*Weve adopted it as such, its not ours. He called me and said, Mom, Ive got a gun to my head. Yet it looked as if he had been killed in his sleep. What substances were involved in both fatal and non-fatal overdoses? Im a monster. For the latest update on stopping the mandates in the military, read Liberty Councils updates on the Navy SEAL 1 v. Austin case. The cause of death was homicide. The vacation lasted nearly a week. He had served 19 years in the Army, including time in the 7th Special Forces Group at Fort Bragg, but as a property book officer, a glorified supply sergeant. Fayetteville Police did not respond to multiple requests for more information. Fort Bragg Obituaries - Latest Obituaries in Fort Bragg, CA - Echovita It far surpassed Fort Hood, where 28 soldier deaths in 2020 led to a congressional investigation, a sweeping indictment of the installations toxic culture, and the dismissal of most of the chain of command. They were joined by Lavigne, the girls godfather, whom she called Uncle Billy, and his daughter, who was like a younger cousin to her. Lavigne, too, managed to escape prosecution on multiple occasions, though he had been suspected of felonies that included harboring an escapee, maintaining a vehicle or dwelling to manufacture a controlled substance, and even murder. All of that has a cumulative effect., A damaged soul plagued by mental torment, and also more thoughtful, more introverted than his Delta Force teammates, is how Nicole describes Lavigne. They all knew Billy., Laura echoes Nicoles account when I speak to her separately. St. Louis Homicide Tracker (2022) - STLtoday Thats the way I feel about it.. Thomas Renz reveals the DoD whistleblowers during a Senate hearing. Smith, Mary Jane ~ 01 March, 2023. He was still a very active, decorated soldier.. No one could tell me who the escapee was, or what they had escaped from, but Cumberland County dropped all charges against Lavigne. The U.S. Army and Fort Bragg refuse to investigate or report on the surge in deaths, disrespecting the soldiers and their families. Death Notices | Downeast Direct Cremation At bars like ODonnells Pub in Southern Pines, they are easily identified by their signature off-duty style, which incorporates elements of biker culture, and is characterized by beards, tattoos, muscles, sun-faded baseball caps with tattered brims, and concealed handguns. He was planning on coming home and building a log cabin on our property, says his dad. Inside the Rash of Unexplained Deaths at Fort Hood | Vanity Fair From outward appearances, the two men simply lost their minds. But he scared me., a copy of which was first obtained by Jack Murphy of. Out of the 83 sudden and unexpected fatalities, eleven of them were determined to be from natural causes. But in each case, the charges were dismissed. She also retrieved her Glock from the bedroom and stuck it under a couch cushion. A A. Explore Life Stories, Offer Condolences & Send Flowers. The colonel used to be involved in selection, he said, and in addition to superlative marksmanship, he would look for introversion and artistic ability in potential recruits. Fort Bragg stopped reporting the fatalities after June 2021, but the bodies continue to pile up. Estella called the Fayetteville police, who filed an incident report. On several occasions, various people at Fort Bragg have offered to sell him tabs, Romero says, including the soldier from the camping trip. Nice, normal people. Others, she says, are narcissistic, or have some other character defect that produces a sense of entitlement, like they can get away with anything. Law enforcement still has no known suspects in the case. And Rolling Stone covers a "staggering" number of soldier overdose deaths in Fort Bragg. (Natural News) Lavigne himself turned up dead a few years later, shot in the chest and left in the back of his own truck. I would see him staring off in space a lot, thinking. On the Fourth of July, he took his son to see the fireworks at Fort Bragg. As Sarah pounded on the neighbors door, he opened fire on her. He finally put the gun down. In the aftermath, Lynda says, There were no real repercussions.. Fort Bragg Obituaries | Local Obits for Fort Bragg, NC - Legacy.com In the iconography of American militarism, in the esoteric cult of special forces, the black censor bar across the eyes confers an unmistakably dark prestige. That last part wasnt true, it later emerged. Image in illustration by Alamy. And there have been several murders in the last few years around Fort Bragg with apparent links to drug-trafficking by elite soldiers, or distribution networks run by ordinary enlisted men in the 82nd. Defense grilled on fentanyl crisis post Fort Bragg, Fort Bliss, West In January 2022, attorneys Thomas Renz and Leigh Dundas retrieved the DMED data from military whistleblowers, Drs. Full disclosure, Nicole says, me and Billy and Mark all did coke together., On multiple occasions, she saw other