by: Steven Ahle
Army veteran Andrew Chambers, who is currently serving a ten-year sentence in prison gave a speech to TEDxMarionCorrectional’s TEDxTalks about his life and how he came to be sentenced to prison by a judge who told him, ‘Your Time in Iraq Makes You a Threat to Society’. The video has gone viral since it’s posting on October 31st of this year.
Chambers explained that he joined the Army after the 9/11 attack and pointed to the positives of being in the service. The travel and experiencing different cultures. In 2004, he was deployed to Iraq. His time in Iraq took a toll on him, emotionally, as well as behaviorally. He told of the time when he was manning a machine gun on the top of a Humvee, when gunfire broke out. He could hear someone laughing and he couldn’t understand why someone would be laughing at a time like that. Then he realized, it was him laughing.
“I felt like I was finally loosing control of that rage they (the military) taught me to harness.”
Things didn’t improve for him when he got home. He would drive in the middle of the street, because he was afraid of roadside IEDs. He would carry a pistol everywhere he went and found himself “assessed the threat level of every person and place I came into contact with.” He sought help from the VA Mental Health Clinic, where he told the doctors he was afraid he was going to hurt someone. All they did for him was to prescribe a sleeping aid.
Finally, everything came to a head when he was out all night drinking and a man pulled a knife. Chambers pulled his gun and forced everyone onto the ground, then took the knife away and beat the man. He was convicted of attempted murder and other charges, some of which he denied doing. Then he heard the judge tell him at sentencing, “Mr. Chambers, you’re service is a double-edged sword. Your time in Iraq makes you a threat to society and I have a civil obligation to lock you up.”
Before signing off, he asked viewers to talk to a veteran. He pointed out that sometimes all they need is someone to talk to.
For the complete video:
