Dayhoff Westminster Soundtrack: Rob Richards, a Marine sniper who served three tours in Afghanistan, has been laid to rest in Arlington Cemetery

Sunday, February 22, 2015

Rob Richards, a Marine sniper who served three tours in Afghanistan, has been laid to rest in Arlington Cemetery

Rob Richards, a Marine sniper who served three tours in Afghanistan, has been laid to rest in Arlington Cemetery

Semper Fi brother.

Rob Richards, a Marine sniper who served three tours in Afghanistan, has died of an accidental overdose of painkillers. Read the full story, by Washington Post writer Greg Jaffee, here: http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/marine-sniper-is-saluted-as-more-than-the-video-scandal-that-defined-him/2015/02/21/e0a8492a-b7ba-11e4-9423-f3d0a1ec335c_story.html?tid=hybrid_default_strip_2

Mr. Jaffee did a good job with a difficult story and for that I salute him… Thank you.

In part, Jaffee wrote, “His three combat tours in Afghanistan had been boiled down to a 38-second video clip, played and replayed on YouTube more than a million times…

[…]

“More than two years later — long after the rest of the country had moved on to other scandals — Richards, 28, died at home and alone from an accidental painkiller overdose.

Now an ammunition can carrying his cremated remains sat on the table of a hotel bar in Arlington, Va., as his family, friends and fellow Marines swirled around it.

Almost everything about war is complicated, messy or morally fraught; in this case even more so. A Marine vilified by his country’s leaders and court-martialed for “bringing discredit to the armed forces” would soon be buried at Arlington National Cemetery, the country’s most hallowed ground. On this mid-February night before the funeral, dozens who knew Richards beyond those 38 seconds gathered to celebrate his life…”

[…]

As the months passed, Richards worried that the 38 seconds would follow him for the rest of his life. The investigation and court-martial took nearly two years before the Marine Corps offered Richards a plea deal that reduced him a rank to corporal and allowed him to leave the military with an honorable discharge. Richards felt abandoned by the Marine brass who had heaped praise on his unit when they were killing Taliban. He had hoped to get into defense contracting after the military, but he worried that no one in the industry would ever hire him.

“He felt backed into a corner,” his wife recalled. “He always said, ‘It’s all I’ll ever be known for.’ ”

After the military, Richards fell into a depression and became addicted to opiates. Eventually, he went through drug counseling. He and his wife separated briefly and then reunited after he had finished treatment.

[…]

A few days before he died, Richards and his wife had put in an offer on a house near Orlando, where they both had attended high school. They had already begun to box up their possessions for the move from their home in Camp Lejeune, N.C.

[…] Read the rest of the story here: http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/marine-sniper-is-saluted-as-more-than-the-video-scandal-that-defined-him/2015/02/21/e0a8492a-b7ba-11e4-9423-f3d0a1ec335c_story.html?tid=hybrid_default_strip_2

She came home from work that evening and found his body on the floor outside the kitchen. Later doctors would speculate that his weakened liver had been unable to metabolize the prescription painkillers that were slowly building up in his system.

There are many reactions to seeing death: Raechel’s was disbelief. “Not like this,” she would remember screaming as she stood near her husband. “Not like this.”

Greg Jaffe covers the White House for The Washington Post, where he has been since March 2009.

God Bless him for his service to our country.

Read the rest of the story here: http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/marine-sniper-is-saluted-as-more-than-the-video-scandal-that-defined-him/2015/02/21/e0a8492a-b7ba-11e4-9423-f3d0a1ec335c_story.html?tid=hybrid_default_strip_2

*****