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Hell of a night, so stand by.
370, it's supposed to be a white Dodge Durango
- or Caliber. - ...over 100 miles an hour.
We have helicopters following him, we have agents following him.
- He's, uh, considered armed and dangerous. - And is it just
- one person in the vehicle? - There is, uh, two people.
They seem to be going up to Stanfield Road
in about one or two.
I'll get you mile markers to that one again.
Copy. They're coming up to Stanfield Road
in about one or two.
"Dear Mrs. Twiggs,
as required by Marine Corps regulations,
a line-of-duty investigation pertaining to the death of your husband,
Staff Sergeant Travis N. Twiggs has been completed."
We're still east bound...
"Per your request, I'm providing a copy
of this investigation, along with my determination.
If I may be of further assistance at any time
or if there is anything I or the command can offer
in the way of support or services,
please do not hesitate to contact me.
Sincerely, T. M. Murray,
Marine Corps Warfighting Laboratory, Quantico, Virginia."
"Supplementary case incident record,
Grand Canyon National Park.
At approximately 15:30, 12 May, 2008,
the Grand Canyon National Parks Emergency Dispatch Center
receive reports of a vehicle accident
near Twin Overlooks on East Rim Drive.
There were two men in the car trying to get out.
Other men on the scene attempted to help the men get their car off of the curb.
The witnesses expressed that the men behaved very oddly
because they didn't want any help,
and they speculated that the men were in shock.
They said that the two men got their backpacks out of the car
and started putting them on.
The witnesses assumed this must have meant
they were hiking into the canyon,
as the backpack they saw was large, with a back brace."
When you watch all these movies,
like these movies with knights and battles and wars,
Travis was that guy,
like that star character who was just the badass
who was gonna go in, kick everybody's ass, take no names.
That was him. If he said they we're going...
"We're going to hell, we're all going to die, but we're going to put up a fight,"
you'd be like, "All right, let's go. I'm right behind you."
You know? "I'm right-- Wherever you go, I'm following.
If you say we're going, I'm there. I don't care if I'm coming back or not."
He was a Marine's marine.
If you just looked at the way he carried himself, how he acted,
how he presented himself to other people,
you picture that's what a marine is like.
A true, uh, a true grunt.
You know what a, what a grunt is.
So not just a marine, but a grunt.
Staff Sergeant Twiggs, his call sign was "War Pig,"
War Pig Twiggs, and when you're talking,
telling stories about Staff Sergeant Twiggs, the other marines were like,
"The War Pig did this, the War Pig did that."
He had tattoos on his arms,
and it was like his arms were scraped away and he was bleeding.
And inside was cammies.
But that really, that was the guy. Like, he played green.
You know, hard cussing, shit talking.
Just straight-up marine,
The first time that I met Travis,
there was this old crusty-looking, gnarly, just sergeant
sitting across the table from me,
and he had this raspy voice,
like he had chronic laryngitis almost.
I wish you knew how he talked. I wish I could do an impersonation of him.
I don't-- I can't. There's no impersonating that voice.
You know... Guy that he always was. I mean, that's how he was.
hey was just like, "Hey, what are you doing?"
But it was fun.
Hey, Sergeant Twiggs!
What you drinking?
Right here! Right here!
- Hey, have a Coke and smile. - Right here!
Listen here, Bobby. It's not the time
to be asking me those kind of questions.
There's all kinds of people here. You know what I'm saying?
- Roger. - I've got to go shit now
and I'll be back in about 20 minutes.
♪ Chase her in paradise ♪
♪ Paradise! ♪
Travis had... an addictive personality.
His addiction was the Marine Corps.
Travis seemed to be one of those guys who brought his marines home with him.
It never... He never left the Marine Corps behind.
He'd let some of them stay at the house.
They'd be at the house on the weekends.
They'd come and have dinner with him.
It was just... those marines were his kids,
and he took care of them just like they were part of his family.
Come on in. Come on in.
Who is this?
That's Lisbon.
- Hi, Lisbon! - Hey...
- Call him The Wizard. - The Wizard.
Merry Christmas, man.
This is everyone chowing down.
The guys loved just coming over into the chaos of our house.
We didn't have America yet, we had Ireland.
But all of them were considered uncles to Ireland.
Me and Travis were kind of like, um,
the psychiatrists of the...
...of the group, because they would come and tell us, you know,
good things, bad things, things they worried about. Just their life, you know?
And it was really nice that they trusted us and believed in us enough
that they could tell stuff like that.
And it was o-- you know, it was okay.
Any problem you ever had, you could go talk to him. You know?
He said, "You know, it doesn't matter what time of day it is,
you knock on my door, you call me, I'll answer it.
I'll come see you, you can come over.
Whatever you got to do and we'll talk."
Aloha!
He was definitely a different kind of staff sergeant.
He, um... He was not afraid to be your friend.
He was all about having everybody together.
He liked to get, he liked to get the platoon together.
You know, always, there's, you know...
The staff sergeant had a friend here. "This is sergeant or corporal."
But chances are, they've known each other for a while.
You know, Staff Sergeant Twiggs, he was close with everybody.
He did four tours in Iraq.
I think the second one, he was part of the protection of the US Embassy.
His next tour, he was stationed in Anbar province, near Fallujah,
in this town of Saqlawiyah.
His unit was based in an old Ba'ath Party hotel,
long abandoned, no running water,
so they were really camping out.
It was rough. I mean, it was a shit hole place.
It had sand-- sandbags
and the HESCO barriers was what we had for barriers
and some makeshift towers that we stood guard in.
Um, there was a, a little dirt road. It was just... It wasn't much.
