by Charles A. Reid III, Esq.

*** All Names have been changed to protect the privacy of the interviewees and their families.

As soon as I made the decision to write this paper about the Veterans Treatment Court, I knew exactly who I should call. I called Norm because he is my long-time friend and combat buddy from the Marines. We served three tours in Iraq together including our participation in the bloodiest battle of the Iraq war, Operation Phantom Fury a.k.a. The Battle for Fallujah in 2004. When the incident that he was involved in occurred, he called me up and told me about it. I had known that he went before the Veterans Treatment Court.

When I called Norm for this interview, he immediately informed me that he had not chosen to go through the program. He said that I should call John who had. After interviewing both John and Jimmy, I called back Norm to discuss why he had chosen not to go through the program. John had explained to me that after the program was over, a misdemeanor is cleared from the veteran’s record and a felony is dropped to a misdemeanor (John). I needed to understand.

Norm was from a lower-class Caucasian family. He was fairly close to his family when he joined the military. His brother passed away while Norm was serving in Fallujah Iraq with myself. He was sent home early to attend the funeral. Since then, he has grown farther apart from his family if only because of geography. Norm only receives a little support, if any at times, from his family. He is very independent from them. Norm married his ex-wife, Briana, in a shotgun wedding. He had gotten Briana pregnant out of wedlock. Her dad picked him up with his shotgun and escorted him to the justice of the peace (Norm). He has four children, three with his ex-wife, and one with his girlfriend, Jen. He currently has no visitation with his oldest three kids as there is a court order resulting from a divorce decree. It is not clear what his status is with Jen and his other child. There is a new case that will be mentioned below (Norm).

Norm is not a person who I would consider to be highly intelligent. When we were in the Marines together, Norm informed me that he had to take the Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery, the test to gain admission into the armed services, three times to get the bare minimum score to join. Norm does have his High School diploma. Since joining the Marines, Norm has had no formal education besides limited job training (Norm).

Norm only had what could be considered typical high school jobs prior to joining the military at age 18. He joined the military originally to obtain career training (Norm). During his third deployment, we were on a mounted patrol, a patrol in vehicles, when Norm’s truck was hit by an Improvised Explosive Device (IED). Norm was knocked unconscious and suffered a Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI).  Subsequently because of his wounds, Norm is now 60% medically retired with the Department of Defense (DoD) and has a 70% service connected disability with the Veterans Affairs Administration (VA) for Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) and TBI (Norm). Today, and for the past several years, Norm works unloading sand from trains and loading it onto trucks. It is gainful employment, but he’s not getting rich (Norm). This was the driving factor as I will discuss in more detail for not going through the program (Norm).

About six months before the incident took place, Norm had been caught cheating on his wife Briana (Norm). This was not the first time as I have already known. In fact, he had cheated several times since he was married. I can’t blame him as it was a shotgun wedding. I never understood why she stayed so long though.

This time, she decided to wake Norm up with chilly water. Norm jumped up pushing the bucket away and hitting [Briana} in the process. However, Briana did not report any of this to the police immediately. She did however, leave with the kids for her mother’s house. Norm saw his children infrequently. “It was a rough couple of months (Norm).”

A few weeks prior to the incident, [Brian] returned with the children. They spent Thanksgiving at the neighbor’s house (Norm). However, this wasn’t a pleasant holiday. The day after, Norm was told by Briana that she cheated on him with the neighbor. Briana packed everything up again to go to live with the neighbor in Texas. Norm went out into the driveway and stood in front of her car. He did not want her to leave. She called the police. When the police arrived, Briana decided to report the incident with the water bucket as well as the current situation (Norm).

Norm was arrested and subsequently charged with felony domestic battery, false-imprisonment, and a list of other charges (Norm). The charges, not specifically listed were dropped by the Assistant District Attorney (Norm). However, the ADA did not want to cut Norm any type of deal. The ADA wanted to take Norm to trial (Norm).

Norm requested to go to the Veterans Treatment Court. There he met Judge Johnson. Norm said, “I’ll never forget the personal advice he gave me.”

“What was that?”

‘“Women are freaking crazy! Stay away from them (Norm)!”’ Right then and there, the Judge had built a bond with Norm. The judge was also a Colonel in the Army National Guard. Everything was going swimmingly until the program was explained to Norm.

The program would require that Norm not work until he was in the second phase of the program. This would not be possible for Norm as he had three children at the time and needed to support them. Furthermore, he had a mortgage to pay (Norm). Norm was also told, which is true, that he couldn’t miss any classes or court dates (Norm). This precluded him from participating in the program. Norm was transferred back to the district court. There, a new ADA offered a deal to Norm. Norm received a misdemeanor battery conviction, $1,000.00 fine, twelve hours of community service, and 12 days of work release picking up trash. Norm had to complete 52 weeks of domestic violence classes at a cost of $50.00 admission and $25.00 per class (Norm).

I asked him if he regretted not going through the program. He said no because he had to work. I didn’t find his logic unsound. It would have put him in a worse position including losing his house. He was facing more jail time and may have had the same issues; however, he couldn’t go down that easily. I asked him if he would use the program in the future if needed. He said no for the same reason (Norm).

Today, Norm is still employed, has another child and is in trouble again. Norm is facing more domestic battery charges on his current girlfriend and mother of his fourth child (Norm). The proceedings are ongoing. I can only ask myself if this would have happened again if he had gone through the program.

 

Continued…

(In Part C. The Interviews: John, I will provide a more detailed picture into the VTC)

 

Norm. “Norm Interview.” Telephone interview. 2 Oct. 2015.