special operators snorting cocaine, too. Fort Bragg stopped reporting the fatalities after June 2021, but the bodies continue to pile up. Send us a tip using our anonymous form. Overdose a leading cause of death for Fort Bragg soldiers But the Army isnt giving any, Illustration by Mike McQuade for Rolling Stone. Fort Bragg Deaths: Senators Press Pentagon on Military Overdoses It would be an exaggeration to say that Fayetteville must be a more dangerous duty station than Raqqa or Kandahar, and yet piecing together data provided by Col. Buccino, and previous Army disclosures to the McClatchy news agency, as well as reports in the local media, I count no fewer than 44 active-duty deaths at Fort Bragg during 2020. HomicideTracker (2022) At least 360 people were killed in 2022. in the St. Louis area through Dec. 29. He . Sept. 26, 2022. Fort Bragg Advocate-News Obituaries - Fort Bragg, CA | Fort - Legacy It was a story he would later repeat to Leshikars mother, sister, and wife. The man in the bed of the truck, by contrast, didnt have to inflate his military credentials. He sped off from the scene and was charged with a hit-and-run. Could these deaths indicate a surge in suicides and overdoses? Asia Graham, a Fort Bliss soldier who died of an overdose of fentanyl and synthetic cannabinoids after she reported being sexually assaulted by a fellow soldier. Leshikars killing was ruled a justifiable homicide, but Swain declines to say on what grounds investigators came to that conclusion. Aside from suicide, overdose and complications from drug abuse including steroids was the leading cause of death. He is unsmiling, his eyebrows raised, his eyes intently focused on the photographer. They speak Spanish with a Caribbean accent and dont know any Timothy Dumas. Words his sister uses to describe him include gentle, spiritual, and feminist. He was a hippie, a believer in crystals, she says. Everything thats happening at Fort Bragg is horrible, says Lynda Lewis, mother of the Special Forces medic who murdered his pregnant wife. In just18 months, Fort Bragg lost over 80 soldiers from sudden and unexplained causes. Most immediately, though, the discovery of Lavignes body represented a problem for the leadership at Fort Bragg. The role of fentanyl in opioid-related deaths and substance-involved deaths as-a-whole continues to be a primary concern. Fort Bragg quit announcing soldier deaths at the end of July 2021 It's no wonder. 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. Two from the 82nd Airborne were killed by a roadside bomb in Afghanistan, and another paratrooper, a combat engineer, lost his life in a vehicle rollover in Syria, for a total of three who perished overseas. One of the military doctors testified:It is my professional opinion that the major increases incidences of the above discussed instances of miscarriages, cancers, and disease were due to COVID-19 vaccinations.. 3 soldiers charged in Fort Bragg cold case, death still 'unsolved' Your Army 3 soldiers charged in Fort Bragg cold case, death still 'unsolved' By Davis Winkie Jan 14, 2022 Spc.. 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. There were a couple others that were with us, she tells me, drinking and partying. Tammy Mabey, Leshikars mom, had spent 18 years in law enforcement, working as a dispatcher, a jailer, and a patrolwoman in California, Idaho, and Nevada. 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. David Lindley, Multi-Instrumentalist Who Shaped the Sound of Soft Rock, Dead at 78 Finally, on December 4th, authorities released the autopsy report, and it left no doubt of foul play. He tried to rationalize it, telling his mom that he and his fellow Green Berets would snort coke to stay awake on sleepless missions. He had migraines, nightmares, personality changes., She still has his body in cold storage, in a freezer in Alaska, because the Army wont turn over his autopsy report or medical file, and she doesnt want to lose evidence that his brain was damaged from TBI or that he was medicated for PTSD. Some of them are really great. He fell in love with what he was doing and decided he was going to make a career out of it, says his dad, who still lives in the remote Upper Peninsula of Michigan where Billy grew up skateboarding and riding motocross. Estella doesnt know if he was still on the premises when the cops arrived. On March 28th, the Fayetteville police responded to an incident in which he was suspected of shooting into an occupied dwelling. Nobody would listen., My son was the most honest, loyal, patriotic person, she continues. Read our Pledge HERE. Send us a message on Facebook. A pixelated face is the apogee of the operator aesthetic, which begins with long hair, a bushy beard, and a checkered keffiyeh worn around the neck. Over the course of several months of correspondence, the public-affairs office eventually disclosed the number of homicides and suicides, but not deaths from accidents and