Agape Community

by David Capone

When Joyce and Kevin Lucey, parents of Marine Lance Corporal Jeffrey Lucey addressed those gathered at Agape’s St. Francis Day Celebration on October 8th, a sacred, profound stillness filled the air. They spoke lovingly about many of the intimate details of their young, deceased son’s life. They spoke of a happy, inquisitive, adventurous young man who left Belchertown, Massachusetts and of the emotional, guilt-ridden shell that returned.

Jeffrey Lucey, against his parent’s wishes joined the Marine Reserves right out of high school in the spring of 1999.

In February 2003 his reserve unit was deployed and he spent the next five months in Iraq, returning home in July 2003.

A few months after his return Jeffrey’s parents said that they began noticing signs of irregular behavior that they now recognize seems to fit the classic definition of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). Kevin Lucey went on further to state, ?that when a soldier has PTSD the whole family has PTSD.? The tension, anxiety, frustration, and sleep deprivation runs through the entire family as well. As parents you are willing to try and endure just about anything in order to healthfully ease and eliminate your child’s pain.

Subsequently, Joyce and Kevin learned that when Jeffrey returned to the United States and arrived at the demobilization site at Camp Pendleton in California, observers found out Jeff had been writing, in his diary, of seeing dead people in Iraq. "If you keep that up you’ll have to stay here longer’, he was told. His parents surmise that Jeffrey was so intent on getting home that he suppressed and internalized his true innermost feelings.

On Christmas Eve 2003 after heavy drinking Jeffrey took off the dog tags he had been wearing and threw them at his sister shouting, "Your brother is a murderer". His sister Debbie shouted back, "No, you?re my big brother." Jeff would later recount to his dad how he had been ordered to shoot two unarmed Iraqi’ men at close range. He described how he was shaking and how he thought to himself, "God these men are someone’s son, someone’s father." Kevin said that Jeff’s therapist felt that Jeff kept these dog tags not as trophies but as a way of honoring the lives of the men he had killed.

After Christmas things began to unravel swiftly. Jeffrey had bouts of paranoia, insomnia, and erratic behavior. Kevin recalled one time Jeff went to the beach with his girlfriend but quickly wanted to leave saying, "I’ve seen enough sand to last me a lifetime."

Kevin mentioned events like Jeff sneaking out of the house at night dressed in camouflage and going into town armed with knives. He also spoke of the time Jeff, after drinking, totaled the family car.

The most surreal encounter according to Kevin, as he grasped for composure, was the night his son asked if he could sit in his dad’s lap just as he did when he was a little boy.

In retrospect Kevin said he cherishes the fact that he granted his son that request.

As the events in Jeffrey’s life were spiraling downward, repeated efforts to have Jeff committed for professional treatment failed. On May 28 Jeffrey was involuntarily committed to the VA hospital and boasted to his dad that, "It took six of them to bring me down."

Recalling the frustrations in obtaining proper government medical assistance Kevin sadly stated, "I don?t know whether you are all aware of it or not but congress recently rejected appropriating additional monies to address mental health issues of returning Iraq soldiers, like Jeff." He was referring to the proposed amendment (Senate Vote 242) to provide an additional $10,000,000 to what was termed "Readjustment Counseling Service." Unconscionably, immediately following that vote on September 22, 2005; the Senate approved by a vote of 98-0, spending over 1700 times that amount, $17,000,000,000 (Senate Vote 243) for Military Construction and Veterans Affairs. One really has to question where the senate’s minds and hearts are at and whether they really in fact support our troops or the corporations profiting from doing business with the military industrial complex.

On June 22nd, 2004 around 6:45 in the evening, Kevin Lucey arrived home and walked through the house looking for Jeff. He went into Jeff?s bedroom and saw the dog tags on the bed. Thinking Jeff was downstairs Kevin descended the basement stairs and got a brief glimpse of Jeffrey’s feet dangling inches off the ground. As he rushed further, his gaze went rapidly up Jeff’s body until it focused on his neck with a garden hose wrapped around it. With tears in his eyes and a voice that was crackling Kevin described how he gently removed the hose and lowered Jeff’s body into his own. "My first reaction and I don’t know why, was to get a blanket and make Jeff warm because he felt so cold."

On the table set up in Francis? house were mementos of Jeffrey’s life including one of the suicide notes he left that read, "Please Dad don’t look, just call the police. I Love you, Jeff.