The town was little. There were some shady people in that town, that's for sure.
Encountered a lot of IEDs, a lot of, uh, mortar impacts.
Uh, I remember right when we got there,
right when my, uh, my platoon got there, we took incoming.
But, uh, from then on, it was-- that's how
that pretty much set the pace for the deployment.
One key part of the arrangements,
as it turned out, was they set up out houses in a courtyard outside
rather than, you know, back in the bowels, so to speak, of this building.
Travis apparently thought this was not a good idea. It was not safe.
They were taking regular, um, rocket and mortar fire.
And Travis had begged his unit commanders
to put the porta-johns inside the solid structure that they were staying in.
He goes, "I don't give a fuck what it smells like!
Who cares about the smell? It's a hardened, protected area,
where these, you know, marines can use the facilities
and not have to worry about being attacked.
I'm the bad guy looking at a compound, a hardened compound,
and then there's this strange target out in the middle of nowhere,
and I see people going in and out of it all day long, I'm gonna target it.
That's the first thing I would attack." And they did.
Those were, you know, the first two marines in our company,
We'd had other members in the battalion who had gotten killed,
but those were the first two in our company that,
you know, that you see on a day-to-day basis,
and, you know, and they're gone. It's just really... real.
Twiggs seemed like the guy that still
held it together really well, you know.
And that's his job. That's his job as the platoon sergeant.
I remember talking to him about it,
and I think I asked, "You know, what do we do now?"
and, uh... and he said, you know,
"The mission still goes on."
He, uh, was just like everybody else.
There's no time to stop and wonder and worry
and be upset and even cope with it.
You push that shit way down deep,
and forget about it.
We talked in depth on, on the phone, and he was angry.
I mean, like, really, really, really angry.
I mean, now he's up in rank, now he's got some seniority.
Why didn't they move those fucking porta-johns?
So at the end of the day, he took that home with him,
and he holds himself responsible.
He didn't drop the mortar on them, but he--
in his own mind, he might as well have.
What do you say to someone's family
when you don't bring their kids home, their husbands home?
I mean, what do you say to them? I mean, I don't have to deal with that.
It wasn't like they're looking at me saying, "How could you let this happen to my son?"
They're looking at me and saying, "I'm sorry you lost your friend."
When they look at the commander, they're thinking,
"How did this happen to my son?" You know, "You're responsible for it."
And he was in charge. You know, he had to bear that responsibility.
And that... that can't be easy.
So I think he just put a lot on himself.
Um...
And, and that was one of the big problems
that he faced when he got back.
But, yeah, he just felt...
...like a level of responsibility,
um, to bring these guys back home, and...
Yeah, I'm, I'm sure, in a way, we all felt like sons to him,
like how we all felt like brothers.
"Supplementary case incident record,
Grand Canyon National Park.
The subjects were never found at the scene.
There were several empty Budweiser beer cans in the vehicle,
as well as an empty bottle of Jagermeister liquor.
There was an apparent impact of the passenger side of the windshield,
indicating that the passenger had hit the windshield with his head,
when the vehicle impacted either the cement barrier or the tree.
The vehicle's license plate was run through dispatch,
and came back as belonging to Travis Twiggs.
After further investigation, it was determined that
the probable driver is Travis Twiggs,
and the passenger was his brother,
Willard Twiggs."
"Everyone has their own beautiful melody
that is played throughout and down the road of life.
At one interval, the melody is temporarily replaced
by a new and equally pleasing melody,
then blended with the former before being dropped.
Then the way is lost,
and the search for a wondrous new melody begins
with all of the passion that it truly deserves."
Will Twiggs, March, 2008.
Will lived in an apartment on David Drive in Metairie, Louisiana,
which is Jefferson Parish, just outside of New Orleans,
with the suburb of The Big Easy.
William, he liked to stay close.
He didn't have to go to New Orleans or to the city or to an expensive club,
you know, he didn't require that.
We talked about our past, and he was
one of fairly intelligent kids in school,
and, you know, he was a, a spelling bee champ.
You know, he told me about that. He told me about playing the, the French horn.
He wrote poetry, he wrote, uh, feelings down.
Nothing while we were together. I-- You know, he didn't,
he didn't say, "Listen, let me, you know, drop this on you," no.
But I do know he loved music and he would quote a lot of things,
and he, and he had a history of that.
He was very funny, he did love, uh, to laugh and joke and cut up.
He enjoyed that a lot.
He had a series of jobs,
including in marine logistics, like his father,
in, in the port of New Orleans.
He worked for a big German company
that offered to send him to Hamburg for advanced training.
His father, Douglas, seemed to think he had a real future in that industry,
but he declined to go to Germany.
He was happier staying home in New Orleans,
as his father joked, "Both of his friends are here."
And then, around the time of Hurricane Katrina,
he started working in construction and more sporadically.
I mean, I think his career was really sort of off track.
But really, I think he was quite a sort of popular, charming guy,
like, like Travis, although in a somewhat different way.
Do I get to hug and kiss the camera again? Something new.
Oh, my God!
- Thank you... - You better kiss your uncle.
I met Will. It was right after Katrina.
We were in construction, we was doing sheetrock,
uh, floors, carpentry... We were doing everything.
You know, whatever there was to make a buck, we did it.
We hung out every day after work.
You know, every day. And, uh...
we just became real close friends.
He was just a person that can just capture your attention,
get in a conversation with you about anything.
Very intelligent guy, very intelligent person. Really nice personality.
Will, Will was a really good guy, you know.
We, we did everything. We did everything together.
It's, it's hard to describe Will.
He, he was almost like two different people.
