Police shootings touch nerve among military veterans

Back-to-back attacks on police in Texas and Louisiana by former military men have touched a nerve among veterans who traditionally share a close bond with law enforcement.

Veterans and active-duty troops started posting messages on social media almost immediately after the news broke last weekend that a masked former Marine had ambushed law enforcement along a busy highway, killing three officers — including a fellow former Marine.

Seeing one Marine kill another Marine after both had returned home safely from the battlefield in Iraq has been especially painful for the military’s smallest branch, which considers service life-long membership among a force whose official motto is: “Semper Fidelis,” or “Always Faithful.”

The Baton Rouge shooting came less than two weeks after five Dallas police officers were killed in an ambush by an Army Reserve veteran who had served in Afghanistan.

Gavin Long was based in San Diego with the Marine Corps from 2005 to 2010, according to military records.

He was deployed in 2008 for about eight months to Iraq as a data network specialist. People in those jobs are technicians dealing with computers and generally do not see combat.

Read More- Military Times

Image courtesy of AP