Explore Life Stories, Offer Condolences & Send Flowers. He is unsmiling, his eyebrows raised, his eyes intently focused on the photographer. They might have spent a hundred days where they did 40 raids, and in 15 of the raids they were within 10 yards of a breach explosion. Harp wrote: Fort Bragg soldiers have been turning up unresponsive in their barracks on a disturbingly regular basis since the beginning of 2020, including Caleb Smither, Terrance Salazar, Jamie Boger, Joshua Diamond, Matthew Disney, Mikel Rubino, Michael Hamilton, and numerous others who have not been named. Some of them are really great. Have a nice day. , I go to the location listed on the incident report to learn more, and find four people, two men and two women, living in a one-bedroom apartment in a drab complex near Cross Creek. Roman-Martinez had done multiple parachute jumps in the course of his training, but he was an HR specialist, a guy whose job it was to maintain personnel records. A celebration of life will be held on Saturday, May 13th 2023 at the Veteran's Hall (360 N Harrison St, Fort Bragg, CA At least 44 Fort Bragg soldiers died stateside in 2020 several of them were homicides. Taking part in and witnessing violence, being away from home for long periods of time, and disillusionment with the mission can put special operators at heightened risk, Donati says, of divorce, alcoholism, substance abuse, and anger issues. The justification was unconvincing on its face. Terrance Salazar, 24, of Pleasanton, Texas, was found unresponsive in his room Nov. 11 and could not be revived, a spokesman for the 82nd Airborne Division said. In the past six weeks, four wives of soldiers at Fort Bragg have been murdered. Accidental? Cloaked in secrecy and sloshing with money, JSOC has operational control over the most elite commando units of each of the major service branches, including the Navys SEAL Team 6 and the Armys Delta Force, which it uses to carry out the nations most politically risky, no-fail missions, like the killing of Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi, the emir of the Islamic State, in 2019. Thank you for your service. William J. Lavigne II, 37, and Timothy Dumas, 44. Full disclosure, Nicole says, me and Billy and Mark all did coke together., On multiple occasions, she saw other special operators snorting cocaine, too. On top of the sort of training that all Rangers, Green Berets, and Navy SEALs have to go through, he had been schooled in sabotage, demolition, hostage rescue, tactical driving, lockpicking, and spy-trade craft such as how to shadow people, use dead drops, and live under a cover identity. Ari McGuire, died of a fentanyl overdose at Fort Bragg in August 2019, after he was allegedly introduced to drugs by his platoon sergeant in Afghanistan. When they were doing cocaine, Mabey says, he always acted perfectly fine. Lavignes death., Pentagon Finally Stops Hiding Military Overdose Epidemic, Senators Press Pentagon for Answers on Rash of Overdose Deaths, These Kids Are Dying Inside the Overdose Crisis Sweeping Fort Bragg. I called every day for a month. Fish ate them, says his sister (above at her brothers funeral and on the beach where his remains were found). Leshikar was a native of rural Idaho and had lived in Washington state, near the Canadian border. He finally put the gun down. In the aftermath, Lynda says, There were no real repercussions.. I could never take anything serious.. To date, the House Armed Services Committee seems not to have noticed the similar pattern at Fort Bragg. The DA, Billy West, did not respond to requests for comment but told the Fayetteville Observer that two other people whod been at Lavignes house took responsibility for the drugs. There is a difference between death notices and obituaries, however. It was his last hoorah, says Nicole, who spoke to her brother for a final time on St. Patricks Day. He was planning on coming home and building a log cabin on our property, says his dad. Over the past 20 years of continuous war, from the snowy passes of the Hindu Kush to the desert scrublands of Somalia, JSOCs budget and autonomy have continuously grown, and so has the scope of its mission. Posted 2023-04-21T13:30:09+00:00 - Updated 2023-04-21T23:20:10+00:00 One evening in October 2013, Dumas came over to fix an electrical outlet, and Ballard had the distinct impression that he was hitting on her: He was trying to pry about where my husband was. She told him they were separated at the moment. Ed Markey, Elizabeth Warren, and three other senators are demanding answers from Defense Sec. He was still a very active, decorated soldier.. The DAs office did not respond to multiple requests for more information. In his LinkedIn photo, Dumas looks fairly nondescript. In light of this disturbing trend, the letter reads, we write seeking a full understanding of the pattern of overdoses., Sen. Markey, a Democrat from Massachusetts who has sponsored a number of bills to combat the opioid epidemic, is spearheading the oversight effort. He was arrested for a final time on September 17th, in Fayetteville, this time on a prostitution charge. Ian Paul McLaughlin, 29, of Newport News, Virginia, was killed Jan. 11, 2020, by an improvised explosive device in Kandahar, Afghanistan. But my brother was murdered back in May. And I looked at Daddy and it was like he was dancing. Goodman was in the 3rd Special Forces Groups 2nd Battalion, according to the statement. Personnel numbers are also kept secret, but two years ago, a retired Delta Force colonel, a veteran of the Iraq War, told me that the unit is made up of about 250 operators, plus another 2,000 support troops. What protocol is in place to identify and respond to an uptick in overdoses either generally or at a specific military installation? Macho as Leshikar might have been, when his little girl told him that he had to wear a dress to attend her tea party, he didnt argue. Sgt. He saw people die. Sgt. Maybe. This morning, a group of five senators led by Sen. Edward Markey demanded answers from the military on the subject of overdose deaths in the armed forces, in a letter sent to Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin. She sent him a text message and agreed to hear him out on condition they meet at Leshikars grave site. Jessica Donati, the author of Eagle Down: The Last Special Forces Fighting the Forever War, tells me that since 2014, the burden of maintaining the United States never-ending war in Afghanistan has shifted almost entirely onto the Green Berets, who have been used by successive administrations as a political tool to plug holes in policies that dont work, and to maintain the fiction that the United States has withdrawn from combat operations. Hughes was an unmanned aerial vehicle operator assigned to the A Troop, 1st Squadron, 17th Cavalry Regiment, 82nd Airborne Division. He was looking to be helpful and to be part of the team.. The 172,000-acre Fort Bragg base is one of the world's largest military complexes with approximately 57,000 military personnel, 11,000 civilian employees and 23,000 family members. I dont know any soldier who has done the tours he had done that doesnt., That was certainly the case with Lavigne. The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time He was seeing bad things.. CIA Director, Noam Chomsky Named in Epstein's Private Calendar: Report More generally, how many active duty service members had traces of misused prescription medication or illicit drugs in their system at the time of death? That broke me, Romero says. He told the county investigator that Leshikar had come at him with a screwdriver, leaving him no choice but to shoot in self-defense, supposedly for the protection of the children. Fort Bragg, North Carolina, is a military installation of the United States Army in North Carolina, and is one of the largest military installations in the world, with around She claims to have known Lavigne well, and to have seen him do cocaine, crystal meth, and heroin. There is no record of an indictment for either offense. Its a horrible photo, Nicole says, like hes already dead. In real life, she says, he was more handsome: tall and bald, with a neatly trimmed beard. Its a lot of TBI, or traumatic brain injury. 0:44. At the relatively young age of 37, after a full 20 years in the military, he would be entitled to a substantial pension and lifelong benefits. Command Sgt. He didnt spend a single night in jail. The details, gleaned from an administrative inquiry by the Army to determine whether Leshikar died in the line of duty, are sketchy: Around 1 p.m., while still on the road, Lavigne texted Laura to tell her that Leshikar was acting paranoid. One day in late November, she says, she was working on a customers car when she turned around and there was Billy, wearing a black ski mask and carrying a crossbow. Grace Community Church had just opened a last-minute temporary shelter for the homeless the previous night. And when my daddy looked up, I could see he wasnt there anymore.. The report, released in early 2020, was mostly a whitewash, full of vague language about improving leadership and accountability. The 100 Greatest TV Shows of All Time, No narcotics were reported recovered, but for the Joint Special Operations Command, or JSOC, which is headquartered at Fort Bragg, it had all the makings of yet another drug scandal, the latest in a string of them to hit the special-operations community. In any event, there is no court record showing that he was ever prosecuted. 3 Sarah Lewis, 34, was allegedly shot dead by her husband Staff Sgt Keith Lewis Credit: Facebook 3 Of fatal overdoses, how many were ruled a suicide? His rudeness annoyed her. Crime-scene technicians would have photographed it on December 2nd, when they turned aside the nylon blanket he was wrapped in and saw him barefoot and shirtless, shot multiple times in the chest. Her son, Spc. Him and my brother had similar features., Leshikar, bearded and scowling in most photos, was six-foot-four, with a square jaw, a head of light-brown hair, and tattooed shoulders. Ruth Sparks, a native of San Jose, California, and resident of Fort Bragg, California, passed away on December 1, 2022, surrounded by her family. MILITARY. Army investigators have disclosed nothing, not even the identities of the other soldiers who were on the camping trip, one of whom was a young woman. I thought it was guns because he would talk about all the parts he had