Epilogue

It would be interesting to see what official cause(s) of death appeared on Lance Corporal Jeffrey Lucey?s death certificate. The constant fear of being killed or being forced to kill other human beings you don?t even know, witnessing the suffering, mutilation and death of those all around you, bullets penetrating human bodies leaving gaping holes, body parts scattered on the ground, baking in excruciating heat, swallowing mouthfuls of sand, lack of sleep, not knowing if the person approaching you is friend or foe.

If the coroner didn’t put down a scarred soul and broken heart than he doesn’t know much about the tragic human horrors of war.

by David Capone

Eric Wasileski from nearby Deerfield, Mass., is the father of an eight-month old daughter, a former U. Mass student and current President of the Wally Nelson Chapter of Veterans For Peace. He was a former National Guard member for two years before joining the Navy. He served on a battleship in the Persian Gulf during 1998?s Operation Desert Fox as it launched 52 Tomahawk Missiles into Baghdad to a cheering chorus from his fellow soldiers.

Eric mentioned that, ?I have been in combat and felt in myself what it feels like to take another?s life.? Wasileski related that from the first moments in boot camp soldiers are desensitized. ?Training human beings to kill is a powerful thing.? On Christmas Eve, as our troops were singing Christmas carols and paying homage to the ?Prince of Peace, our ships were dropping deadly missiles on innocent Iraqi citizens. ?Not a day goes by that I don?t think of the Iraqi people I helped kill.? There was overall a total disconnect. I remember a sign nailed to a cross that read, ?Our God is better than your God.?

Eric said that prior to going to Iraq he was not particularly religious and was scripturally illiterate but while he was there he experienced a spiritual epiphany and came to recognize that every human being is a child of God. War however ignores this reality. Upon his return Eric began to study philosophy and joined the Quakers. Now Eric believes ?peace? is the organizing principle of life and nonviolence is the soul force that comes about by the power of love working through us. Calling that force nonviolent is like calling sunlight non-dark says Wasileski. It is using our souls to fight the enemy.

It is interesting to note, says Eric, that Jesus Himself lived under occupation yet continued to speak His native Hebrew and made no attempts to adopt the language or customs of the Roman invaders. When Peter became the first Christian to lift a sword Jesus said, ?Enough.?

Eric feels that the devastating result of all wars is poverty- a poverty of cash, poverty of spirit and most assuredly a poverty of community.

by David Capone

Patrick Resta, who currently lives in Philadelphia, served as a combat medic in Iraq from March to November 2004. He joined the military shortly after high school. ?My main motivation was always money for college and to get some training in the medical field. In New Jersey the National Guard pays for tuition, books, and fees to any state school. If you add on to that a few hundred dollars every month it sounded like a good deal to a 17 year old kid.? Even though he had reservations about enlisting Patrick rationalized that ?one man can?t make a difference.? So he enlisted.

His aunt and uncle were killed in the World Trade Center on September 11th and about three weeks later Patrick was called to active duty as part of homeland security.

He remembers vividly being sent to Iraq totally unprepared and unequipped. ?The personal weapons we were issued stateside were not the same weapons we received when we arrived in Iraq.? Hence the rifle Patrick had to use did not have his own personal sight settings. The Army issued armor was so inadequate that Patrick bought his own. The gas mask provided him did not fit. Soldiers had to revolt in order to receive an adequate supply of ammunition. Patrick said he felt with such inadequate tools that this administration did not place much value on either his life or the men that served with him as well.

?I was a medic so I witnessed first hand the horrors of war.? The main reason Patrick chose to become a medic was to treat and heal people and that is why he said he had such anguish and inner turmoil when he received orders from further on up in the chain of command that said he was only allowed to treat Iraqis that were in danger of losing life or limb. This represents a total disregard of the value and human dignity of our fellow human beings.

He too experienced a total disconnect from the truth. One example he recalled is when he would walk through a particular chow hall in Iraq that had a mural of the World Trade Towers with the words underneath inscribed ?Never Forget Why You Are Here?. On the wallpaper background of a fellow soldier?s computer were two pictures. One was of two Iraqi kids giving the Hitler salute. The other were photos of the Abu Ghraib prisoner abuse.

Patrick is now a member of Iraq Veterans Against The War and is not reluctant to relate his experiences to the American Public. While taping a segment for the McNeil Lehr News Report of soldiers who served in Iraq the director stopped the filming of Patrick in mid sentence saying, ?you can?t talk about that.?

In summation Patrick said, ?In war people always lose.?