He had a lot of charm about him.
He was a very easy-to-talk-to guy,
very easy to get to know.
He would bend over backwards for anyone
that was ever, like, upset, not feeling themselves
Will would be there straight away like, "What's wrong?"
But that didn't last long with me.
I, I could sort of see through that
and began to see a different side of Will.
There was the drinking side
and then there was the sober side,
and they were chalk and cheese.
They, they were completely different.
Oh, you know, he was outgoing when he was drunk,
and when he was sober, he was quiet, kept himself to himself,
almost like he couldn't converse with somebody
unless he'd had a drink.
"Looking to recapture my quiet inner strength,
my writing, my ambient world, my solo fortitude and safe haven.
It's near, and I'm anxious for it to sweep me over.
The flame rises, but it soon descends.
Empty pages and a frozen pen.
You're not lovers and you're not quite friends."
Will was, was on the, on a drifter side of life. He, he had,
he had lost his way and was, was pretty content...
...just being under the radar, you know?
He, he didn't even have, like, a driver's license when I met him,
he didn't have a cell phone.
You know, he, uh, he went to get his taxes done,
and he needed to get an ID to, to show to get his tax--
You know, he needed, uh, proof of ID.
He hadn't even filed taxes for several years.
You know, he was under the radar.
You know, he didn't go and spend money on clothes
or, or appliances.
You know, it was Marlboro, Budweiser and weed, man.
It was a real simple life.
This is the what?
Thunder Valley.
Oh, good and I get approved on how bad you drive.
We are 1400 feet above sea level.
- How far? - 1,400 feet.
Look at that. Look at that.
Right there.
Shortcut, parking and camping.
We moved up here to Quantico.
He was working at the Warfighting Lab,
which was pretty much an office job, sitting behind a desk.
And if you know Travis, sitting... behind a desk
was not his cup of tea.
You know, he did not enjoy that.
But he did it for me and the girls
so he could be home with us and not be deployed so much.
It's a crazy pool right now.
- It's a what? - It's a crazy pool
It's a crazy pool?
- Yeah! - Hello.
- Hi. - I don't know you. My name's Travis.
- Hi. Sarah. Nice to meet you. - It's nice to meet you. I have you on camera.
Kellee's husband.
I escaped from a loony bin this morning.
Huh?
That's when I started noticing somewhat of a change
from being so sociable and outgoing
to just wanting to kind of be with me and the kids.
Very snappy, mood swings like a light switch.
We had a screened in back porch and he would just sit back there and isolate himself,
and not really want to even be around anybody, you know?
And it was very hard. It was very hard.
I loved Travis when I first met him. I still love Travis.
Uh, still think the wor-- uh, the world of the guy.
Uh, he, uh, he was really squared away.
You know, everyone I talked to who knew him
said he was the best marine they ever served with.
He actually was a mentor to a guy I served with, uh, in my first infantry battalion.
You know, it's a small Marine Corps kind of a coincidence.
But, uh, he always had, uh, raving reviews from everyone he worked with.
And, uh for those first six months, I thought he walked on water.
Him and I were on a business trip together.
We were sitting there eating dinner,
and we were talking with these guys we were on the trip with.
They were civilians. And, uh, these guys were talking about Iraq
and, uh, how well the troops are doing over there.
And Travis got real quiet. You know, Travis is a very, uh, outgoing guy.
It was, uh, kind of weird for him to get, uh, that quiet.
I could notice his mood was changing.
And I looked at him, I'm like, "Hey, Staff Sarge,
what's going on with you? What's, uh, what's wrong?"
He's like, "Sir, these guys don't fucking get it."
I'm like, "They don't fucking get what, Travis?"
I said, "Why don't we, why don't we step outside?
Why don't we, uh, we figure out what's going with you?"
And we stepped outside and, uh, he just kept telling me,
"These guys don't fucking get it. These guys don't fucking get it."
I said, "Hey, uh, do you think we need to go back, uh, to the hotel now?"
He was like, "Sir, whatever you want to do, I'm with you."
I said, "All right, we're gonna go back to the hotel
and, uh, you can hit the rack, uh..."
And the next morning, he came to me, he was, uh, chipper as always,
said, "Hey, sir, you know, I'm sorry about last night.
You know, I just get like that sometimes."
And that's the first time I really noticed, uh, any kind of mood swings,
uh, anything that could have been attributed to PTSD.
He went to Jersey to take some equipment up there.
Two days went by, and I didn't hear from him,
and I'm calling him, I'm calling him.
And then finally he calls me back, and I'm like, "Where are you?"
And he says, "I'm sitting in a McDonald's parking lot."
And I'm like, "A, a what?"
And he's like, "I'm sitting in a McDonald's parking lot."
I'm, "Why?" "Because I can't go."
"Why can't you go?"
"Because I just don't want to anymore."
And then he just hangs up the phone.
And then I start calling frantically.
I'm like, "Where-- Are you okay? What are you doing?"
And he's like, "Just driving."
I'm like, "Where are you driving?"
"Just driving."
"Where are you going?"
"I don't know. I'm just driving."
I'm like, "Baby, don't you need to bring that stuff to them?
And, you know, I mean, this is your job.
Don't you need to...?
Just bring it to him. Call the command and say that you have to leave."
"Okay, I will. I'm going to call him right now."
I got closer to Travis than I did, uh,
um, almost any other enlisted marines I served with.
Seeing, uh, what he was going through, seeing him repeatedly fuck up,
it, it was kind of hard, uh, sometimes to be like,
you know, "This is my friend, this is my brother marine."
