For the latest update on stopping the mandates in the military, read Liberty Councils updates on the Navy SEAL 1 v. Austin case. Senators Call on Defense Department to Probe Overdose Deaths at Fort Bragg He was in an IED blast. 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. Absolutely. When he came home, notably, you could see a droopiness in his eye, she tells me. Many of the issues are directly related to the covid-19 vaccines, including Bells palsy, myocardial infarction, pulmonary embolisms and neurological disorders. . They do what they want.. Fort Bragg Obituaries | Local Obits for Fort Bragg, CA - Legacy Other operators that were there. 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. There was never no mention of this Dumas. Nicole and Laura say the same. Ultimately, he concluded in his March 11th, 2019, report, I determined that [Lavigne] was NOT credible.. Its known from postmortem toxicology that Leshikar was taking Valium, tramadol, MDMA, and cocaine. He once saw him using LSD at a barracks party, he says. He saw people die. 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. The data was provided to Senator Ron Johnson at a historic round table meeting with doctors and lawyers. In late May, a 21-year-old enlisted man from California was killed beheaded, in fact while on a camping trip with six of his fellow paratroopers; once again, no arrests have been made in the case. 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. A soldier with the U.S. Army was killed and three others were injured Thursday in a military vehicle accident at Fort Bragg, officials said. This morning, a group of five senators led by Sen. Edward Markey demanded answers from the military on the subject of overdose deaths in the armed forces, in a letter sent to Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin. When they found my brothers remains, he didnt even have eyes. Its not even clear exactly how many soldiers died at Fort Bragg in 2020. Fort Bragg stopped reporting the fatalities after June 2021, but the bodies continue to pile up. She used to rent a house from him in Carthage, another little town on the periphery of Fort Bragg. Read our Pledge HERE. 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. But he scared me.. He was a very hostile individual, says a detective who used to rent a house from Dumas. 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. Samuel Sigoloff, Peter Chambers and Theresa Long. Three unnamed Navy SEALs told CBS in 2017 that various teammates of theirs had tested positive for cocaine, methamphetamine, MDMA, and heroin, and that the substance-abuse problem was growing. In 2014, a Navy SEAL named Angel Martinez-Ramos pleaded guilty after being arrested at Miamis airport with 10 kilos of cocaine in his carry-on. She and her whole family had gone into the back bedroom to hide. An investigative reporter for Rolling Stone Magazine, Seth Harp, has been looking into this medical anomaly. Proudly powered by WordPress Her brother was the same way. A spokesman for the Army Criminal. On February 9, 2022, Seth reported the death of 83 soldiers at Fort Bragg in the 18 months ending in June 2021. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. Fort Bragg stops reporting soldier deaths after dozens found dead in their bunks. Drugs are only a small part of the problem. One minute after midnight on February 17th, 2020, Lavigne crashed his truck into a womans vehicle in Fayetteville. Not only was he a decorated Green Beret with dozens of badges and patches and medals from 14 different deployments, he was also a member of Delta Force, the most elite military unit in the United States. Drugs were in involved in the deaths of Joshua Diamon and Matthew Disney. The data was provided to Senator Ron Johnson at a historic round table meeting with doctors and lawyers. Tier 1 operators have ascended so high in the lethal bureaucracy that they no longer exist. I thought it was guns because he would talk about all the parts he had access to, and all the guns he could get., At the time, Ballard had recently left the Navy and had yet to join the police or become a detective. 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. William Edward Lemos June 2, 2022 (72 years old) 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. Related This data emerged amid increasing awareness of rising rates of drug use notably of cocaine and steroids in the Special Operations Forces. Fort Bragg stops reporting soldier deaths after dozens found dead in Harpwrote: Fort Bragg soldiers have been turning up unresponsive in their barracks on a disturbingly regular basis since the beginning of 2020, including Caleb Smither, Terrance Salazar, Jamie Boger, Joshua Diamond, Matthew Disney, Mikel Rubino, Michael Hamilton, and numerous others who have not been named.. 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. 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. Military suicide worst at Camp Lejeune, Fort Bragg, Fort Carson - USA TODAY On February 9, 2022, Seth reported the death of 83 soldiers at Fort Bragg in the 18 months ending in June 2021. 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. 