For Army reservists struggling with mounting psychiatric problems, the breakdowns go like this, said Col. Mark Ochoa, command surgeon from the U.S. Army Reserve Command: There are no Army hospitals in New England, and reservists generally don’t qualify for care through Veterans Administration hospitals, so they are likely to use private health care. But private health providers are barred from sharing information with the Army command structure without a patient’s permission. And only a commander can mandate that a reservist get treatment.
As the Associated Press reports, Ochoa testified in front of an independent state panel that is investigating the Lewiston, Maine, mass shooting by Robert Card, 40, a reservist who was experiencing a psychiatric breakdown when he killed 18 people and injured 13 others in October. The commission intends to release its final report this summer. Previous testimony has made clear that Card’s growing paranoia was not a secret: fellow reservists, along with Card’s family, told police about it in the months leading up to the shooting. Card was also hospitalized during a psychiatric breakdown at a military training last summer in upstate New York. One reservist, Sean Hodgson, told superiors in September, a few weeks before the attacks: “I believe he’s going to snap and do a mass shooting.”