It is not known whether the suspect in the Michigan shooting sought mental health treatment from the US Department of Veterans Affairs, but the suspect in the North Carolina attack had. What we do know is that veterans deserve better from the country they once served to help deal with stresses that most civilians will never know.
But in Hegseth’s world it’s how you look in uniform that counts — not what happens when you take that uniform off and return to civilian life.
“It all starts with physical fitness and appearance,” he said Tuesday. “Today, at my direction, every member of the joint force, at every rank, is required to take a [physical training] test twice a year, as well as meet height and weight requirements twice a year, every year of service.”
He said he’s tired of seeing “fat troops” and “fat generals and admirals.”
“It’s a bad look. It is bad, and it’s not who we are,” he added.
And military leaders once accused of bullying and hazing their troops can expect to be welcomed back under the new warrior ethos rules.
“We’re undertaking a full review of the department’s definitions of so-called toxic leadership, bullying, and hazing to empower leaders to enforce standards without fear of retribution or second guessing,” Hegseth said.
And when the warriors on the receiving end of that bullying and hazing return to civilian life, they won’t be his concern anymore — no, their mental health and welfare will fall to the VA, a separate entity that now teeters on the brink of its own fiscal disaster.
Maybe it’s time for less rah-rah rallying of leaner troops and more caring for the troops during and after their service.
Under arrest today is Nigel Edge, 40, who served in the Marine Corps from 2003 to 2009 under the name Sean William DeBevoise. (He legally changed his name in 2023.) He’s charged with the Saturday night shooting that killed three and wounded eight at a waterfront bar in Southport, N.C. During his years as a Marine he was twice deployed to Iraq and earned two Bronze Stars and a Purple Heart.
He chronicled his experiences and his injuries, including a head injury, in a 2020 book titled “Headshot: Betrayal of a Nation (Truth Hurts).” He was, as the well-worn phrase goes, known to police.
Sunday morning at least four people were killed and eight wounded in an attack during services at the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Grand Blanc Township, Mich. The church was set on fire and destroyed in the blaze. The suspect, Thomas Jacob Sanford, 40, was killed by police at the scene. Authorities reported he had used an assault-style rifle.
Sanford enlisted in the Marines after high school, served four years, including a 2007-2008 deployment to Iraq, and was awarded several medals including an Iraq Campaign Medal and a Global War on Terrorism Service Medal. Back home he married and had a child.
He loved hunting and riding around in his pick-up truck with two American flags flying in the back. The fence at his home sported a Trump/Vance 2024 sign. He too had gotten in some trouble with police. Following the church shooting, a city council candidate told police Sanford had referred to Mormons as “the antichrist” in an otherwise friendly conversation, and neighbors reported him acting and driving around town erratically in recent days.
Veterans, including those with mental health diagnoses, should not be stigmatized or assumed to be violent threats. On the contrary, people who have wrestled with post-traumatic stress disorder often turn on themselves, suffering depression or ending their lives in suicide without committing violence on others.
Nor is war the only cause of stress for veterans. Hundreds of thousands of servicemembers have suffered traumatic brain injuries as a result of their military service. Robert R. Card II, the Army Reservist who killed 18 people in Lewiston, Maine, then himself in 2023, was never deployed to combat, but he was a grenade range instructor for years, where he had been exposed to thousands of blast waves. Boston University researchers found significant evidence of brain injuries due to those waves.
The VA estimates that 15 to 20 percent of veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan have experienced a traumatic brain injury, causing physical, emotional, and cognitive issues.
Meanwhile, last week some 170 physicians, psychologists, and health care workers who practice at VA facilities signed a letter raising “urgent concerns” about staffing cuts and the aggressive privatization of the VA system, which currently treats some 9 million veterans at 170 medical centers and 1,000 outpatient clinics.
An August report by the VA’s inspector general found “severe” staffing shortages at all its hospitals.
This administration owes its forces a duty of care — while they are wearing the uniform and certainly after. Its failure to provide that grows more obvious every day, and all of Hegseth’s bluster can’t hide that basic truth.