e.g. citizenship, life insurance, good pay) and preys on lower income & minority communities, but then does not have clear goals (larger goals with actual tasks which will accomplish them), nor does it apparently fully reconcile how they prepare troops with what they then ask them to do. If the troops were asked to just go build roads or do something ‘wanted’ by the local communities, they wouldn’t return in as terrible a state, which the VA then has to handle. the government & military is never required to truly defend whether the ends justify the means.
this picture on its own is also pretty cool-the Army can’t just whitewash over this man’s life–the fact that its being published in Salon means they’ve failed to whitewash/hide it, and it seems particularly ironic to me that his mother is both allowing the military to think they did hide it, by her act of covering his note up, but is also uncovering it for the rest of the world to see-in that sense, the army continues to live in a bubble of unawareness, but the public learns & gets outraged.
Stan B. said:
The Bush/Republican Legacy– International economic chaos, hundreds of thousands killed, thousands wounded and disabled for life, hundreds dead by their own hand…
Progressive Mom said:
As the mother of a child who attempted — unsuccessfully — to commit suicide, my heart breaks with this photo. I see a mom painting away the vestiges of her child’s ligitimate, real, serious pain.
Erasing her child’s cry of pain. The cry that was ignored.
I ache.
Ursula L said:
Is the Veteran’s Administration prepared to offer forgiveness to people who know in their hearts they’ve done terrible things? Not likely.
Not likely?
Not capable is more like it.
The VA can’t offer forgiveness, because they aren’t the ones wronged. For forgiveness to have any meaning, it has to come from the person or people you’ve harmed, and it generally also needs to be paired with some sort of atonement, a way to try to make right the wrong you’ve done, or if you can’t make right, at least make amends. And forgiveness needs to be given freely to have meaning – certainly something that can’t happen as long as occupation continues and the people they’ve harmed remain under coercion from the US.
The VA can’t forgive – as part of the US government, it is part of the same group as the soldiers driven mad – the group causing the harm. The US needs to ask forgiveness, as much as any soldier caught up in misguided US policy.
cenoxo said:
Obama Says Afghan War ‘Winnable,’ Sends 17,000 Soldiers:
And so the Great Games go on…
…anyone for basketball?
Ursula L said:
This image presents an interesting and unintended message about the rewriting of history, and covering up of military failure.
The message that Lieberman wrote was an indictment of the army and the military. It is so awful that he could survive the enemy, but could not survive the actions of his own side.
In the image, the indictment, that he could was destroyed by his own unit, is being painted over. The message left behind is only that he faced the enemy and lived. This is the message the military wants us to see. The soldiers are supposed to be seen as heroes, not people destroyed by the things they’re asked to do. The result is supposed to be triumph and joy, not pain and brokenness. The true indictment is, literally, being whitewashed, leaving behind a false message of victory and survival.
yg said:
“i have met the enemy and the enemy is us.”
yg said:
oh yeah, bush was an ardent champion of diplomacy.
cenoxo said:
yg, what I obviously have here is a failure to communicate. Perhaps I’m being too subtle, my juxtaposition of images is too confusing, or you’re getting all the irony supplements you need, but my goal is not to champion Bush. Instead, my points (ardently made without further obfuscation) are as follows.
President Obama has ordered an additional surge of 17,000 Americans (with perhaps 13,000 or more to follow) into what he believes is a winnable war in Afghanistan, one in which past major powers such as Britain and Russia failed to achieve victory and left. Obama’s surge exposes these men and women to considerable physical risks — when they engage in combat, it is certain that some of them will become additional mental and physical casualties.
Although Obama claims he will engage in more diplomacy, his war orders will intensify the conflict, inflate its considerable expense during a depressed national economy, and increase the chance that more people will be wounded, maimed, and killed. How does Obama’s Agenda for Afghanistan substantially change what the Bush Administration started?
One way that President Bush demonstrated his support for veterans severely wounded in Afghanistan (and Iraq) was by briefly jogging with them during a photo opportunity on the South Lawn of the White House. Was that an effective and credible public relations effort?
When Candidate Obama was on his world public relations tour to gain international exposure, he briefly played basketball with American soldiers in a gymnasium on a U.S. base in Kuwait. Now that he has assumed the role of War President, might he show support for severely wounded veterans by physically interacting with them in a similar manner? If he were to do that, would it be a more effective and credible public relations effort than what Bush did previously?
pierre said:
they made his mother cover his last words??? what a bunch of FU….S!!