illnesses, which would include drug overdoses. It included Dumas name and the type of handgun he used, but its not clear if he was taken into custody. The onslaught totaled the neighbors car, which Sarah tried to hide behind. There were at least six deaths by suicide among the 11,500 soldiers there. One of the largest military installations in the world, Fort Bragg is home to approximately 54,000 military personnel and includes the Special Forces, the Airborne Corps, and the Joint Special Operations Command. When he came home, notably, you could see a droopiness in his eye, she tells me. Fort Bragg stops reporting soldier deaths after dozens found dead in their bunks An investigative reporter for Rolling Stone Magazine, Seth Harp, has been looking into this medical anomaly. Even if Leshikar had come at him with a screwdriver, Billy wouldnt just forget how to disarm somebody, Nicole says. He was deployed to Saudi Arabia when he read on Facebook that Roman-Martinez, whom hed known since middle school, had gone missing. Their brains bounced against their skulls a dozen times on that tour, in addition to calling in airstrikes, or being in an armored vehicle that gets rocked by an IED. I kill people for a living., After his dozen-plus deployments, Lavigne was no less haunted by moral injury. Tier 1 operators have ascended so high in the lethal bureaucracy that they no longer exist. The recent reports of fatal drug overdoses out of military installations like Fort Bragg are alarming, Sen. Markey said in a statement to Rolling Stone. It makes me feel great, said Carole De Nola, when she learned of the letter. This time he was charged with three felonies: breaking and entering, communicating threats, and impersonating a law-enforcement officer, but all of the charges were dismissed. Fort Bragg lost over 80 soldiers from sudden and unexplained causes, and stopped reporting on the deaths after June 2021 by: Lance D Johnsonfor Natural News. The DMED is the Armed Forces Health Surveillance Branchs web-based tool to remotely query de-identified active component personnel and medical event data contained within the Defense Medical Surveillance System (DMSS).. He was taken home that same night by some of his Delta Force teammates. The same is true in the case of a young Ohioan, a Green Beret candidate, who in March was found unresponsive in his barracks. Col. Tage Rainsford, a spokesman for USASOC, did not respond to written questions regarding allegations of cocaine and MDMA use among members of Delta Force, and would not say whether operators are tested for drugs. She had called his unit because he had been drinking real bad and using steroids, and asked that he be moved back into the barracks, says Phillips. Thank you for your service. Pentagon Finally Stops Hiding Military Overdose Epidemic Nevertheless, local officials were satisfied by Lavignes claim of self-defense. Early Saturday afternoon, park rangers had approached the group from Fort Bragg to ask them to move their vehicles, which were encroaching on protected sand dunes. Though the offense was a felony, he was not charged. Lavigne was entitled to a variety of due process protections. The data was provided to Senator Ron Johnson at a historic round table meeting with doctors and lawyers. Enrique Roman-Martinez of Fort Braggs 82nd Airborne Division was beheaded during a camping trip with six other soldiers. Lavigne then grabbed the girls, took them inside of the house, and locked out Leshikar. And I looked at Daddy and it was like he was dancing. JSOCs budget is classified, but it reportedly costs between $1 million and $2 million to train the average special operator, and much more has likely been invested in each soldier by the time they reach the level of whats known as a Special Mission Unit, such as Delta or SEAL Team 6. We have not ruled anything in or out as the investigation continues.. The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time What protocol is in place to identify and respond to an uptick in overdoses either generally or at a specific military installation? 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. His death was ruled a homicide. To cap off a freakish year at Fort Bragg, just three weeks after Lavigne and Dumas turned up dead, a 31-year-old combat medic assigned to Special Forces named Keith Lewis shot and killed his pregnant wife, Sarah Lewis, an Air Force veteran who was due to give birth at any moment. Out of the 83 "sudden and unexpected" fatalities, eleven of them were determined to be from natural causes. 