On a half dozen occasions since 2014, a Navy SEAL or a Green Beret has pleaded guilty to heavy-duty narcotics charges. 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. Drugs were in involved in the deaths of Joshua Diamon and Matthew Disney. Nor would the base discuss the perplexing incidence of young men turning up unresponsive in their bunks, such as 19-year-old Caleb Smither, whose body was so decomposed when they found him that he couldnt have an open-casket funeral. He was the oddity amongst the special-forces guys I was introduced to., In the one picture of Lavigne that exists in the public domain, his official Army portrait, his head looks like a white egg, and his face has the pale and drawn appearance of a man who has just shorn off a beard and shaved his scalp to the skin. 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. She shows me the brief clip on her phone. Editors picks 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. Its just like taking an antidepressant, he would say. Yet there were no firearms to be found at the scene, and no trace of the third man, the surviving shooter. Copyright 2023 Penske Business Media, LLC. Those two would always pull some shit, she says. The 9mm round, fired from a Taurus Millennium G2, missed the boy by about 18 inches. The autopsy showed that he had been shot from multiple angles, including from behind. No screwdriver was found anywhere near Leshikars body. It was his last hoorah, says Nicole, who spoke to her brother for a final time on St. Patricks Day. Eleven of the deaths remain. There were a couple others that were with us, she tells me, drinking and partying. Families want answers. Out of nowhere, she says, this tall, baldheaded black dude comes up with a skinny black guy with dreads. Ruth Sparks, a native of San Jose, California, and resident of Fort Bragg, California, passed away on December 1, 2022, surrounded by her family. Lavigne was entitled to a variety of due process protections. In 2018, Lavigne shot and killed his best friend, a Green Beret named Mark Leshikar, in an inexplicable, drug-fueled altercation that no one witnessed but two little girls. So does his best friend, 21-year-old Christian Romero, who is also a paratrooper stationed at Fort Bragg, but in a different unit. 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. Thank you for your service. Posted: Mar 26, 2022 / 05:15 PM EDT. By the end of the year, there had been 21 suicides at Fort Bragg, more than at any other U.S. military post. But when she called her husband on FaceTime, he seemed perfectly normal, leading her to conclude that they were playing a joke on her. The Military Health System began administering the spike protein mRNA vaccine to military service members on December 14, 2020. Billy seemed to have ideals that matched mine. Fort Bragg stopped reporting the fatalities after June 2021, but the bodies continue to pile up. Dumas and his dreadlocked sidekick went into the apartment across the corridor, and she went into hers. Five senators are calling on the Department of Defense to investigate overdose deaths at Fort Bragg, reports Rolling Stone. In early 2020, as the coronavirus pandemic descended on the United States, his run-ins with the law became more frequent. Both men had young daughters. Also, this website is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program. Her brother enlisted for a steady paycheck and for the GI Bill. The next day around 7 p.m., one of the campers called 911. Such a pigheaded, egotistical man was the first impression he made on his wife, Laura, a 39-year-old paralegal from Hawaii whose dad was a Marine. And I said, Well, no, because its not legal, says Mabey. 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. That was the only drug he was for; everything else he was against. Him and my brother had similar features., Leshikar, bearded and scowling in most photos, was six-foot-four, with a square jaw, a head of light-brown hair, and tattooed shoulders. In addition to Rolling Stones investigation of Fort Bragg, the senators letter to Secretary Austin cited a number of other alarming reports, including: evidence of rising overdose deaths among veterans and in military hospitals; an incident in March of this year in which five West Point cadets nearly died from taking fentanyl-laced cocaine; and the June 2021 death of Pfc. Could there be a serious drug problem going on at Fort Bragg? This means soldiers stationed at Fort Bragg are twenty-seven times more likely to die unexpectedly on their home base than in overseas combat! Around 4 p.m., they arrived at Lavignes house, a cookie-cutter tract home at the end of a blank cul-de-sac. April 29, 2022, 6:09 AM PDT. Of fatal overdoses, how many were ruled a suicide? 