You know, he-- And I, and I want him to succeed,
But, uh, at the same time, I got to, you know,
tell him, you know, "Hey, you're fucking up."
You know, and, uh, "You got to stop fucking up."
The Marine Corps could have ruined his career.
They could have pencil fucked him and wrote him up on charges
and done all kinds of rotten shit to him,
and he could have been discharged from the Marine Corps,
and he could have been discharged, not, maybe not dishonorably,
but other than honorable.
On that part, I don't think they failed him.
I think the biggest part that failed Travis
is the medical part of the Marine Corps.
Kellee talked a lot, and so did other people in Travis' family
about his treatment and what Kelly considered as over medication.
Travis also considered himself overmedicated.
He reckoned that he was on 12 different medications at, at one time,
and some of his fellow marines
very much felt that the Marine Corps let him down,
that the treatment he received was band-aids
on the immediate wounds, the, the symptoms, you know,
and, and were just trying to quiet him down,
quiet him down, get him to be calm so he can, he can go home.
Why would you send somebody who's mentally ill to see a physician's assistant?
So when Travis would come in and say, "You know what?
I can't sleep at night because I'm having all these, these nightmares."
"You can't sleep? Take this drug."
And then he'd come back and go, "I'm a zombie all day long.
I can't do that. I got to function. I got to be at work."
"Oh, this drug makes you a zombie? Take this drug."
"That drug makes me jittery.
You know, it's like, it's like drinking
a whole pot of coffee all at once,
and all of sudden, you're just jacked.
I can't deal with that."
"Well, take this drug."
I've never seen the medical records for Travis.
I don't know what's handled differently from m--
military installation from-- to installation. I don't--
It's obviously, it's going to be different.
But, somewhere, it seems as though
there was a lack of follow-up.
There was a serious lack of follow-up.
"The following is a summary of care
provided to Staff Sergeant Twiggs.
June 21st, medical encounter for combat stress.
July 28th, referral to VA, PTSD program.
August 14th, medical encounter. Evaluation, meds.
October 16th, psychiatric evaluation.
December, 2006,
deployed into Iraq without knowledge of medical command."
When he first told me
that he may be going back to Iraq,
I'm like, "What?"
"Well, it's only going to be for a couple of months
and we're going, I'm going to bring
some new weapons and gear over to the boys and...
I'm not-- It's going to be in the Green Zone. It's not gonna be bad."
And I'm like, "How? What? How is this possible?
How? What is going on here?"
You know, "This doesn't make any sense."
Do you think that... I mean, you didn't know,
and it wasn't your job to know,
but the professionals at the base, like P.A. Gertz,
like, she was treating him six months before that...
Mm-hmm, she was.
Did she know he was traveling?
I can't remember if she knew or not.
I know that when I went back over to Iraq, uh,
I volunteered to go over with a reserve battalion. I know my, uh...
I think my commanding general, my chief of staff, called her and said,
"Hey, is Captain, uh, Vorgang all right to go over there?"
And she's like, "Yeah, he's fine."
It was kind of looked at at least, uh,
um, as being, you know, just a three-week trip there.
He's going to go and he'll be back.
Nothing's going to happen to him.
He never told me if he saw anything over there or not,
but I don't think he did. Um...
The, the other guy who was with him said they didn't see anything.
They were never attacked, uh, by IEDs or small arms.
But, uh, something definitely changed in him when he got back.
Uh, in, in retrospect,
um, would, uh, would I have said something?
You know, hindsight being 20/20?
Now, yeah, I'd say, you know, "We shouldn't have sent the guy."
I think that sending him over there
and not being able to fight with the boys,
and him sitting there in the Green Zone
doing nothing and hearing all the action going on,
that is when the light switch went off and never came back on.
"Supplementary case incident record,
Grand Canyon National Park.
Following the motor vehicle accident on East Rim Drive,
I interviewed Kellee Twiggs.
She stated the following.
Travis goes by the nickname 'T-Bo.'
If we contact him, we should use that nickname.
She said when he would have really bad flashbacks and be out of it,
she would hold him and use that name,
and it would bring him out of it.
Travis has been to tracking school.
He's an expert at jungle warfare.
He's really good at hiding.
She's also worried that his brother is on board."
Will spoke about his brother, Travis.
I've never met Travis yet, and Will was very concerned about his brother
because he knew his brother was sick.
And he knew something was wrong.
And... But he was very proud of his brother.
He loved bragging about Travis, how he's an awesome marine.
I don't think that he felt jealous.
He just didn't feel proud of himself,
because his brother was doing good and he, and he felt like he wasn't.
It's really hard to explain
because their relationship was tighter
than any other brother relationship that I've ever seen.
They, they loved each other beyond...
...imagination.
Travis and Will were mostly raised
by their father, Douglas, and his wife, Nancy, their stepmother,
in a little town upriver from New Orleans.
So the boys grew up in Southern Louisiana, and so did Kellee.
I mean, Kelly and, and Travis were, were friends as little kids.
They ran with the same little group.
T-Bo was his name since he was a little boy,
and his grandmother gave him that name.
He was Rambo.
He had s-- posters of Rambo all over,
and when we would go to his grandmother's house,
she lived, um, across the lake in the woods.
And we would play hide-and-go-seek.
And I always knew to be on his team,
because if not, you were going to get the bejesus scared out of you.
They were quite different types of kids.
Will was kind of willowy, uh, a big reader.
Travis was more of a burly hellion.
He was a strong, um, super energetic kid
who loved being outdoors.
Will was two, three years older and sort of looked after his little brother.
I think they did rely on each other quite a lot.
It was like Frick and Frack. You know what I mean? They were the closest.