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. Yet it looked as if he had been killed in his sleep. Both men had young daughters. He was a very hostile individual. The role of fentanyl in opioid-related deaths and substance-involved deaths as-a-whole continues to be a primary concern. A pair of skimpy running shorts known in the Army as ranger panties were all that he was wearing. There were at least six deaths by suicide among the 11,500 soldiers there. Fort Bragg stopped reporting the fatalities after June 2021, but the bodies continue to pile up. A Green Beret named Calvin Rockward passed away from a sudden, unexpected medical event. The 38-year-old was in excellent physical condition, too. Out of nowhere, she says, this tall, baldheaded black dude comes up with a skinny black guy with dreads. 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. 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. Eleven of the deaths remain. That the FBI has taken the lead makes me feel a little bit better, says Billys father. Mendocino County Sheriff's Office Captain Greg Captain Van Patten confirmed that MCSO detectives are considering the death a homicide "because of a gunshot wound." Copyright 2023 Penske Business Media, LLC. CID rejects any notion that anything but a complete and unbiased investigation was conducted, Grey says. It was much easier, ironically, to get information on Fort Bragg-based personnel who died in foreign countries. Nine Fort Bragg soldiers recently died of unknown causes Billy seemed to have ideals that matched mine. Fort Bragg Obituaries - Latest Obituaries in Fort Bragg, NC - Echovita 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. The presence of fentanyl in deaths involving each drug category in each year is displayed on the left. That broke me, Romero says. Its a lot of TBI, or traumatic brain injury. Ive seen it. Virtually everything to do with this organization is classified, says Sean Naylor, author of Relentless Strike, a history of JSOC. He tells me I should go smoke in the back because theres going to be a shooting.. Taking part in and witnessing violence, being away from home for long periods of time, and disillusionment with the mission can put special operators at heightened risk, Donati says, of divorce, alcoholism, substance abuse, and anger issues. He wore camouflage but sat in a cubicle. Last year, at least 39 Fort Hood soldiers died or went missing. 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. The news outlet in early September reported that a total of 109 soldiers assigned to Fort Bragg in North Carolina, active and reserve, died in 2020 and 2021 from drug overdoses. Based out of a high-security compound inside Fort Bragg, it has become a covert military within the military. Everything thats happening at Fort Bragg is horrible, says Lynda Lewis, mother of the Special Forces medic who murdered his pregnant wife. 2022 in North Carolina. Aside from suicide, overdose and complications from drug abuse including steroids was the leading cause of death. The man in the bed of the truck, by contrast, didnt have to inflate his military credentials. Everybody seemed to know the same people. 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. They speak Spanish with a Caribbean accent and dont know any Timothy Dumas. The cause of death is currently under investigation . Five were murdered. Thomas Renz reveals the DoD whistleblowers during a Senate hearing. I killed my best friend, he said, according to Patino. She shows me the brief clip on her phone. A soulless expression would come over him, like he was looking through you, when he got to drinking, Nicole says. 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. I dont get intimidated by people easily, she says. Most immediately, though, the discovery of Lavignes body represented a problem for the leadership at Fort Bragg. Elite soldiers have access to whatever they want to get into: whores, guns, drugs, you name it, he writes. Vandoliers Play Tennessee Concert in Dresses to Protest State's New Drag Bill Lavigne himself turned up dead a few years later, shot in the chest and left in the back of his own truck. 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. What is the protocol for informing family in the event of an overdose, including non-fatal overdoses. 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 say get a lawyer., I just dont know whats going on with our military right now, says Mabey. So does his best friend, 21-year-old Christian Romero, who is also a paratrooper stationed at Fort Bragg, but in a different unit. 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 had been shot multiple times in the chest, wrapped in a type of nylon blanket that soldiers call a woobie, and placed in the back of his own truck, the gray Chevrolet. When they found my brothers remains, he didnt have eyes. Sens. In light of this disturbing trend, the letter reads, we write seeking a full understanding of the pattern of overdoses., Sen. Markey, a Democrat from Massachusetts who has sponsored a number of bills to combat the opioid epidemic, is spearheading the oversight effort. 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. . The things that have happened with special forces are outside the purview of the Fort Bragg command, he says. Grant, Virginia ~ 28 February, 2023. His death was ruled a homicide. 