A highly decorated Army soldier who fatally shot himself just before an explosion of a Tesla Cybertruck at the Trump hotel in Las Vegas left a note saying it was a stunt to serve as “wake up call” for the country’s ills.

Matthew Livelsberger, a 37-year-old Green Beret from Colorado Springs, Colorado, also wrote in notes he left on his cellphone that he needed to “cleanse” his mind “of the brothers I’ve lost and relieve myself of the burden of the lives I took.” Livelsberger served in the Army since 2006 and deployed twice to Afghanistan.

“This was not a terrorist attack, it was a wake up call. Americans only pay attention to spectacles and violence. What better way to get my point across than a stunt with fireworks and explosives,” Livelsberger wrote in one letter found by authorities and released Friday.

  • @[email protected]
    21•4 days ago

    That’s fucked up. They sign up for a job where PTSD is basically a given, and then they’re not allowed to go to therapy?

    • Flying Squid
      10•4 days ago

      Ridiculously, it’s seen as a sign of weakness, including by those who might be in the position to give you a promotion.

      The whole military culture around mental health needs to be completely reformed, but I have no idea how that would be done.

    • @[email protected]
      8•4 days ago

      If he was trying to keep his clearance, then he would strive to avoid any appearance of mental health issues. Strictly speaking you’re still encouraged to take care of your mental health, but you have no confidentiality in your mental health records if you have a clearance and certain psychological issues can be a cause to deny or revoke a clearance. Many clearance-holders opt to avoid therapy and other mental health treatments as a result.

    • @[email protected]English
      6•4 days ago

      The other replies were about going at all, but that’s not the key here

      She said he’d lose clearance if he went, that means the things he’d say were psychotic and he knew it

      His wife allegedly shared a trump tweet and said she read them to get the desire to kill people, that kind of statement to a therapist will get your clearances revoked fast

      So the guy was a massive shitstain, knew it, and then offed himself pathetically. AKA your standard trump supporter

      • @[email protected]
        6•4 days ago

        Yeah, his full suicide letter came out, and it looks like he was still fully on board with Trump and Elon. Doesn’t make sense why he’d blow up a cybertruck in front of a Trump building, but yeah. Lots of railing against the 1% while supporting a whole bunch of billionaires.