Iraq veteran with PTSD getting help after shooting

Back home, veterans battle to shake horrors of war
By JOHN BARRY
The Bulletin
Posted Feb 01, 2013

Shortly after 1 a.m. on May 9, two state troopers entered a basement apartment in a Lebanon home in a rural neighborhood.

There, according to an arrest warrant, they found Jason Durr, a recently returned veteran of the Iraq War, standing in front of a kitchen counter. Durr’s girlfriend was lying on a bed in Durr’s bedroom, bleeding from a bullet wound in her chest.

Durr has been charged with attempted murder, first-degree assault and illegal possession of an assault weapon. More than eight months later, he remains held on a $1 million bond.

While the victim was rushed to the hospital for surgery that saved her life, police started questioning Durr. Police said Durr told them that after drinking heavily with his girlfriend and a friend, he blacked out and didn’t remember the shooting. He said he suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder and three days earlier had run out of Xanax he was prescribed for anxiety, a symptom of his condition.

Unable to speak when police questioned her after her surgery, the victim, from her hospital bed, wrote that “There was a loud noise outside that startled Jason … he had a weird glassed over look in his eyes,” and “He started having flash backs of Iraq.”

“I feel he’s a victim of war just as much as his friend (the victim) was,” said Pia Strobel, Durr’s landlady and friend. She said Durr told her as well that he blacked out that night. “When he learned what happened, he was beside himself,” she said.

“He was a very proud soldier,” Strobel said of Durr. “He’s a great guy. I can’t say enough good about him.”
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