Marine would rather die than return to Iraq

modbee.com...

This crazed Marine wont be going back.

Raya told family members he did not want to return to Iraq. But his father said the family believed by the end of his holiday visit, Raya had decided to make the best of the 2½ years he had left in the Marines.

He rejoined his unit at Camp Pendleton on Jan. 2. Sheriff's Lt. Bill Heyne said Raya was last seen at Camp Pendleton Saturday.

He reportedly told fellow soldiers he was going to get a quick bite to eat. Instead, he showed up in Ceres 24 hours later, armed with an SKS assault rifle. The rifle is a Chinese version of the weapon that Raya was trained to use in the Marines, Heyne said.

Some statements regarding this story have been misleading. If he wanted to die he could have just offed himself without dragging the cops into it, or at least he could have just aimed an unloaded gun at a cop and waited for a kill shot. The truth is this man killed innocent police officers for no reason.

Heir, i think this shows the state of mind he was in. He went nuts.
What a shame.


I guess the question is, can people simpathize with this man? Would you be willing to go back or run?

[edit on 11-1-2005 by dgtempe]

Originally posted by dgtempe
Heir, i think this shows the state of mind he was in. He went nuts.
What a shame.

Just wait for the Tox report. He was most likely HIGH.

I'm not surprised our major media outlets haven't picked up on such a tragic story yet. I hardly knew the meaning of life at the age of 19, let alone the power and authority of taking it. Perhaps Andres Raya was destine to develop adult schyzophrenia? Who knows, either way Iraq turned him into a pyscho.

Originally posted by syntaxer
Who knows, either way Iraq turned him into a pyscho.

Or if not Iraq, then it was living under another 4 years of Bush. Or if not that, then it was something else. People will be inventive and substitute any explanation that fits their agenda. What doesn't surprise me is that ideologues won't wait for the toxicology report before offering their 'expert' opinions.

Heir, What makes you think the toxicology report will be available to anyone? I found this on Drudge who in turn found it on an obscure little website. It seems the main stream media doesnt want this out.

I have to agree four years of Bush regime can turn anybody crazy, I wonder how mentally disable we will get after 8.

Perhaps we will need some metal illness screening after all.

EDIT: Ahh...how about no.

[edit on 17-1-2005 by alien]

Originally posted by HeirToBokassa
Or if not Iraq, then it was living under another 4 years of Bush. Or if not that, then it was something else. People will be inventive and substitute any explanation that fits their agenda. What doesn't surprise me is that ideologues won't wait for the toxicology report before offering their 'expert' opinions.

The same could be said for mentioning toxicology as an inventive means of substituting any explanation. So what if he was drunk!

It was premeditated, planned, an ambush, police said. Not the act of someone under the influence of alcohol or any substance, although it could have played a role.

This was a crime of lost hope

[edit on 11-1-2005 by syntaxer]

Originally posted by syntaxer

Originally posted by HeirToBokassa
Or if not Iraq, then it was living under another 4 years of Bush. Or if not that, then it was something else. People will be inventive and substitute any explanation that fits their agenda. What doesn't surprise me is that ideologues won't wait for the toxicology report before offering their 'expert' opinions.

The same could be said for mentioning toxicology as an inventive means of substituting any explanation. So what if he was drunk!

It was premeditated, planned, an ambush, police said. Not the act of someone under the influence of alcohol.

There is more to a tox screen that booze...............

"It was premeditated, planned, an ambush," Ceres Police Chief Art de Werk said. "It was a suicide by cop."

He wanted to make sure that he was killed. Not every cop is gun-crazy, so the only way he was guaranteed to die was to shoot first.

I believe that he may also have considered the police to be representatives of the Government who was trying to send him back to Iraq.

His mind had gone, but he was lucid enough to choose his own manner of death. I think he considered a quick death preferable to living in utter terror as he would have done in Iraq.

Did you see the videos? Man, talk about some fancy rifleman footwork. Just watching him you can see his military training and Iraq gunfighting experience. I don't think those cops stood a chance.