They were always involved in one another's lives,
and they were very close.
I mean, the first day Will had to go to kindergarten,
T-Bo sat on the front porch all day long, mad.
He even sat out there and pottied in his own pants,
and refused to go inside in case his brother came home.
I mean, that's how close, and they were always like that.
Will was everything to Travis,
and that was what I gathered from Travis.
Will was the one person that Travis wanted to impress the most.
That just always seemed kind of strange to me.
Usually for a guy, it's your dad, is that man in your life.
But for Travis, it seemed to me that it was Will,
was that person in his life for him.
I know that when Travis was a teenager,
he decided to go live with their mother in Miami for a while.
Will was very upset that he just made this decision without consulting him.
Will went off, joined the Navy briefly.
It was somewhat of a military tradition in their family.
They had a couple of uncles. Their father had also been in the military,
as a, as an MP.
So they kind of grew up on those stories,
and it was a natural progression into the military.
Will didn't last in the Navy,
but of course, Travis did last in the Marines.
I think Will felt that he never lived up to his dad's standards,
where his brother did. Travis did.
And I think, at a younger age,
his dad helped him out a lot.
But I don't think his dad, in, in, like, later on,
gave him much encouragement with things,
because I think that Will sort of jumped about from place to place.
Um, he had the drink problem,
which I think his dad was, like, very down on him about.
So it would be sort of that sort of thing
that he was just basically not living up to his dad's standards, I think,
and that affected Will a lot.
"If I ever did understand how this whole life worked,
I lost it somewhere along the way.
It somehow was married to the fantasies of an emotional daydreamer.
A daydreamer who lived in happiness
in a solitary house of music and writing.
No house at all, really.
And when all of the real walls have fallen
and the bare, pathetic truth is exposed,
there's only a scared little boy standing there in disbelief."
I mean, once you grow up, and you get married and you have your own kids,
you're not constantly looking for your parent's approval.
You know? You've moved on from that.
You're trying to raise your kids and instill in them morals and life,
and you don't just dwell on your parent's approval.
I mean, you move on in life,
and I don't think he did.
I mean, he was 37 years old, never been married, never had no kids.
He felt like his brothers were his kids.
I mean, I've got sisters and brothers,
and they're not my kids, I've got kids.
You know? It's, it's a different love and feeling and emotion.
But for him to take on as...
his brothers, as his children,
I think that's what he did,
which is kind of strange.
I got a phone call from, uh, my boss
saying, "Hey, you're gonna go to the Quantico clinic right now.
Pick up Staff Sergeant Twiggs and take him to Bethesda."
All he kept saying was, "I'm sorry, sir.
You know, I know it's supposed to be a day off for everyone,
and you have to come and take me to, uh, Bethesda." I probably told him, you know,
"Just hold your head up high. Hang in there, it'll be all right."
Some, uh, some kind of bullshit like that, uh,
when, uh, I guess in reality I knew...
I didn't want to admit it, but, uh, I kind of knew deep down
that it wasn't going to be all right for him,
because he just kept going down this path, and, uh,
it, it killed me to see him doing that.
He said, "I'm crazy. I can't help it."
Well, to me, Travis was always crazy.
He was the guy that was so outgoing and so beyond outgoing,
you're like, "This dude's crazy."
But when he meant he was crazy,
you heard it in his voice and he goes,
"I think I'm fucking crazy."
And it wasn't the crazy, funny ha-ha, like you know, "This dude's crazy."
It's, "I'm crazy, and I don't know how to stop it.
And I don't know how to fix it.
And I don't know what to do."
I think what happens is that you've got your truth,
like, you know, your personal beliefs about the way the world works.
You know, not necessarily in your conscience,
but in your subconscious, there is a structure to the way the world works,
and when something traumatic happens,
the foundation on that structure breaks and it all collapses.
You know, the way you see the world,
like, if you're looking at the world through a window,
the windows broke, and now they have
to go about building an entire new reality
'cause their old one is gone.
The way they viewed the world for their entire life,
or how it's evolved over time
just got blown to shit, washed away, it is no more.
So now you've got this 25, 26, 31-year-old,
however-old person who's like...
..."What am I supposed to do? Everything I thought was real is not.
It's not the way the world works. That's the way this world's
supposed to work, but that's not how it works."
I saw some paintings
that Travis had done while he was hospitalized.
They were really disturbing,
dark, dark visions from somebody who's, who's haunted
and, and feels trapped and on a kind of hopeless mission.
I mean, they were guy holding an eyeball,
those horror images.
One of them is a marine hanging from a wall
by his fingertips
with all his veins poking out.
As I would think,
like holding on with every bit of might he could
to his life.
There's another picture of...
It's me and the girls in the background,
and then his face real close.
But he's got like this look on his face, like he's a monster.
I wonder if that's what he thought he was to us.
Because he was not.
And I don't understand why he would think that.
Just so awful, you know...
...the way he thought of himself.
You might say that
in the classic breakdown of social trust
that is, is kind of the essence of PTSD.
The one person whom Travis still did trust was Will.
They'd been so close growing up,
and Will idolized Travis, um,
as this kind of warrior hero.
And they formed this unit.
They sort of spoke a language that nobody else could,
and they could imitate each other's voice perfectly and fooled people over the phone.
Which one it was. They'd always been able to do this.
Will went and sat at Travis' bedside in Bethesda
when he was, um, sort of at his worst in the hospital.
And his journals show that his fixed idea was his loyalty to Travis.
So this was a powerful, powerful theme between the two brothers.
You know, "We stick together."
"So, the trip is winding on down.