access to, and all the guns he could get., At the time, Ballard had recently left the Navy and had yet to join the police or become a detective. I was like a fly on the wall, she says, watching their interactions. Unlike his buddies, Lavigne never bragged about the number of people he had killed. More: Death of Special Forces soldier found on Fort Bragg ruled as homicide. Send us a tip using our anonymous form. Out of view of the girls, Leshikar and Lavigne continued to drink and use drugs. I kill people for a living., After his dozen-plus deployments, Lavigne was no less haunted by moral injury. According to military records obtained through the Freedom of Information Act, a hard-to-believe 105 soldiers assigned to the base died stateside in 2020 and 2021. People who knew him tell me that in life, he fit a certain kind of American archetype: the wannabe special-forces guy, a fake operator who, in order to impress people or intimidate them, passed himself off as an ex-commando. During the eight-hour drive back to North Carolina, Laura split off to take her sister to the airport in Raleigh. Bragg that are still unexplained but many believe might be tied to the U.S. Armys policy of mandatory covid-19 vaccinations:. T He was repeatedly arrested for possession of untaxed liquor, failure to return rented property, and permitting a minor to consume alcohol. She and her husband, a Navy submariner, were moving to North Carolina, and stayed for a time at Leshikars apartment. McLaughlins mother, Glenna Carroll, told a Virginia television station he will be remembered as a dedicated father, husband and son. Daddy was mad at Uncle Billy for locking the door, Leshikars daughter told her mother and grandmother. We were always poor growing up, his sister Griselda says. I killed my best friend, he said, according to Patino. But he had a gun. There was another vivid memory that particularly bothered him: walking through the rubble of a demolished city with a Belgian Malinois, a service dog, and allowing the animal to eat the brains from a dead mans broken skull as a treat.. He was taken home that same night by some of his Delta Force teammates. Mount, 25, from St. George, Utah, died July 21 as the result of a vehicle rollover accident while conducting reconnaissance operations, July 21 in Eastern Syria. The Department of Defense announced 25 total casualties of service members who died in combat or noncombat-related incidents throughout 2020. He wore camouflage but sat in a cubicle. On April 11th, shortly before the number of Covid-19 cases in the U.S. surpassed 1 million, Dumas had been arrested in Winston-Salem. Just a while ago the FBI went and dived in the area, and didnt find anything. We lost our friend, he told the dispatcher. He was deployed to Saudi Arabia when he read on Facebook that Roman-Martinez, whom hed known since middle school, had gone missing. In 2016, he was assigned to the 307th Airborne Engineer Battalion, 3rd Brigade Combat Team, 82nd Airborne Division at Fort Bragg, where he served as a horizontal construction engineer and later as a squad leader. She hung up on him, but later had second thoughts. The remaining three are still at large from incidents in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., Queens, N.Y., and Detroit, Mich. Three Fort Bragg soldiers died while deployed overseas in 2020, according to the Department of Defense. He had a strong personality. His care-free, easygoing personality made him approachable and well-loved, Moro said. Why in the hell would you just let some guy off on murder?, A waste of paper is how Nicole describes CIDs report, which she received in heavily redacted form. He was a three-time volunteer on his second combat deployment, said Maj. Gen. Christopher Donahue, the commander of the 82nd. They do what they want.. In addition to Rolling Stones investigation of Fort Bragg, the senators letter to Secretary Austin cited a number of other alarming reports, including: evidence of rising overdose deaths among veterans and in military hospitals; an incident in March of this year in which five West Point cadets nearly died from taking fentanyl-laced cocaine; and the June 2021 death of Pfc. Im tenderhearted, she says. He kind of represented himself as an SF operator, she says, though he was just a logistics guy. Here's who they are. That he would take care of him permanently. Had it been properly looked into, she says, all the bodies and drugs that have come in the last two and a half years might have been avoided.. Elizabeth Warren, Lisa Murkowski, John Cornyn, and Martin Heinrich were also signatories to the letter, which posed six questions to the Pentagon, starting with, How many active military service members overdosed from January 1, 2017 to present?, The letter referenced Rolling Stones most recent report, published in the September issue, on rising overdose deaths at Fort Bragg, and in the U.S. Army more generally. There were a couple others that were with us, she tells me, drinking and partying. They are a very hush-hush community, says Diane Ballard, a police detective in the tiny town of Vass, where numerous Delta Force operators, current and retired, own houses.
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