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. The modus operandi that investigators have shown in these cases is to shut out the public, decline to answer questions, apprehend no perpetrators. Ruth was born July 22, 1931, to Ray and Esther . The Army is failing to keep soldiers combat-ready, and this is evidenced by the militarys own medical surveillance system. Click a Banner Below to Get Started, ~Everything on this site should be considered as entertainment ONLY, nothing else!~. The Armys Criminal Investigative Command, or CID, also concluded that the homicide was justified, likewise for reasons that it refuses to make public. Let's Break the Censorship Together, Opt in and Spread the Word! The vacation lasted nearly a week. 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. Lavigne was entitled to a variety of due process protections. We want to hear it. The charges against the soldiers are unrelated to the. Ari McGuire, died of a fentanyl overdose at Fort Bragg in August 2019, after he was allegedly introduced to drugs by his platoon sergeant in Afghanistan. Seth Harp on Twitter: "83 soldiers died at Fort Bragg in the 18 months Fort Bragg lost over 80 soldiers from "sudden" and "unexplained" causes Night had fallen, and the suburban cul-de-sac was lit up by emergency lights. Doctor: if You Have Toenail Fungus, Do This Immediately (Genius!) Appropriate adverse action, which was previously initiated in response to substantiated misconduct, was being finalized at the time of Master Sgt. Its the last thing we spoke about.. For the latest update on stopping the mandates in the military, read Liberty Councils updates on the Navy SEAL 1 v. Austin case. Five days ago, an early morning shooting along Highway 20 resulted in the death of 52-year-old Fort Bragg man Daniel Martin Shealor. Thomas Renz reveals the DoD whistleblowers during a Senate hearing. Fentanyl Involvement as a Proportion of Deaths Across Substance Groups, 2017-2021. by: Ashley Anderson. 1,000 Different Studies Show Extensive Evidence of COVID-19 Vaccines Adverse Events, read them HERE. On February 9, 2022, Seth reported the death of 83 soldiers at Fort Bragg in the 18 months ending in June 2021. Could there be a serious drug problem going on at Fort Bragg? The FBI is also investigating the deaths of Dumas and Lavigne, and has taken the lead in the case, according to CID. Congress has finally taken notice of an unprecedented wave of fatalities at Fort Bragg, some 17 months after Rolling Stone first brought attention to an apparent drug crisis at the base. On February 9, 2022, Seth reported the death of 83 soldiers at Fort Bragg in the 18 months ending in June 2021. Ed Markey, Elizabeth Warren, and three other senators are demanding answers from Defense Sec. 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. St. Louis Homicide Tracker (2022) - STLtoday 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. Roman-Martinezs partial remains had washed up on Shackleford Banks a few days later, but in the six months since then, few details had been forthcoming. The next day, he was indicted on two felony charges: harboring an escapee and maintaining a vehicle or dwelling place to manufacture a controlled substance. During that same eighteen-month period, three Fort Bragg soldiers died in overseas combat. Cumberland County sheriffs deputies responded to the scene. Fort Bragg Obituaries - Latest Obituaries in Fort Bragg, CA - Echovita The entire building and surrounding area was demolished and built up new. At her house, a tidy single-story place with Christmas wreaths in the windows and a yard full of pine needles, she refuses to come to the door. Feb 9, 2022 . In March 2018, Mark and Laura Leshikar took their daughter to Disney World to celebrate her fifth birthday. He was planning on coming home and building a log cabin on our property, says his dad. 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. (Recommended). Its just wonderful, she said. In early 2020, as the coronavirus pandemic descended on the United States, his run-ins with the law became more frequent. His rudeness annoyed her. Fort Bragg Advocate-News . Law enforcement still has no known suspects in the case. Fort Bragg stops reporting soldier deaths after dozens found dead in The military continues to be assaulted by mandates that harm soldiers physically and mentally. That last part wasnt true, it later emerged. Twitter, Facebook, Reddit, Medium, WordPress, Google, Gmail (literally), Blogspot, Instagram, Pinterest, LinkedIn, PayPal, LiveJournal, Soundcloud, Dailymotion, Vimeo, Tumblr, Flickr & Youtube and probably several others I forgot about. Why did it take them till December?. 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. The man on the ground, who had been dropped by a single bullet to the right temple, was 44-year-old Timothy Dumas. The sheriffs office refused to share a full investigative report on the incident with the Leshikar family, which, Swain says, is department policy. 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. Owings, Elizabeth Ann Mendocino, CA . She and her husband, a Navy submariner, were moving to North Carolina, and stayed for a time at Leshikars apartment. T Leshikar opened the hood of the car, a Honda Accord, and with the engine still hot, began to disassemble it. 