One more full day, and then I'm back in the airport,
and then back to all of my stress and misery
and reminders of mistakes and mayhem.
At least for a while.
T-Bo needed this. No question.
It's been a great visit, and I will most certainly be sad to leave T-Bo.
My loyalty is unequivocally bent, T-Bo."
When he came back,
that's when I noticed that he wasn't the same,
He said, "My brother is sick.
I can't do nothing about it."
He just didn't know what, what to do or where to turn.
He, he, he didn't know.
He was trying to just deal with it, I guess, on his own,
and he started drinking a lot.
And he just started, you know, doing stuff that he would never do,
like punch holes in my doors and stuff like that.
But he was very private, personal when it came to his family.
He cared so much for T-Bo, he, uh,
would always listen to him on the phone, uh...
There would be some problem, he's trying to, to micromanage
or, or, or give answers or just be the, the ear.
Then it would always end up with like, "Well, have you started drinking yet?"
You know, that's how the conversation would go.
Like, if there's a problem, then,
"Have you started drinking?" you know.
I don't think it made it any better,
but I guess they coped with it a little easier.
"Line of duty determination. Written findings
in the case of Staff Sergeant Travis N. Twiggs.
On March 26th, 2008
Staff Sergeant Twiggs requested leave to visit his grandmother
who was diagnosed terminally ill with cancer.
Staff Sergeant Twiggs' doctor
advised that Staff Sergeant Twiggs was not mentally fit
at this time to travel without an escort."
Travis was too proud to show up next to his grandmother
and have an escort.
So he kept saying that he was gonna go.
He was going to New Orleans, he was going to see her.
And he's like, "I just need you to understand
that I love you and the kids and I have to do what I have to do."
And I said, "Please, do not go to New Orleans.
You're gonna flush your Marine Corps down the drain,
everything's gonna go away, all that we've worked so hard for for this."
Will had a little throwaway phone and, uh,
we started getting calls from, uh, T-Bo.
And that, uh, he was getting a pass or something.
He was going to... You know, he was getting out.
And then, uh, we get another phone call later in the day,
like, "Oh, hey, I'm, I'm on my way."
So he just took off. He just jumped in a car
and, uh, drove to New Orleans,
um, where he hooked up with Will
and saw other members of his family, his grandmother,
and he seemed, um, in retrospect, according to his parents,
um, really not himself.
His voice didn't sound like him, he, he was belligerent,
and said to his father as his father, Douglas, recalls it,
um, that, "I'm, I think I'm very sick."
I heard they borrowed money from everybody,
but I did get $200 and lend it to them.
And-- 'Cause for T-Bo's trip back home.
That's what they told me it was for.
And then that night, I went to the bar and they were drinking,
and I made them give me back... They only had 100 left.
I made them give me back 100.
I mean, I've seen T-Bo, like, three, four times.
I think he was down here for maybe, what, a week?
I, I didn't know he was this bad off, as he was.
I wasn't looking for nothing.
No signs or not-- nothing abnormal.
You know?
Will was abnormal. You know?
I didn't have normal enough.
Will kept calling me.
I was working, so I couldn't answer my phone at the time.
I finally was able to talk to him.
Now his brother is in town at this time.
And Will said, "Terry, I just want to tell you
thank you for being a good friend of mine.
But I'm, I'm done, Terry. I'm done. I'm..."
I said... "What do you, what do you mean you're done?"
He said, "I'm-- Dude, I'm done...
...with this place. I got to get out of here."
And I said, "Well, are you moving? Are you going somewhere?"
He said, "Yeah, yeah. that's exactly what I'm doing."
I said, "Well, where you're going?"
He said, "Well, where I'm going, I can't tell you.
But you'll h-- you'll hear from me again."
I said, "What, what are you, what are you going to do?
Where are you going to go?"
He said, "I'm gonna take this motherfucker
and drive it into the ground."
I said, "Well, well, what are you talking about?"
Well, he hung up.
So when I called Cathy
to find out, well, where they're going or whatever,
she said, "Terry...
...you would not believe how Will was."
She said, "It was like a different person."
I said, "What do you mean?"
She said he came into the house with T-Bo...
...demanded money, "I need money now!"
Demanded money.
She gave up whatever money
that it, that she could,
and he just said that he was going on a trip,
or he was going somewhere.
Didn't really give too much of an explanation to anybody,
where they were going, what they were doing, what the plan was.
Nobody knew.
From what I understand, Thursday was the last day
that anybody in New Orleans had seen them.
Apparently, they drove over to Texas
and saw a friend of Will's, Kim.
When they talked to T-Bo, he's like,
"Oh, yeah, I'm going back. I'm going home.
I'm-- After we leave here, we're going back.
I'm gonna go back up to Virginia,"
like everything was okay with him.
Travis said something to the effect of,
you know, "This is much farther than I thought."
They had driven all the way out from Louisiana.
"Um, and I got to get back east, and we can't stay the night."
And, and they left.
You've reached SSR Twiggs.
I can't take your call right now. Leave a message.
I'll get back to you as soon as I can.
- Thanks.
I went back and looked at Travis's phone records of whom he--
like who he had called.
And, um, I saw this one number,
,and I didn't know who it was, so I called it.
Then apparently, it was a friend of Will's.
She said, "Well, yeah, they called me earlier
and Will was saying how they were at the Grand Canyon
and how beautiful it was,
and that it makes the hair on his arms stand up,"
and whatever she does, she's got to get out there and see it,
how beautiful it is.
So I'm like, "Oh, my God," you know, like,
"Wh-- what, what the hell are they thinking? What is going on?"
Well, there's not a great deal known.
