A Marine's Sacrifice
by Charles C. Hall, Ed. D

Lance Cpl. Jeffrey M. Lucey* of Belchertown, Massachusetts, was home from a seven-month tour of Iraq before he began talking about taking his life. During that time, he started drinking heavily, was continually depressed, had made two visits to VA psychiatrists who sent him home without careful monitoring nor treatment, and not told he had a full-blown case of PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder). Why not? Because all service and VA MDs had been ordered by DOD (Dept. of Defense) not to mention this debilitating condition to returning G.I.s. He hanged himself with a garden hose (double wrapped) in the basement of his parents' home on June 22, 2004.

He visited his younger sister one afternoon and told her of the "bumps in the road." They had been reminiscing about their carefree childhood when suddenly his mood changed to one of darkness. The "bumps in the road" were dead Iraqi men, women and children whom he was ordered to drive over. Jeff asked one of his fellow Marines "...how am I to handle this?" The answer was, "Don't look back."

But he did look back, not physically, but in his mind. The images of small children plowed over by his Humvee, were never out of his mind's eye. He re-lived every large and small "bump." The small "bumps" were the worst, for he once had been a little boy. Persistent "replaying of the images " was unbearable to Jeff, for he was a decent, moral person. When he could not shake his grief, he ended his life.

Now, his parents and sister have only photo images, and vivid memories of a beautiful nine-year-old Cub Scout, dark, curly hair in his Cub uniform, and wholesome family outings as he grew into a handsome young man standing ramrod straight in his Marine Corps dress blues. (Lucey's family will not receive any medals for Jeff 's sacrifice because his is an "off-thebooks death.")

Such painful recollections are the fates of those families who have lost young men and women who wanted to serve their country in an early call to arms when many believed we were on the verge of many more tragedies which occurred on 9/ 11/01. Unfortunately, there will be many more families like Jeff's who are going to mourn a loved one before our troops are no longer in Iraq. To those who say, "...Iraq is winnable," I say baloney. Win is when the other guy quits.

In Memory of Lance Corporal Jeffrey M. Lucey of the United States Marine Corps

*Rolling Stone Magazine for the May 31, 2007 issue by Jenny Eliscu.