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. Potter, Sandra ~27 February, 2023. We would appreciate anyone, says Shelley Lynch, an FBI spokeswoman, who may have information about where the men were in the hours before their bodies were found to contact us. The FBI released a photo of Dumas truck, a dark-blue 2015 Dodge Ram, which was found abandoned in another location. They also released a better photo of him. The Alcoholic Suffers by Mrs. Marty Mann, Executive Director, National Council on Alcoholism, New York via Billy W. Old School Addict and Hope Dealer! Video NA Speaker Get ready for Tucker: Pfizer Tapes, Mutating Viruses For Profit, Director Assaults O'Keefe (Videos). I would rather see peace than war. In 2015, former SEAL James Matthews got pulled over in New Jersey towing a trailer loaded with $1.4 million worth of marijuana. Out of view of the girls, Leshikar and Lavigne continued to drink and use drugs. Follow Conspiracy Music Guru Here. He left the military in 2016, and for a time operated a nightclub in Fayetteville, which evidently brought him legal troubles. Army authorities won't disclose the total number of soldiers stationed there who died in 2020, but Lavigne was one of a spate of homicides and suicides that brought the tally up to at least 44,. Two months later, someone nearly died of a heroin overdose at Lavignes house. The U.S. Army and Fort Bragg refuse to investigate or report on the surge in deaths, disrespecting the soldiers and their families. He finally put the gun down. In the aftermath, Lynda says, There were no real repercussions.. And he fell down on the ground and Uncle Billy kept shooting him. But in each case, the charges were dismissed. Defense grilled on fentanyl crisis post Fort Bragg, Fort Bliss, West 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. Those two would always pull some shit, she says. Latest Obituaries in Fort Bragg, CA | p.2 - Echovita Nicole and her husband also had small children. Only his severed head had been found. The problems persisted. Sparks, Ruth Fort Bragg, CA . Just because it was dismissed doesnt mean it didnt happen, says Ballard, who believes that military personnel are given special treatment within the criminal-justice system in the counties around Fort Bragg. He was deployed to Saudi Arabia when he read on Facebook that Roman-Martinez, whom hed known since middle school, had gone missing. At least 252 men and 63 women were killed. This is a previous edition of the Homicide Tracker. 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. Theyve done coke in front of me, she says. Cloaked in secrecy and sloshing with money, JSOC has operational control over the most elite commando units of each of the major service branches, including the Navys SEAL Team 6 and the Armys Delta Force, which it uses to carry out the nations most politically risky, no-fail missions, like the killing of Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi, the emir of the Islamic State, in 2019. A few minutes later, she began to record a video of her little godson dancing on the living-room carpet. Fort Bragg stopped reporting the fatalities after June 2021, but the bodies continue to pile up. 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. Watch the video below as Atty. Is Prof. Andrew Owen from the University of Liverpool responsible for blocking ivermectin as a covid treatment? Billy Lavigne joined the Army right out of high school, in February 2001, to get free corrective eye surgery and money for a new dirt bike. And when my daddy looked up, I could see he wasnt there anymore.. It went from being very rarely used to becoming, in the post-9/11 era, an organization that was running a dozen missions a night around the world., Those missions often take place in failed states or amid frozen conflicts where the United States has no acknowledged presence, and American soldiers operate in a grey zone where morality and ethics are in the eye of the beholder, and everything goes so long as the mission is accomplished and your tactics arent known to the public or explicitly to the higher-ups, as one former Green Beret writes me from federal prison, where he is doing time for smuggling 50 kilos of cocaine into Florida on a military aircraft. And I looked at Daddy and it was like he was dancing. Then 9/11 happened, touching off the longest period of war in U.S. history. 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. Ruth Sparks, a native of San Jose, California, and resident of Fort Bragg, California, passed away on December 1, 2022, surrounded by her family. No one could tell me who the escapee was, or what they had escaped from, but Cumberland County dropped all charges against Lavigne. Lavigne then grabbed the girls, took them inside of the house, and locked out Leshikar. No one at Fort Bragg will talk to me at all. Fort Bragg stops reporting soldier deaths after dozens found dead in Nevertheless, local officials were satisfied by Lavignes claim of self-defense. What is known is that on December 22nd, Sarah dialed 911 and fled to a neighbors house. 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. Latner, David Arno Fort Bragg, CA . El tipo que peg el tiro aqu, she says, pointing to a small black hole in the wall: The guy who fired a shot through here., The other woman, whom Ill call Estella, tells me the story in English. Army vet Timothy Dumas, 44, was found shot and killed alongside Lavigne. 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.