They were driving in this area of the South Rim
in a place where there's no guardrail,
and it's a 5,000-foot drop,
and Travis was at the wheel, apparently.
He just hooked a hard left and floored it over a curb,
and off the rim.
They hung up at a little fir tree
that's growing out just under the ledge,
the car basically stuck.
So they got out.
People who saw this thought they were acting very strangely,
talking about, "Well, let's just, you know, continue with our plans."
And what, what--
You know, after doing this, you have plans?
What, what, what were your plans, you know, exactly here?
And they were sort of getting their stuff out of the car
and scrounging around for cigarettes, "Where are the cigarettes?"
I mean, they weren't making a lot of sense, I think, to the witnesses.
And they grabbed packs and split
before the cops showed up.
They went across the road
into the scrub on the other side and just kind of hid out
while the authorities came and towed their car out of there
and, and cleared it up and tried to figure out
what had happened, and when they'd left,
um, about an hour after they'd cleared the scene and, and gone,
they stopped a car with a couple of tourists in it,
showed a .38 revolver and got them out of the car,
basically carjacked them, took their car and left with it.
And that's the last time they were seen.
And nobody is sure what happened between there and...
...what happened 400 miles away.
Hell of a night, so stand by.
370, it's supposed to be a white Dodge Durango
or Caliber.
Once this carjacking took place,
Arizona authorities were looking for these guys,
but nobody spotted them for a day-and-a-half, two days,
and then they were pulled over
near a border station on Interstate 8.
And they were asked to pull over for a secondary inspection,
and that's when Travis just floored it and, and the chase was on.
Sheriff's office. This is... - Hi. This is
a supervisor of Border Patrol Agent Baxter, US Customs and Border Patrol station.
- Uh-huh. - We have a situation of a vehicle running one of our
checkpoints out at Welton. He's gone over 100 miles an hour.
We have helicopters following him, we have agents following him.
He is, uh, considered armed and dangerous
And is it just one person in the vehicle?
There is, uh, two people. Hold on, one second...
And they're racing east across the Arizona desert
and pursued by any number of patrol cars, helicopters.
At a certain point, he hung a sudden left turn,
come to a dead end at a dam 16 miles off the Interstate,
hung a sharp U turn and raced back at the cars that were chasing them.
We'll be approaching Stanfield Road in about one or so.
GPS involved, along with Border Patrol and an MCSO unit.
It's certainly easy to picture
how Travis in this sort of disastrous state of mind
where he's been plagued by flashbacks over time, often thinks he's in Iraq.
You know, racing through the desert,
with choppers overhead and the vehicles around him
may have, may have felt like he was back in combat, he was in Iraq.
A tribal policeman came out to the highway
and laid out some spike strips to flatten the tires.
Still eastbound. He just hit the strips at Stanfield Road.
- I'll get you mile markers to that-- - Copy.
1962 vehicle lost control of I-8 eastbound at 162.
900, all units hold traffic.
The thing that bothers me the most is the last ten minutes...
...is the last ten minutes of that car.
What went through their heads?
Okay, you're doing a felony, stop the vehicle bid roll.
I-8 is closed at this time at 10:14.
900, all units continue to hold traffic for a felony stop.
And that was my biggest problem for so long.
I felt like I was in a bubble sitting in the back seat
and I could see them two talking.
You know, "I can't go to jail. I can't go to jail, man.
You're gonna have to do it. You're gonna have to do it. I can't do it."
Will was a pretty strong person. He was a strong-willed person.
I wouldn't put it past him. He wasn't too scared of anything.
I'm sure he felt like, "What would be the purpose of, of staying here?
My brother's sick.
He could never find happiness ever again in his life.
His life is upside down.
What the hell we need to be here for anymore?"
- And that was it. - 760, did I copy there is
- a weapon in the vehicle? - There's a weapon.
Calling all units,
- continue to hold traffic.
Shots fired, possible triple-six.
1192, if that's you, or 1207, can you observe
- from that side and give us a status? -
We have shots fired, possible triple-six.
900, all units, hold traffic.
Stand by, copy, he just dropped down into the seat.
Okay, I copy. The subject just slumped down at the wheel this time.
I have a visual on him. He's slumped down behind the dash.
- We can't see him anymore.
Okay, I copy. You do not have a visual on the subject
at this time at 10:15.
This is LT1 433 and LT6.
Travis fired all three, shot Will through the temple.
It was fatal. Then shot himself under the chin,
which was not fatal.
And then he fired a second shot that was fatal
and he sort of fell over into his brother's lap.
Just FYI, it was a pursuit.
Two people have been, uh, are seen either, uh,
knocked out or slumped over.
6768, if you can hear me, uh, just perimeter up,
uh, we got more units coming. Don't approach the vehicle.
392, take care of westbound traffic. You're in front of us.
We're just passing 167. Stop all westbound.
On traffic, 84. We'll be there in a few.
We're, uh, about Murphy on the I-8, myself and Command Two.
In Camp Farm, Company divert northbound
to State Route 84 off of Montgomery Appleton 8, 10:01.
See if we can get a canine out here, maybe approach...
- ...the, the, uh, vehicle. Uh, see if BPS
has a canine available to make approach to the vehicle.
The stuff that I think, you know, civilians,
I don't know if it's take for granted or whatever, but it's like over there,
you know, you think, you know, all the really matters
is the guy on your left and your right, you know.
I mean, when you're back here, it's like, you don't,
you don't think about things like that.
If me and you are out there, you know,
and, and you've got my six, you know,
I shouldn't have to turn around
and make sure that you're watching my six.
I trust you, you know, as a brother to know that you've got that.
