Crime & Safety
4th OWI: Vietnam Vet Just Drove 'Towards the Sun' – Drunk
Former Marine drinks himself into a stupor and gets behind the wheel, he admits, using alcohol as self-medication for PTSD.
A Vietnam War veteran who said he has a history of post-traumatic stress disorder and has three prior drunken driving convictions told police officers that after drinking all day, he just pointed his car "towards the sun" and kept going until he was stopped.
His fourth offense, a felony charge, will put him in prison if he's convicted. He was wholly cooperative and courteous with police officers, answering questions "Yes, sir" and "No, sir," and erroneously counting off "left, right, left" instead of "one, two, three" on walking sobriety tests.
The suspect was pulled over at 8:12 p.m. last Tuesday after callers reported him driving recklessly and a patrol officer caught up in the 2800 block of Mayfair Road.
He admitted he'd been drinking since 11 a.m. He had no idea where he was or what day it was. He said he'd been drinking straight rum, and during field sobriety tests he said he was "feeling the motions."
Of what? the officer asked.
"Alcohol," the man answered.
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Sign up for the Patch NewsletterHe told the officer he wasn't able to get the medication he needed from the Veterans Administration. Pointing to his head, he said, "There's no magic pill." He said he had run out of medication and without it he just drinks to the point of passing out. He could not remember his birthdate.
Asked to recite the alphabet, the man said he'd finished only his junior year in high school, had joined the Marines, and didn't know or care about his ABC's.
The police officer found a bottle of Bacardi rum in the man's car. The suspect told the officer he'd been drinking alone, at his house and in his garage. He said he knew he was drunk and shouldn't be driving – he was supposed to have an alcohol interlock on any vehicle he drove – but, he said, he just "pointed (my) car towards the sun" and started driving.
He blew a .19 blood alcohol concentration on a preliminary breath test and submitted to a voluntary blood draw.
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