The young man left no suicide note apparently and there doesn't seem to have been other issues like money and infidelity according to reports so far. Investigators intend to subpoena military records to see if there was any indication that Magdzas had medical issues connected to his service in Iraq but according to the Associated Press, a military spokes woman says that "the military can not disclose Magdzas' health records to the public."
What a tragedy. This is what time in Iraq will do to a person. Who knows what this young man who should have had a bright and productive future was thinking that drove him to commit such horror. It is possible he has committed such horror before in Iraq. If you haven't seen it already I strongly recommend purchasing a copy of The Ground Truth, you can buy it from Iraq Veterans Against the War I was deeply moved by this video and humbled by the strength and decency of the young people in it.
For a normal human being, killing another person is deeply disturbing. This is why I detest the likes of Arnold Schwarzenegger and Sylvester Stallone who made their millions making violent movies, killing people as if it was a day at the races. And Schwarzenegger in particular who is a "tough on crime" capitalist politician while commit violence against workers through his polices as California governor. Stallone never served in Vietnam and is rumored to have spent much of that war period working at a girls school in Switzerland from what I have heard.
It is working class youth that they use to fight their wars. Matthew Magzdas should have had a life growing older with his partner and watching their children become adults. Their parents have lost their grandchildren. He is a victim of a predatory war against workers like himself in another land, a war waged by capitalists using our children as the fodder. The increase in the ranks of the unemployed is good for these adventures as a stint in the military becomes the only option for many young people. But even if it isn't economic necessity that drives our young people in to the military, even if they do it because they believe they are defending our freedoms, they are being lied to, they are being conned and we owe it to them to tell them the truth amidst this sea of lies and propaganda about freedom and patriotism.
I remember in the documentary I mention above where a young guy talks of having to come home after being in an environment where running your Humvee over a young child's body if she is in the way is normal practice, to going down the mall with the wife and kids as if nothing has happened.
Chris Hedges and Laila Al Arian tell of one young mans experience in Iraq in their book, Collateral Damage. an experience that lays the basis for behavior that becomes more violent over time and continues when the "boys" return home:
"We were approaching this one house, and this farming area, they're built up in to little courtyards. So they have the main house, common area. They have a kitchen and a storage shed type deal. We were approaching and they had a family dog. And it was barking ferociously because it was doing its job. And my squad leader, out of nowhere, just shoots it and it went in to the jaw and exited out. So I see this dog, and I'm a huge animal lover. I love animals----and this dog has like these eyes on it and he's running around spraying blood all over the place. And the family is sitting right there with three little children and a mom and dad horrified. And I'm at a loss for words. And so, I yell at him. I'm like what are you doing. The dogs yelping. It's crying out without a jaw. And I'm looking at the family and they're just scared. I told him, shoot it you know. At least kill it because that can't be fixed, it's suffering. And I actually get tears from saying this right now, but--and I had tears then too----and I'm looking at the kids and they're so scared. So I got the interpreter over with me and I get my wallet out and I give them twenty bucks because that's what I had. I had him give it to them and told them I was so sorry that asshole did that."
Read on this blog an excerpt form a young Israeli mans description of his experiences at the checkpoints to get another first hand example of what these situations do to normally healthy young people. We don't need the sanction of a university degree to know that it is the experience of war that causes these situations.
The above is just one, somewhat mild example of what goes on under such circumstances. It is what makes people sick and I am convinced is what destroyed this young veteran. And all this as Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, Bush and other warmongers walk around free having sacrificed nothing.
Reading about this made me so angry at the those that send these young people in to these situations and so sad for the families involved today. It should also not be forgotten that for the people of Iraq, the US invasion and earlier sanctions has meant misery and horror that have far surpassed anything that the Hussein years (another old friend of US capitalism) had to offer.
We will see more violence brought back from Iraq as damaged young people return home. It is workers and our families that are the victims no matter what country we're in.
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