Stress on our Soldiers

From the
AP:

Times’ Marine of the Year charged in
shooting; two injured

Associated Press

LAWRENCE, Mass. — A man who was named “Marine of the Year” last month for
his service in Iraq injured two people when he fired a shotgun from his
apartment window at a group of revelers leaving a night club, police said. A
15-year-old girl and a 20-year-old man were injured by bullet fragments when
Daniel Cotnoir, 33, of Lawrence, allegedly fired a bullet at the crowd outside
his second-floor apartment early Saturday.

Minutes before the shooting, Cotnoir called police to complain about the
noise coming from the street around 2:50 a.m., The Lawrence Eagle-Tribune
reported.

Cotnoir, whose wife and two daughters were home at the time of the
shooting, later told police he feared for his family’s safety because someone
threw an empty juice bottle through his bedroom window.

Cotnoir was arrested and held on $100,000 bail. He was to be arraigned
Monday in Lawrence District Court on attempted murder charges.

Lissette Cumba, 15, and Kelvin Castro, 20, of Lowell, were treated for
gunshot wounds. Both have been released from local hospitals.

“It was the craziest night of my life,” Castro said. “I don’t know what
that guy’s intentions were.”

Cotnoir has frequently called police to complain about noise and fights
outside the Punto Finale nightclub. Last year, police said, he claimed someone
leaving the club had fired a gunshot at his apartment.

On Saturday, Cotnoir’s wife told police her husband had been drinking and
that they had been fighting shortly before the shooting.

Last month, the Marine Corps Times presented Cotnoir with its annual Marine
of the Year award. He beat out 180,000 other candidates for the honor.

Cotnoir, now a Marine reservist, was a military mortician in Iraq. During
his deployment last year, he was responsible for preparing soldiers for
open-casket funerals.

“Sgt. Cotnoir’s selflessness and dedication to fallen Marines, and to their
families back home, is truly inspiring,” U.S. Rep. Martin Meehan said last
month as he presented the award to Cotnoir at a ceremony in Washington, D.C.

In an interview last month with the Eagle-Tribune, Cotnoir said the job
took a heavy psychological toll. At the time, he was getting counseling at a
veterans hospital in Bedford.

“It’s a lot harder to talk about the job now than it was at the time to
actually do it,” he said. “The stories I’ve gained from my deployment aren’t
the kind of stories you share.”

As this war lingers on and our hopes for democracy in Iraq get shredded even
further, you can expect more of these types of stories emerging. The soldiers
have had to do the unthinkable over there and in the worse conditions, not the
administration feels that them coming back with a stress disorder may not be
true. The only concern of Bush’s White House is money – plain and simple!