Posted on 07/10/2020 4:00:56 PM PDT by E. Pluribus Unum
Edited on 07/10/2020 4:01:44 PM PDT by Sidebar Moderator. [history]
The enemy could never break him, but what this decorated Green Beret eventually found was that his enemy was within. Friends who served with him in the military say he was the real Captain America.
Master Sgt. Andrew Christian Marckesano served six full tours in Afghanistan with the 82nd Airborne and the Ranger regiment and a half dozen more combat tours overseas. He rose to become a decorated Green Beret and a Silver Star recipient. He had just moved to Washington, D.C., to start a coveted job at the Pentagon. Two days after the Fourth of July on Monday night, after having dinner with his former battalion leader, Marckesano returned home from dinner in Old Town, Alexandria, and died by suicide in front of his wife. He had three small children and was still on active duty.
His death sent shock waves through the military. His friends, family and military leaders were at a loss. Many told Fox News that Marckesano never got over his tour in Afghanistan's Arghandab Valley in 2009 with the 2-508, a battalion that had one of the highest casualty rates of any unit during the war. That deployment was like being in the ring with Mike Tyson for a year, according to the battalions former Command Sgt Major Bert Puckett.
He sent a passionate appeal this week to the rest of the battalion: Text me, I told you before my door is open... my phone is at hand. We did things that people make movies about and in some cases, writers and producers wouldnt even try to write our story... the rucksack is heavy... and when it gets heavy we [&$#*] help each other, but you have to reach out... Dont let the Valley win.
The only way to eliminate endless war is a comprehensive draft with zero deferrals. Everyone drafted goes straight into combat,
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Modern warfare is not a straight to combat situation - a whole lot of training and retraining is necessary before hand, unless your objective is to create cannon fodder.
So, just what are your bona fides?
Many men better than us this way pass and if not for the Grace of God....
Oh I think many did see warning signs.....and that they were also were doing what they could outside of commiting him against his will.
We don’t now what was said betwen the Commander and this soldier. Could have been many things including trying to get him to commit himself and his wife was aware of that prior....there are many unanswered questions and plenty of theories.
They will work things out because whatever tripped his action to commit suicide in front of his wife and kids was extreme even for one suicidal.
amen
Always love the sissies on FR who engage in direct personal attacks. No, I wouldn’t as you say “tell that to his widow and kids.” No, this doesn’t have anything to do with “virtue signaling.” Just calling a coward (or two) out for who they are instead of engaging in this ridiculous hero worship that has Leavenworth truck repairmen who never had a day in theater much less combat filing for PTSD and 100% disability and taking teary salutes at the local VFW.
The new way to do things, as you see by the deletion of your original post,
when one is “offended,”
is not to argue, but to erase what offends:
to cancel it.
And here we are, on Free Republic!
War changes everyone who experiences it.
Some die during the experience,
some live through the experience,
but are never the same person they were before....
Will this crap EVER end? War did not change me. Combat did not change me.
This country is so insane with genuflecting over every sonofabitch who served it’s disgusting.
Suicide is NOT honorable. Honorable men do not commit suicide in front of their wife and kids.
“..and treat that nation like the enemy it is.”
Was there. I don’t think the country is the enemy as much as the ISL groups. The people of the country have just learned to turn a deaf ear to all of it and accept their status as collateral damage. It’s been going on for centuries.
But you and I don’t have a difference of opinion concerning the removal of the troops. The people worrying about it in congress are concerned about outside occupation of terrorists in a country that has had this for generations anyway and is no different than their surrounding countries like Pakistan and Iran. I feel they are trying to extend the action to cover the screw up by Obama when he escalated that area.
So this has nothing to do with ISL. It has to do with USA politics. For them it’s just another day at the federal building trying to cover someone’s a$$ and keep the unrest in the US as bad as it can be manipulated to to get votes.
rwood
Sorry to upset you. Just relating my experiences. Were you always this angry?
Well, someone has to protect the poppy fields.
As infantry. Not REMFs
I can understand the confusion between Liz and Lynne—they both have the same ANNOYING voice. I’d rather hear nails on a chalkboard than either of them speak.
Well said.
I suspect he discovered some things about his “job” at the Pentagon that made him realize that he had fought the soldiers’ fight for America for nothing. The trashing of all American heritage, even being abetted by many politicians and bureaucrats in Washington DC must have weighed heavily on his mind. Perhaps certain folks were wanting to “leverage” him to the point of even threatening his family so he felt the only way to save them was to off himself....perhaps the wife was not an innocent in all this. It is a shame he did it with his children in the house....
what a tragedy!
Sort of what I was thinking...that he was told he’d be expected to do such and such.
The wife knows something or the soldier found out something about the wife that just cut his heart out from him....otherwise most just go somewhere privately to do the deed....
Something indeed stinks about this....
Perhaps he just went crazy out of solipsistic guilt, being tired of feeling like he was carrying the weight of the world and just ended it all, not caring who was around....
But the wife knows something...and she ain’t telling what. I wonder what a bit of digging around would uncover....
It also seems beyond the laws of averages....just what the hell happend and what did these guys go thru and did things happen or did they do things that could be held against them. A good investigative reporter(maybe Herridge) should dig in)...I’ll bet the story would be heartbreaking and epic!
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