THURSDAY'S LETTERS: Readers React to Column on Soldier's Suicide

By: E&P Staff In today's letters, readers react to Greg Mitchell's recent column about the death of army specialist Alyssa Peterson.

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Letters to E&P Editor Greg Mitchell's on the Death of Army Specialist Alyssa Peterson



Army specialist Alyssa Peterson committed suicide? This is one version of the story. In any event, it is a tragic and unacceptable loss of life. Stop the war. Impeach the President.

Matthew Moriarty



Thanks for your excellent piece on Alyssa Peterson. It's a terrible story that needs to be told.

I'm doing a series on troops' mental health issues over at Raw Story that you might find interesting, [and] I assume that you've already seen the excelllent Hartford Courant investigative piece from this past May, "Mentally Unfit, Forced to Fight."

Thanks again for all your good work. The men and women in Iraq and Afghanistan are being used up and then disposed of like so much garbage by the Pentagon. It should be a national scandal.

Nancy Goldstein



I read your article regarding the death of Ms. Peterson as an apparent suicide. Very tragic and I'm glad it the truth was uncovered. In the article, one point I found very shocking was the statement that all documents relating to the techniques of interrogation were destroyed. A possible crime was committed there -- and they are allowed to just destroy records?

John Pardee



I saw your article about Army Specialist Alyssa Peterson. It called to mind a conversation I had about a year ago on an airplane when I sat next to a woman who was in the Army. We got to talking and she had something to do with compiling statistics at the Pentagon (I did not get her name.) She told me that the untold story was the high suicide rate of the active military serving in Iraq. She was very depressed about it. I got the strong sense from her that these numbers are kept secret.

Riki Sheehan



How do we know she wasn?t murdered?

Jerry Jacks



[Maybe] she was assassinated to keep her mouth shut.

James Murdock



My first thoughts reading [your article] it were "What if she didn?t commit suicide?" and "What if she was killed to silence her?."

Marion Mlotok
Austin, Texas



Perhaps it was not suicide, but only made to look like it. A cover up of a cover up. Maybe it was felt she would make too much noise.

John Steidel



I am glad that Truthout relayed your story on Alyssa Peterson. But my instincts tell me there is more. I'm a lawyer, which includes time as a prosecutor and judge. This doesn't sound like suicide circumstances. She wasn't there that long. There is no evidence in your article of symptoms of suicide.

And she was a Mormon, and those who are observant have a documented rate of suicide that, for males at least, is lower than non-believers and non-observant Mormons by a factor of seven. (American Journal of Epidemiology 2002;155:413-419. Write-up in: "High Religious Commitment Linked to Less Suicide", by Charnicia E. Huggins (Reuters Health), Daily News.

I would really love to look over those papers produced in response to the FOIA request. Perhaps they will get posted on the Internet. I'd like to know a lot more about the forensic facts.

I must say that I don't trust the authorities in anything having to do with our interrogation/torture practices. They sent the grunts at Abu Ghraib to prison, when everyone knows that it was [Defense Secretary Donald] Rumsfeld who set the policy and gave the orders. What were they prepared to do to another grunt who openly rebelled against the policy? Was she a threat to them? Did the CIA turn a blind eye to a mercenary hit? Nothing would surprise me. Of course, the most we can reasonably expect in a private investigation like this is to raise hard questions. But I am up for that. Much evil has been done in the Iraq war, alongside much dedication and heroism. I think the evil needs to be exposed. ...

Douglas L. Wilson
Naples, Fla.