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Army's 'Captain America' dies by suicide after nearly a dozen combat tours
Fox News ^ | July 10, 2020 | Jennifer Griffin

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 battalion’s 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 wouldn’t 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... Don’t let the Valley win.”


TOPICS: News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: greenberet; marckesano; suicide
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To: Responsibility2nd

Troll


41 posted on 07/10/2020 4:24:38 PM PDT by IgnorerOfLiberals
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To: AnotherUnixGeek
I don't understand why it was necessary for him to serve six full tours in Afghanistan except people like Lynn Cheney seem bent on keeping us there.

I have said for years that if we have to have people serving tour after tour in war zones we are either there far too long or we are way over extending our military. In this case both.

Trump is doing the right thing getting us out of there and it is very instructive to see just who is adamantly opposed to it. This is just wrong on so many levels.

42 posted on 07/10/2020 4:26:16 PM PDT by ChildOfThe60s (If you can remember the 60s........you weren't really there)
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To: Responsibility2nd

‘Regardless of all his past victories as a respected soldier, he died a coward, a loser and a pathetic SOB.’

uh, yeah okay, bud...


43 posted on 07/10/2020 4:26:24 PM PDT by IrishBrigade
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To: Responsibility2nd

Holy mackeral, guy.


44 posted on 07/10/2020 4:27:32 PM PDT by BenLurkin (The above is not a statement of fact. It is either opinion or satire. Or both.)
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To: Equine1952

Three small children and a wife seem like a good reason to get help.


45 posted on 07/10/2020 4:28:03 PM PDT by Midwesterner53
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To: Responsibility2nd

Wow. That’s virtue signalling the most ardent leftist would envy.


46 posted on 07/10/2020 4:28:46 PM PDT by Trailerpark Badass (“There should be a whole lot more going on than throwing bleach,” said one woman.)
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To: E. Pluribus Unum; Jet Jaguar

A true tragedy, I mourn for his family, America lost a true hero.


47 posted on 07/10/2020 4:29:19 PM PDT by PROCON (Molon Labe)
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To: IgnorerOfLiberals

Look at it this way. His PTSD problems are over. He passed them on to his wife and children. What a hero.


48 posted on 07/10/2020 4:29:26 PM PDT by Responsibility2nd (Click my screen name for an analysis on how HIllary wins next November.)
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To: Responsibility2nd

You seem to lack humility, and empathy, and a bunch of other human traits.


49 posted on 07/10/2020 4:30:11 PM PDT by Trailerpark Badass (“There should be a whole lot more going on than throwing bleach,” said one woman.)
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To: Responsibility2nd

“What about the demons he left for his wife and children?

Selfish.”


You say that as a reasonably rational person sitting safely at a computer or on your phone. You don’t have to go to bed at night, afraid of what your past is going to do to you that night. You have not a single clue as to what he had to deal with, and the fact that someone who was clearly suffering so much is not the same person that entered the service or got married so many years ago. He was clearly not rational, clearly not balanced, clearly incapable of dealing with life as he saw it...and you condemn him for it.

I sincerely hope, for your sake, that you aren’t judged by the same standard by which you have judged this man.


50 posted on 07/10/2020 4:31:22 PM PDT by Ancesthntr ("The right to buy weapons is the right to be free." A. E. van Vogt, The Weapons Shops of Isher)
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To: Responsibility2nd

Gosh, you must be one tough cookie to say such a thing, so brave, so proud of your righteous judgement.

Only a coward, a loser and a pathetic SOB would think such a thing, much less say it to his family.

We are his family.

Go back to your drink, now, have another in honor of your own courage.


51 posted on 07/10/2020 4:31:54 PM PDT by Quentin Quarantino
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To: Responsibility2nd; Midwesterner53
I know what you're saying. I remember, years ago, watching an interview with Mariette Hartley. Her father committed suicide. Years later she still felt responsible and that there was something she could have done to stop him. The guilt and hurt for those left behind lasts forever.
We know a family whose son committed suicide. The guilt and pain is always there. Some of these posters need to talk to the families of suicides. To do it in front of them is unspeakably cruel.
52 posted on 07/10/2020 4:34:08 PM PDT by DJ MacWoW (The Fed Gov is not one ring to rule them all)
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To: Trailerpark Badass

Wrong. I do not lack humility and empathy. At least not for a suicide victim. My thoughts and prayers go out to the family he abandoned.


53 posted on 07/10/2020 4:34:27 PM PDT by Responsibility2nd (Click my screen name for an analysis on how HIllary wins next November.)
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To: colorado tanker
It's unbelievable what we ask of our soldiers today.

I don’t ask much of them at all.

By the time that George W. Bush left office the U.S. military campaign in Afghanistan was already longer than our involvement in World Wars I and II combined ... and that retarded baboon left the White House almost TWELVE YEARS AGO. Every prick in Congress and the White House back then should have had at least a half-dozen family members drafted and sent to both Afghanistan and Iraq.

54 posted on 07/10/2020 4:34:51 PM PDT by Alberta's Child ("We're human beings ... we're not f#%&ing animals." -- Dennis Rodman, 6/1/2020)
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To: Responsibility2nd

Does it occur to you what kind of pain this man was enduring, to cause him to DO such a thing in front of his family? NOBODY does a thing like that unless his pain is absolutely unbearable. Perhaps you should pray that YOU NEVER have to be in THAT kind of pain!


55 posted on 07/10/2020 4:35:23 PM PDT by Flaming Conservative ((Pray without ceasing))
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To: Responsibility2nd

That has to be the worst thing I’ve ever read on this site. You should be banished for that.


56 posted on 07/10/2020 4:36:10 PM PDT by Vermont Lt
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To: Ancesthntr

As I said up thread. Why should we worry anymore about his problems? He has left them to his wife and three small children.


57 posted on 07/10/2020 4:36:11 PM PDT by Responsibility2nd (Click my screen name for an analysis on how HIllary wins next November.)
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To: markomalley; DYngbld; TADSLOS; xsrdx; big'ol_freeper; Mark17; mikefive; JDoutrider; ...

Ping.


58 posted on 07/10/2020 4:36:31 PM PDT by Jet Jaguar
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To: Responsibility2nd

My feelings? Nope. Not hurt.

I hope his friends are angry enough to track your ass down and teach you some respect.

Very, very slowly.

L


59 posted on 07/10/2020 4:38:44 PM PDT by Lurker (Peaceful coexistence with the Left is not possible. Stop pretending that it is.)
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To: Responsibility2nd

You cannot comprehend what was going through his mind. A “normal” person doesn’t do that. Our policies and politicians destroyed this man. My heart goes out to his family.

You? Rats eating you from the toes up is too good an end for you.


60 posted on 07/10/2020 4:39:09 PM PDT by Vermont Lt
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