The Fort Lee Story

An episode occurred yesterday (Monday) at Fort Lee Army Post.  Basically, a Sgt First Class (roughly fourteen years of service reported via one media site)....got into a tirade at the organizational headquarters.

No one says much over what triggered the fit of hostility, nor will they say if she was under treatment for anything, or any anti-depression pills.

Cops were called because of the outrage being shown.  They arrived to find this gal locked in the office area, with her own handgun (not an Army issue weapon as you might suspect).

After a few minutes of talk.....she killed herself.

The Army is investigating the episode.

What some have said is that she only deployed to Iraq once over the past decade....back in 2007....for roughly a year.  Beyond that....no other deployments reported.

Over the past couple of years.....most of the shooting episodes around Army posts have involved men.  It's the first that I know of....involving a woman.

Around twenty years ago....I was in a unit and we had a thirty-five year-old gal who was married.  She went home early one day....finding her husband (a contractor) in the house with some other gal.  Yeah, in a compromising position.

Our associate went into some tirade and fit that went involved her kicking the husband out of the husband....then throwing all his clothing and property out of the house.  Cops came, and they simply stood there waiting for her to simmer down. Well....it took around forty-five minutes for her to reach some point of cooling off, with a massive amount of personal property of the husband destroyed.

Health-wise....the cops were a bit worried over this gal, and took her to the base clinic....where they gave her some kind of injection and knocked her out for at least twelve hours.

By the next day.....she was back up, peppy, and prepared to destroy more property of the husband.  It took a good bit of talking by the First Sgt to calm her down, and around twelve more hours on the second day before they'd release.

She ended up spending weeks under the watchful eye of a mental health expert....before reaching a point where she was finally in control of her senses.  She admitted a week later in office chatter that occurred....that she just wasn't herself and some fit of rage had taken control of her mind.

The husband?  She ended up divorcing him....as I was told later.

Maybe the Army will get to the bottom of this episode at Fort Lee, but I'm guessing it'll involve some things that they don't want to discuss in public.  So, we might never know the trigger to her fit of rage.

After thirty-odd years of hanging around military individuals and bases/posts.....I came to some point of realizing that we have a lot of pressure built up within some folks, and they simply use military discipline to contain their rage and fits.  Strong minds.....contain vast thoughts of destruction and harm....even to one's self.

It was one of the odd things that I eventually figured out about life in the military.  There's lots of positives, and this small handful of negatives.  And somehow, most of the time.....it generally works out OK.  In this case?  Well....no.