Note: these movies are not graphic. Video 1 barely shows a cop get shot, but he apparently survived. The second video shows nobody get shot on camera, but a cop was hit and died later from his wounds.

Video 1


Video 2


One cop dies and one cop is seriously injured, just because this arsehole doesn't want to do the job he volunteered for. Psycho.

Oops,...

Turns out the guy was a gang member, never saw combat, and wasn't even scheduled to return to Iraq...

linky

But I'm sure you guys will still believe the first version of the story, because it fits your paradigm better.

Deny ignorance.

gurnio, thanks for the link:

From the The Sacramento Bee:
Police: Marine who killed cop was gang member

"During our investigation, we found he wasn't due to go back to Iraq, never faced combat situations and never even fired his gun," Stanislaus County Sheriff's Deputy Jason Woodman said Saturday. [...]

Raya's family and friends, who deny his gang involvement, said he had been changed by the seven months he spent in Iraq, returning in September to Camp Pendleton near San Diego. He became withdrawn and unable to hold a conversation, and told them gruesome stories of house-to-house combat and watching Marines commit suicide. He questioned the war and said he did not want to go back.

But Woodman said the sheriff's department's investigation, in conjunction with the military and other agencies, found that Raya's motor transport unit had not seen combat and had recently been transferred to a unit scheduled to be deployed to Okinawa.

The details provided by this article make reading through this thread from the beginning a lot more entertaining.

The guy was coked up, not a hardened veteran of gritty house-to-house urban combat.

But he was a U.S. Marine. Marines do receive serious combat training and it is best not to confront any Marine in a no-holds-barred shooting match. Every Marine is a rifleman, top to bottom.

If the latest story is correct, however, he was a lousy excuse for a Marine, and good riddance. I will shed no tears over his loss.

Stories like the one that spawned this thread get flashed around the world, and like clockwork, people use them to promote their agendas and prejudices.

Then, when the details get fleshed out and paint a picture incompatible with the original assumptions, the story and its related commentary conveniently disappear down the memory hole.

Or, of course, some intrepid soul can step up, shout "You see? The coverup begins!" then melt anonymously back into the crowd.

And a new "conspiracy" is born.

I've personally jumped the gun on news stories more times than I can count, doing exactly what I'm pointing out here, so this isn't really schadenfreude, condemnation or me being holier-than-thou, but an observation about the realities of news reporting in the modern age.

There are lessons to be learned here, for those willing to learn them.


P.S. U.S. Marines are carrying SKS rifles in Iraq? I didn't get the memo.

No trumpet blows, nor gun salute for one has fallen away from reality. This honor is for men, not those who turn and excuse themselves in a way that is not proper stats upon the uniform, nor take the truth that was not his to display.


Cargo, next time be careful of what you say.

Originally posted by gurnio
Oops,...

Turns out the guy was a gang member, never saw combat, and wasn't even scheduled to return to Iraq...

Good piece of research, gurnio

Originally posted by gurnio
Oops,...

Turns out the guy was a gang member, never saw combat, and wasn't even scheduled to return to Iraq...

linky

But I'm sure you guys will still believe the first version of the story, because it fits your paradigm better.

Deny ignorance.

The military states this but its far from the truth. Honestly even civililians far from the bombing areas see daily killings etc.. Im pretty sure some sort of event or something he knew happend or is going to happend and it brought on a case of post traumatic stress disorder. Which in turn caused him to go insane and kill these innocent police officers.

R.I.P
OFFICERS

Looks like gurnio nailed it, this guy was a Punk and he got what he deserved. Im just sorry a cop died.

Im sure he got alot of flack in his platoon...The gang-bangers Ive seen in the Army usually had bad attitudes and you had to get in their face to make them do their duties......you know, he may not have wanted to return to his unit because of harrasment from fellow soldiers.

We had ways of dealing with punks and big-mouths.

Well, Uncle Sam's Misguided Children taught this guy a little to well how to kill. Would have done good if he was n Iraq.