Spc. Ricky G. Elder, Fort Bragg soldier who shot commander, dies of self-inflicted wounds
Army investigators work the scene of a fatal shooting at Fort Bragg, June 28, 2012. / AP
(AP) FORT BRAGG, N.C. - A soldier who shot and killed his superior officer at Fort Bragg and then turned the gun on himself is also dead, military officials said Sunday.
The Army said in a news release that 27-year-old Spc. Ricky G. Elder of Hutchinson, Kan., died Friday after undergoing treatment at Cape Fear Valley Medical Center in Fayetteville, N.C.
The statement from Fort Bragg said Elder, an infantryman, had been charged recently with larceny of a toolkit valued at $1,700 and had been awaiting court martial at the time of the shootings. His trial had not been scheduled.
Army: Fort Bragg shooter killed superior
Meanwhile, Elder also was also facing legal troubles in his home town at the time of his death. The Hutchinson News reported that Elder had been scheduled to appear before a Reno County district judge on Friday to be sentenced for aggravated battery. The charge stemmed from a 2010 incident in which a woman was punched in the face at a local sports bar, the newspaper reported.
Elder pleaded guilty to reckless aggravated battery in November 2011. His sentencing had been postponed once already because of his military service.
The military said Lt. Col. Roy Tisdale of Alvin, Texas, was fatally wounded Thursday during a safety briefing. A third soldier, 22-year-old Spc. Michael E. Latham of Vacaville, Calif., also was wounded and has been released from the hospital.
Elder enlisted in the Army in 2004. He deployed to Iraq from October 2006 to November 2007 and to Afghanistan from September 2010 to July 2011.
Fort Bragg is home to the 82nd Airborne Division, the 18th Airborne Corps and Special Operations Forces.
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Please explain to your children that they should be proud of their fathers because they served when many still refuse to. Explain to them that when good people like their fathers and mothers and sisters and brothers serve in combat, the horrible things they experience causes great stress because they are good people and good people do not enjoy watching people die or their friends die while fighting for their country. Tell them that it is very easy for people who have never served in war to pass judgement on them because
they make their decisions based on the movies they see on television.
Television is written and the outcome is planned. War is not. You don't know from one second to the next if you are going to be alive in the next second and to live under that kind of pressure day after day is not easy. Tell your children that things may not always turn out the way we all want but without them, America would not survive.
Heartfelt sympathy to both families as well as to our military command
You still have every reason to be proud. The loss of your husband and his victim are both great losses because both apparently have served faithfully. Your husband too, was also a victim.
I hope the military commanders will review this entire situation and the circumstances surrounding this tragic incident. There is a tremendous amount that can and should be learned from this incident. These are questions/comments that come to my mind:
If you have a soldier who serves in combat the length of time that this soldier served, it is obvious that he had to be under a great deal of stress from time to time. He was away from his family and I am certain, endured emotional hardships he never shared with anyone. I can easily imagine a soldier hunkered down in a muddy cold foxhole in the middle of the wild blue yonder, hungry perhaps, cold, and all else while watching his buddies blown to bits and wondering throughout the sound of exploding gun fire if he is going to live or ever see his family again.
When one envisions this and consider the amount of time he served and the sacrifices he made, a court martial for an alleged theft of a $1700 tool box is absolutely unfanthomable, in my opinion! Were the sacrifices and all that he had endured so small that a commanding officer was willing to cloak him in disgrace forever for such a small amount, as well as punish his family? There had to be or has to be other options. I completely disagree with this judgement call, all due respect, and if this soldier was in fact innocent, wow, I can almost understand the intensity of his rage.
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