Iraq Vet Mutilates Wife

He had said he was having trouble controlling his anger and didn’t like his wife going out and partying, said Michael Collins, a nurse and case manager at Madigan Army Medical Center.  A day before his wife was found dead in the couple’s kitchen, Bare told his rear detachment commander Capt. Mickey Traugutt that he was taking a new prescription that made it hard to get up and that he had missed a treatment.

Get ready America, the war’s not over when these guys leave Iraq.  Typical of youngsters who sign up while suffering from a mental disorder commonly known as ‘outrageous stupidity’.  Marry a woman who, like yourself, just entered legal adulthood, then take off for a 9 month horrorshow in Iraq.  Thinking you’re coming home to someone who sincerely loves you, and is prepared and willing to do what it takes to ease your transition back into ordinary life, only to find a childish primadonna who’s grown used to the easy life.

From what I’ve seen first hand, it’s not uncommon to return home and find out that ‘Miss Thang’ has already spent a good chunk of your combat pay, run up debt on the credit cards, gained 100 pounds…and somehow managed to get pregnant even though you were 3,000 miles away.  Following a deployment to Bosnia, I was inundated with enough stories of this sort of thing to be convinced that marriage and deployments don’t mix.  The worst cases though, by far, involved spouses and husbands spaning the 17-23 year old demographic. 

Most of us wouldn’t put up with such nonsense, but the majority of soldiers try to tough it out, usually after meeting with the unit chaplin.  Think about it though, if you’re disabled and then become divorced, those alimony payments aren’t very appealing!  It’s the little things though, that over time just eat away at a man in this position.  Like how she’s had a full kitchen and commisary at her disposal the entire time you were deployed, yet the only dishes she knows how to prepare are microwave Easy Mac n’ Cheese and scrambled eggs. 

This particular maniac was bothered by how often she went out drinking at night.  Combine this with a smart mouth and probably a man on the side, it can trigger something within this wounded, emotionally disturbed, 19 year old, “battle hardened” trained killer…like, memories of a time not long past when someone running their mouth could be easily silenced in a number of different ways. 

The lesson to take out of this though, for any young man who’s in love and thinking about a career in the military…war is hell, but marriage can be even worse!