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. The letter, sent to Defense Secretary . Thirteen killed themselves. He finally put the gun down. In the aftermath, Lynda says, There were no real repercussions.. Jason, Sarah ~ 28 February, 2023. The authorities have kept completely mum. Fort Bragg is the largest military base in the U.S. and the command post for the Armys most elite units, such as Delta Force and the Green Berets, which have borne a disproportionate burden of Americas never-ending wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, undergoing not just combat trauma and moral injury but a lot of traumatic brain injuries as well. He tried to rationalize it, telling his mom that he and his fellow Green Berets would snort coke to stay awake on sleepless missions. 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. One evening in October 2013, Dumas came over to fix an electrical outlet, and Ballard had the distinct impression that he was hitting on her: He was trying to pry about where my husband was. She told him they were separated at the moment. But in each case, the charges were dismissed. In November, yet another soldier, a 24-year-old Texan, was discovered unresponsive in his bunk, with no further details from the Army. Soldiers were dying there at a rate of 1 every 3 days in August. We were trying to find the park ranger or their offices, or anything.. On February 9, 2022, Seth reported the death of 83 soldiers at Fort Bragg in the 18 months ending in June 2021. It showed multiple chop injuries, a broken jaw, lacerations, and fractures of the cervical spine. 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. By Seth Harp September 29, 2022 Logan Mock-Bunting/Getty Images Congress has finally taken notice of an unprecedented wave of fatalities at Fort Bragg, some 17 months after Rolling Stone. The Army is failing to keep soldiers combat-ready, and this is evidenced by the militarys own medical surveillance system. According to Seth, nine more young and fit soldiers were found unresponsive in their bunks. At least 36 of the victims were children. He was arrested for a final time on September 17th, in Fayetteville, this time on a prostitution charge. By Minyvonne Burke. Army investigators have disclosed nothing, not even the identities of the other soldiers who were on the camping trip, one of whom was a young woman. They are a very hush-hush community, says Diane Ballard, a police detective in the tiny town of Vass, where numerous Delta Force operators, current and retired, own houses. Read About All Possible Detoxing Options HERE. He was deadly serious., She pretended to laugh it off, and when Dumas left to get a part from the hardware store, she called her neighbors to come over and sit with her. During the eight-hour drive back to North Carolina, Laura split off to take her sister to the airport in Raleigh. Fort Bragg cannot explain why dozens of soldiers are dying in their own bunks. In May of that year, he met Mark Leshikar, another stubborn, hardheaded country boy from way up north. Both girls witnessed what happened next. On top of the sort of training that all Rangers, Green Berets, and Navy SEALs have to go through, he had been schooled in sabotage, demolition, hostage rescue, tactical driving, lockpicking, and spy-trade craft such as how to shadow people, use dead drops, and live under a cover identity. What role do these bioweapon shots have on the number of unexpected and undetermined deaths? Roman-Martinez had done multiple parachute jumps in the course of his training, but he was an HR specialist, a guy whose job it was to maintain personnel records. His father didnt always know where he was in those days. The Commander-in-Chief, the Secretary of Defense, the Department of Defense(DoD) and the highest-ranking commanders are culpable for unlicensed medical malpractice and mass murder, and must be held responsible for their unethical actions of coercion and discrimination, which were used to force dangerous experiments on soldiers that injured, sickened, disabled and killed many. A few minutes later, she began to record a video of her little godson dancing on the living-room carpet. Trending Other operators that were there. Figure 2. Why is Fort Bragg less safe than it was before the mask, testing and vaccine mandates? He was from a suburb of Los Angeles called Chino. Neutralizing the Spike Protein: Shikimic Acid*. 