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? It was out of control, says his best friends wife, Laura Leshikar. The two were found dead on the same day in June 2021, just two weeks after airborne master sergeant Martin Acevedo III was caught trafficking cocaine. The FAA has very quietly tacitly admitted that the EKGs of pilots are no longer normal. Another Reason to Add Quercetin to Your Daily Supplements by Dr. Joseph Mercola STORY AT-A-GLANCE Researchers Is Coincidence Now The Leading Cause Of Death? Notice: There are affiliate links present on this website, both from the control of Survive the News and from other websites that we do not control. Soldiers were dying there at a rate of 1 every 3 days in August. I dont get intimidated by people easily. The young soldier who called 911 also told the dispatcher, unprompted, that Roman-Martinez had suicidal tendencies, which his sister strenuously disputes. hree weeks before Christmas, in the piney woods outside of Fort Bragg, North Carolina, a deer hunter came across the fallout from a firefight that, to date, no one has been able to explain. CID rejects any notion that anything but a complete and unbiased investigation was conducted, Grey says. Learn What NESARA/GESARA is HERE. 'These Kids Are Dying' Inside the Overdose Crisis Sweeping Fort Bragg Vandoliers Play Tennessee Concert in Dresses to Protest State's New Drag Bill Did he have demons? One minute after midnight on February 17th, 2020, Lavigne crashed his truck into a womans vehicle in Fayetteville. At least 44 Fort Bragg soldiers died stateside in 2020 several of them were homicides. Want to share news with us? Aaron Robert Wolfman June 7, 2022 (61 years old) View obituary. In any event, there is no court record showing that he was ever prosecuted. This data emerged amid increasing awareness of rising rates of drug use notably of cocaine and steroids in the Special Operations Forces. Uh-huh., CID is aware of the deceaseds alleged drug activities, Grey, the CID spokesman, says. The Armys Criminal Investigative Command, or CID, also concluded that the homicide was justified, likewise for reasons that it refuses to make public. Fort Bragg, CA Fort Bragg High School Chapel By The Sea Thursday, January 12, 2023 Add Photos 1 Memory David Laurence Gross David Laurence Gross 1941-2022 The Mendocino Coast community. Those two would always pull some shit, she says. Somalia, Iraq, Afghanistan, he says, pretty much anywhere the U.S. had anything going on between 2006 and 2018, he was there. By 2012, he had made the ultra-selective cut for Delta Force, which rejects the overwhelming majority of Rangers and Green Berets invited to try out. Janet Baron Obituary (1954 - 2022) - Albion, CA - Fort Bragg Advocate-News That broke me, Romero says. Military suicide worst at Camp Lejeune, Fort Bragg, Fort Carson - USA TODAY The Military Health System began administering the spike protein mRNA vaccine to military service members on December 14, 2020. 1,000 Different Studies Show Extensive Evidence of COVID-19 Vaccines Adverse Events, read them HERE. Enjoy. Browse Fort Bragg local obituaries on Legacy.com. It was much easier, ironically, to get information on Fort Bragg-based personnel who died in foreign countries. It did cite, however, what it described as an unhealthy sense of entitlement among special operators. He stands in front of a parking lot at night, a middle-aged, broad-chested black man with a shaved head, dressed in whiskered jeans and a shirt with vertical stripes. We dont know where he has gone. He added, When we woke up he was not here. Aint got much faith in CID.. The bases spokesman, Col. Joe Buccino, acknowledged that illegal drug use seems to have been a common factor in all of the homicides that involved Fort Bragg soldiers, but emphasized that all but one of the killings pertained to the special-forces units at Fort Bragg, which he could not speak for. 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. According to the data, the five-year average for medical issues in the military was 1.7 million codes. Fort Bragg lost over 80 soldiers from "sudden" and "unexplained" causes They have a different society, Lavigne would respond, in Nicoles recollection, and while I dont agree with it, we shouldnt be doing what were doing over there. . He loves views, too. Shes not the only military family member who wants answers. No screwdriver was found anywhere near Leshikars body. In May of that year, he met Mark Leshikar, another stubborn, hardheaded country boy from way up north. She hung up on him, but later had second thoughts. 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. Fort Bragg Obituaries - Latest Obituaries in Fort Bragg, NC - Echovita Find service information, send flowers, and leave memories and thoughts in the Guestbook for your loved one. During the eight-hour drive back to North Carolina, Laura split off to take her sister to the airport in Raleigh. When they found my brothers remains, he didnt have eyes. December 31, 2022 (85 years old) View obituary Wayne Richard Swanson December 25, 2022 (78 years old) View obituary William Schroeder Mertle December 23, 2022 (80 years old) View obituary Patricia Ann Menzies October 26, 2022 (82 years old) View obituary Peter Charles Paskos November 20, 2022 (87 years old) View obituary Norma Edith Wright Greene According to Sarahs mother, Rhonda Phillips, on at least two occasions in 2020, the last being December 11th, Sarah reported Lewis to his unit, and informed them that she feared for her safety. Maybe. He made it a point to choose guys who played musical instruments or painted. He was getting clean.. She has photos of a tub of used syringes found in Lewis closet, including vials of drostanalone propionate and trenbolone acetate, both of which are illicit anabolic steroids that can cause severe mood disturbances. Were still looking into it.. 