You've got that part of the security you're holding,
so it's just that level of camaraderie
between, between one another.
You know, it's, it's uniq-- it's a unique thing.
You know, it's a unique thing. So, I'm, I'm sure for anybody else that--
I don't have any brothers, you know.
Um, but I'm sure for anybody that does,
they, they, they'd understand how it is, you know,
brothers' love, you know, for one another.
Okay, hold on,
let's see if we can get Uncle Will into this picture.
I'll... just get the sunlight not on him.
What does that say? What does that say? - There he is!
Just trying to write my stupid brother a letter. - Wait, wait--
Because he's drunk, and...
Never got to tell him my feelings. - "Your 'Bestest
Potna'...
...forever and a day."
Number two, Rusty Wallace,
- obviously. - Uh, number one is the one I meant.
Creep.
Really?
Creep fucking jerk.
So now what are you going to do? - Oh, yeah?
Where's the beer? Huh?
What do you mean where is it? - Where is the fucking beer?
It's up your ass, you dumb-witted-- - Oh!
How creative! Come up with something a little better than that.
- Yeah, I could. - How can I...
I could come up with this, right here.
- How about right here? - Look.
You would think Travis come down here
to see his grandmother 'cause she was sick,
and he didn't want to be chaperoned.
I don't think he didn't want to be chaperoned,
I think all that was playing from when Will went
up there and visited him.
I think that's when they really, you know, set everything in motion.
"So, the trip is winding on down.
One more full day, and then I'm back in the airport
and then back to all of my stress and misery
and reminders of mistakes and mayhem. At least for a while.
It's been a great visit, and I will most certainly be sad to leave T-Bo.
My loyalty is unequivocally bent to T-Bo.
As you know, I fell in love one time in my life so far.
I did not know that for sure until it happened
and you know what happened to all of that.
As much as I have tried to pick up the pieces and move on,
I have been unable to do so.
Roger Waters says,
'The rusty wire that holds the cork that keeps the anger in...
...gives way and suddenly it's day again.'
I'm fairly convinced that the only way I can turn that song off
is to go far away from all the people I know,
Mistakes I continue to make, problems I am ducking.
All of it."
"I just need to go.
I have a place to go and I have a plan.
The 'saying goodbye' shit is what's so damned hard."
To hear that T-Bo did that to Will...
Will fed on his... sickness,
and I think that...
...he pushed T-Bo to...
...to where they are.
I just would have never guessed in a million years.
I would have never guessed. And I've known him my whole life,
and I would have never guessed it would have been this way.
I mean, I knew Will.
Will was the smart one.
T-Bo was the mischievous one.
I don't know.
I knew the guy was, was unhappy about, you know, a lot of things,
which he had a, he had a good reason to be. But not to end his life.
Because Will would just come up with some really weird sayings sometimes,
you know? He was a character, you know?
He said, "Yes, I'm gonna drive this thing into the ground."
You know... he didn't know really what he was talking about.
The last thing you're thinking is that he's gonna end his life.
I can see him running away, but I can't see Will wanting to die. You know?
He wouldn't hurt nobody. He certainly didn't want to hurt himself.
"Rusty wire that holds the cork that keeps the anger in..."
He liked Pink Floyd and he liked the Beatles a tremendous amount, too.
But that's just writing, That doesn't mean that's... that those were actions.
I mean, were those plans or were those just poetry?
T-Bo, he was the one who had the gun, you know,
he was the one that drove all the way here.
Will was just...
...cleaning carpet and air ducts,
living his life, being as happy as he could be.
T-Bo showed up...
...and everything changed for, for, for both of them at that point.
Will could have got out of that car any time. Will chose that.
He chose to take it to the end with his brother.
He, he chose to be there to support him, to, to love him.
I, I guess no one will ever really know...
...the truth, you know?
All I can say is Will loved his brother that much...
...that, that he's willing to die for him.
In retrospect, certainly, it has a form and almost predictability
that these two were going to ride off the...
if not off the edge of the Grand Canyon,
were just going to certainly go out
in a kind of blaze of self-destructiveness.
I, I won't call it glory, because suicide,
it leaves everybody else with a great burden
of sorrow and guilt that those who are gone have, have left off.
You know what triggered it and said, "That's it, I'm, I'm done with this." Like...
Something really bad went wrong. I don't...
Like I-- I question it all the time. I don't, I don't understand.
But, I mean, I think the military and whoever treated him
deserves, you know, to answer those questions.
I mean, there's just a lot of maybes in it,
that, you know, we'll never get the answers to.
He f-- he felt in his mind he failed when those kids died,
and he committed the ultimate sin in his mind
by letting those two kids die.
It's scary because you just never know
what you'll see, you know, or what's inside somebody that you just don't see.
If I lost my arm in combat, motherfuckers would look at me and go,
"Fuck, dude, you're badass. You lost an arm and you fucking kept on going?
And you're, you're moving forward with your life?
That's hardcore, that's super tough.
You did your job, you served your country."
But I look at you and go, "Dude, I can't sleep at night.
I've got these horrible fucking nightmares,
and I think crazy thoughts,
and I'm walking down the street and I smell something,
and all of sudden, I'm right back to where I was when I--
this horrible thing happened to me."
They're going to look at him and go, "You fucking pussy.
Man up or pant up.
Put your big girl pants on, move forward."
The fact that he had PTSD,
the fact that he, you know, killed himself.
He did those things, but that's not really the man that he was, you know?
That was a small glimpse of his entire life, and a horrible glimpse.
He wasn't a marine suffering from PTSD.
He was a marine. Bottom line.