So, did Kyle have some kind of training or psych background that qualified him to treat PTSD?
Really? For someone who suffers from PTSD bad enough to flip out like that? Anxiety on that level is usually fairly obvious, y’know?
There’s a huge difference between “having trouble adjusting to civvie life”, and full-blown PTSD. In the first case, hanging out and doing army buddy stuff might be appropriate, in the second, it doesn’t seem awfully smart. I don’t know what happened here, obviously, but doesn’t the VA Hospital diagnose and treat PTSD? In other words, it’s unlikely that his PTSD was flying under the radar.
And Loach’s view is apparently shared by other vets. Kyle had done activity this many times before, with many vets through the foundation he helped start. FITCO Cares, http://fitcocares.org/ , is a non-profit organization which created the Heroes Project to provide free in-home fitness equipment, individualized programs, personal training, and life-coaching to in-need veterans with disabilities or those suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder. Some ex-soldiers still enjoy shooting. His belief was that combining comeraderie like they had in the service with an activity they still enjoyed, may help them cope.
Yes, it’s dangerous to go to a shooting range with someone who has a history of mental issues, but Chris had been mentoring the shooter and obviously felt that the risk was minimal. For whatever reason, the guy snapped and killed his 2 friends. Who is to say that, had they gone to a steak house instead, that the guy would not have stabbed them both with a steak knife on the way out the door?
We don’t know what happened or what triggered the events. All we know for sure is that 2 humans lost their life trying to help a third. Sounds noble to me.
Further, there is an indication that the suspect’s mother had reached out to Chris and asked him to help her son in this regard.
Damn. Plane is boarding I’ll answer later.
To be clear, I don’t doubt he was trying to help the guy. I just think it was awfully short-sighted to put a combat vet suffering from combat-related PTSD (from all indications, pretty extreme PTSD) in the middle of a place that sounds like a combat zone. I, personally, would think it self-evident that odds are pretty good that the sounds of guns firing might be a trigger, and worth avoiding for the sake of the guy’s mental health.
I’m not at all saying the guy deserved to be shot, or anything, but I’m pretty stunned that it apparently didn’t occur to him that it would be a stunningly bad idea. Lifting weights together is quite a bit different than shooting guns, particularly given these circumstances.
I’m looking forward to Loach’s answer because after reading the story (on WaPo) my first thought was…really? A troubled combat vet with PTSD and you take him to go shooting?
But this whole scenario is beyond my ken so clarification woukld be good. It truly seems that Kyle and Littlefield had some history with helping vets and had nothing but good intentions, and Routh…just flipped out. This is really sad. These were people that meant well and were attempting to do the right thing.
On the other hand, will I go to hell for sort of cracking up over this comment:
Yep, they were good guys that served and then served again once home. Apparently this exposure helps you confront and get past and move toward recovery. They were honestly trying to help their brothers in arms.
But I find nothing helpful about former candidate Ron Paul’s flippant dismissal of Chris’ work. From his daily tweet: “Chris Kyle’s death seems to confirm that ‘he who lives by the sword dies by the sword.’ Treating PTSD at a firing range doesn’t make sense.”
He who lives by the sword… Is he implying Chris was somehow deserving of this? I know Paul was against the conflict but this is beyond disrespectful to Chris and all other servicemen and women. Ignorance and wholesale dismissal of beliefs other than your own mean you really shouldn’t be representing anyone other than your own pathetic self.
My first hand experience with guns, combat, and PTSD are pretty much zero, but this doesn’t sound too out there. If someone spends months or years in a warzone, and learns to associate loud bangs with “Someone’s trying to kill me!” it doesn’t strike me as unreasonable that a way to get over that is to put them in a place where they can learn to associate loud bangs with “I’m hanging out with my buddies, having a good time.”
Welp I have quite a bit of first hand experience with guns, I was six years military reserves (USNR) and seven years with a crazy BF who was into serious high end subguns up to 50 cal, although zero combat or PSTD. But we shot an awful lot because it was fun.
So I think you are possibly romantically imagining “warzone” with “loud bangs” and “hanging out with my buddies” along with "“Someone’s trying to kill me!” and conflating it all into “I wish I knew what it was like but gorsh it sure seems romantic and manly-time with my good buddies!”
I think I will wait for opinions from other people who have actual experience with: guns, combat, PTSD, “warzones” and things that make scary bangy noises and real-life buddies rather than someone who has, actually, zero experience with any of these things.
Thanks for playing, though!
I have literally no clue where you’re getting this from, or why you’re being a dick about it.
A lot of people, said the same thing when, Kieth Ratliff died. And they were fans of his.
Who knows, what Ron Paul means…ever?
That would be dickette. :D. I am female.
And* really*? You just called me a dick in MPSIMS. When I was quoting you. And, I don’t believe calling someone a dick in this forum is kosher.
I hit a nerve, didn’t I?
Our nation’s refusal to address mental health issues takes more lives. People with PTSD should be in therapy, not at gun ranges.
Crazy people should get treatment, not guns.
You’re right, I shouldn’t have called you a dick in MPSIMS. That was inappropriate. I would still like to know why you responded to me in that manner, as I don’t think I’ve ever done anything to you to deserve that sort of tone.
Thank you for the apology.
That wasn’t an apology.
“Hanging out” doesn’t have to involve “handed a gun.”
That said, what a sad story.
Sorry, second reply because your edited add-on just showed up.
No, you have never “done anything to me to deserve that sort of tone”; in fact you’ve always been very reasonable in general.
I was just struck by the fact that in your response admitted you had absolutely no experience with anything in this thread, but you still felt compelled to clarify and then answer a question I had for someone else who did, with a bunch of ignorant (in the dictionary sense) WAGs.
I just thought it was a sort of wacky and ridiculous response to an issue that is really sad.
But I am over it now. This is MPSIMS, after all. 
I knew that, actually.
Explanation? Excuse?
Seriously, I don’t care. It’s really not important to me, whatever you meant.
Can we just get back to the OP now?