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.. Click here to see the current year. by: Ashley Anderson. In 2018, former senior special-forces sergeants Daniel Gould and Henry Royer were busted trying to import punching bags that had been gutted and packed with cocaine from Colombia. We want to hear it. The man on the ground, who had been dropped by a single bullet to the right temple, was 44-year-old Timothy Dumas. A soulless expression would come over him, like he was looking through you, when he got to drinking, Nicole says. He expressed political disagreements with Leshikar, who was of the opinion that the United States ought to nuke the Middle East and be done with it. That was the only drug he was for; everything else he was against. The Military Health System began administering the spike protein mRNA vaccine to military service members on December 14, 2020. Keiths mom, Lynda Lewis, tells me that her son should have been expelled from the Army back in 2016, when he assaulted Sarah and got into an armed standoff with the Fayetteville police. He was a very hostile individual, says a detective who used to rent a house from Dumas. Maybe We All Experience The Same Thing Masculinity Isnt Toxic, Our Erasure Of It Is, Does The Bible Describe the Earth as Flat? At age 37, William Billy Lavigne II was a true Tier 1 operator, a master sergeant on the Armys most selective and clandestine task force. The data was provided to Senator Ron Johnson at a historic round table meeting with doctors and lawyers. Only his severed head had been found. Over time though, he grew on me.. Col. Kara Soules, a press officer for JSOC, also did not respond to questions. The Defense Medical Epidemiology Database (DMED) is used to detect surges of injury and illness in the military to make sure that all individuals are combat ready. As soon as the rockets began to burst, We had to get out of there. A soldier pronounced dead at the hospital after being found unresponsive in a parked vehicle on Fort Bragg on Friday was identified as Maj. Eric "Adam" Ewoldsen, according to a statement from. As the madness of 2020 settled over the country, bringing with it a nationwide wave of drug abuse and violent crime, Lavigne was also spinning out of control. On February 9, 2022, Seth reported the death of 83 soldiers at Fort Bragg in the 18 months ending in June 2021. Even though its a closed case, Laura says, they told us the investigation doesnt see the public eye.. Appropriate adverse action, which was previously initiated in response to substantiated misconduct, was being finalized at the time of Master Sgt. On a cold evening in late January, when I visit the approximate spot where he was found, the woods are perfectly still and quiet, with not even a bird chirping. In January of 2021, Army captain Robert Latham died suddenly of an apparent heart attack. The 32-year-old was previously in top physical condition. He was two years younger than Lavigne and had recently completed Special Forces selection, a rugged, punishing Fort Bragg program known as the Q-course. Nine US soldiers, all stationed at Fort Bragg, all in their 20s or 30s, recently died at from "undetermined" causes, or after being discovered "unresponsive" in their bunks. The police came and he was arrested in possession of cocaine, a digital scale, a crack pipe, a revolver, a hunting rifle, a snub-nosed pistol, and a pump-action shotgun. 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. He was arrested for a final time on September 17th, in Fayetteville, this time on a prostitution charge. Pay Just S&H For Most Items! That number is significantly more than at any other U.S. military base, despite Fort Hood and Fort Bliss having had freakishly violent years of their own. Two days after Dumas and Lavigne were found dead, more details emerged on an earlier Fort Bragg killing: the death of Specialist Enrique Roman-Martinez, who had gone missing over Memorial Day weekend on a camping trip to the North Carolina shore with six of his fellow paratroopers. The presence of fentanyl in deaths involving each drug category in each year is displayed on the left. Find an obituary, get service details, leave condolence messages or send flowers or gifts in memory of a loved one. When I ask if his best friend ever took LSD, Romero says, Yeah. Billy seemed to have ideals that matched mine.
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