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. At least 44 Fort Bragg soldiers died stateside in 2020 several of them were homicides. . You would not believe how many people I have reached out to. Even though its a closed case, Laura says, they told us the investigation doesnt see the public eye.. He sincerely felt it was the key to mental illness, a cure for depression, PTSD., Roman-Martinez had poor eyesight and wore thick glasses above a friendly smile. From March 2021 to March 2022 deaths from drug overdoses fell nearly 4% from the previous year, the CDC says. Sheriffs deputies took him to the station, but he was never placed under arrest or charged with a crime. But he scared me., a copy of which was first obtained by Jack Murphy of. The only known common denominator between them was Fort Bragg. Dr. Nora Volkow, the director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse, told Rolling Stone that recent medical studies showed a fast and dramatic rise in the number of fatal overdoses among active-duty military men. Me and my mom being Catholic, it was difficult to understand., Fort Bragg was on quarantine and soldiers forbidden from traveling far from base, but seven paratroopers from the 82nd Airborne Division snuck off for a Memorial Day weekend camping trip at Cape Lookout National Seashore, a barrier island on the gray coast of the Carolinas. After this story went to press, a U.S. Army Special Operations Command spokesperson gave this statement to Rolling Stone regarding how the command handled Billy Lavignes legal trouble: Due to his length of service, Master Sgt. Nicole and her husband also had small children. These are highlights of a significantly lengthier list. Over the past 20 years of continuous war, from the snowy passes of the Hindu Kush to the desert scrublands of Somalia, JSOCs budget and autonomy have continuously grown, and so has the scope of its mission. Green Beret Mark Leshikar (left, and at right, with tattoos) was shot and killed by his best friend and fellow special-forces soldier Billy Lavigne (far right), in an inexplicable, drug-fueled altercation witnessed by the two mens young daughters. How To Get Back 100% Vision At Any Age? Absolutely. Im a monster. I killed my best friend, he said, according to Patino. 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. Well, I got 120.. Weve been looking for him all day. I called every day for a month. This led to a physical fight, a wrestling match on the driveway. More like brothers, says Leshikars 31-year-old sister, Nicole, who spent three weeks hanging out with them in February 2018. Is Prof. Andrew Owen from the University of Liverpool responsible for blocking ivermectin as a covid treatment? He called me and said, Mom, Ive got a gun to my head. Drugs are only a small part of the problem. This data emerged amid increasing awareness of rising rates of drug use notably of cocaine and steroids in the Special Operations Forces. Lavigne was entitled to a variety of due process protections. On February 9, 2022, Seth reported the death of 83 soldiers at Fort Bragg in the 18 months ending in June 2021. Fort Bragg stopped reporting the fatalities after June 2021, but the bodies continue to pile up. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. A particular area of concern is U.S. Army Alaska, USA TODAY has found. All Rights reserved. But my brother was murdered back in May. Nevertheless, local officials were satisfied by Lavignes claim of self-defense. The DA, Billy West, did not respond to requests for comment but told the Fayetteville Observer that two other people whod been at Lavignes house took responsibility for the drugs. Indeed, you would have to pore over the news archives long and hard to find a single negative story on the unit, whose official name is the 1st Special Forces Operational Detachment-Delta, also known as the Combat Applications Group. Find service information, send flowers, and leave memories and thoughts in the Guestbook for your loved one. We lost our friend, he told the dispatcher. Only his severed head had been found. But he would be dead before his scheduled court appearance. The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time He didnt spend a single night in jail. Matthew Disney, 20, were found dead in their barracks room on Friday in a suspected illegal drugs overdose. Theyre covering something up. He was getting clean.. Browse Fort Bragg local obituaries on Legacy.com. 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. One day in late November, she says, she was working on a customers car when she turned around and there was Billy, wearing a black ski mask and carrying a crossbow. And I looked at Daddy and it was like he was dancing. T His rudeness annoyed her. Since then, the military has administered more than 6.4 million doses, fully inoculating 90.1percent of active-duty service members with the two-dose protocol. Her husband and Lavigne remained with the other car, bound for Fayetteville, with the girls in the backseat. 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. But neither JSOC nor USASOC responded to repeated requests for comment. Most of Billys friends or associates, Ive talked to or met, says his father. Fort Bragg needs to be blown up, that is, exposed to scrutiny, says Tammy de Mirza, Sarahs aunt. Click here to see the current year.