The ramifications of the Iraq War are wide ranging, the ripples travel far. I’ll let this story speak for itself:
Army Spc. Matthew Sepi, 20, was carrying an assault rifle on his way to buy beer at a downtown Las Vegas convenience store early Sunday when he and a man exchanged gunfire, according to court records cited by the Las Vegas Review-Journal.
More below…
“He felt that the situation in the alley was an ambush, and he reacted the way he had been trained,” the police report said.
Las Vegas homicide Lt. Tom Monahan identified Jackson as Ratcliff’s girlfriend and said some evidence suggested the shooting was self-defense.
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Sepi’s mother, Nora Sepi, told the Review-Journal her son served in Iraq with the 4th Infantry Division, based at Fort Hood, Texas. She said he seldom spoke of combat but mentioned that he participated in gunbattles.
Nora Sepi said Matthew Sepi had been in contact with the Veterans Affairs Administration for help with post-traumatic stress disorder since returning home.
More detail, one day later:
“It appears as though this is a legitimate self-defense case,” said Sepi’s attorney, Nancy Lemcke. “We will be exploring that together with some possible mental health issues largely related to his service in the military.”
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According to an arrest report by the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department, Sepi, who has been living in Las Vegas, carried his assault rifle inside a long black coat as he walked from his apartment to a 7-Eleven to buy beer about 1:30 a.m. Sunday.
He told police he took the weapon because he had been threatened by a man with a knife in the alley the night before.
According to the report, Sepi said that as he walked through the alley, he was confronted by a man and woman who said something to him that he couldn’t remember.
On his way back, after buying beer, he said the couple yelled at him to get out of their alley.
Sepi said that he saw the man holding what appeared to be a gun and that the man shot at him. Police recovered a 9mm pistol and spent casings at the scene.
Sepi said he shot back with his rifle and left.
When police arrested Sepi in his car, he asked, “Who did I take fire from?”
The report states that Sepi referred to his actions in the alley as “breaking contact.”
“He explained that he had been trained in the military that in a situation in which he was ambushed, he was to engage the targets, and retreat from the area,” the report states. “He felt that the situation in the alley was an ambush, and he reacted the way he had been trained.”
So many angles to this story. I surely do hope it was self defense, for Matthew Sepi’s sake (and really for the sake of all of us). So many questions though too. If it was me, I would not go back down that alley if I had been threatened the night before. I completely understand how Sepi reverted to his military training when placed in a situation of personal danger (its happened to me and I’ve responded with violence, but no guns). It’s disturbing, though, that Sepi used military terminology to describe the situation. Can he distinguish between a combat situation and an assault? This story is very disturbing for me. No matter how much therapy or treatment returning soldiers recieve, some will not be able to cope with return to a non-combat society. I knew many of them when I was active duty. Many self medicate with alcohol or other self destructive behaviors (just like survivors of trauma in the civilian world). Many isolate themselves from society, moving into the wilderness to escape human contact. The area I live is infamous for this; Vietnam vets live in the forest here. This is a hidden cost of the war, a cost to be paid long after “Mission Accomplished” is declared.
