This undated photo provided by Alicia Arritt, shows her with former Army Special Forces soldier Matthew Livelsberger, who died by suicide in a Cybertruck that exploded in front of a Trump hotel in Las Vegas on New Years Day, Wednesday, Jan. 1, 2025. (Alicia Arritt via AP)
The fiery News Year’s Day suicide of an Army Green Beret exposed the Pentagon’s struggle to identify and treat brain injuries and mental health issues, raising alarm among some lawmakers, medical experts and former military personnel who question if enough is being done to improve care and prevent similar tragedies.
Matthew Livelsberger, 37, a career Special Forces soldier with extensive wartime service in Afghanistan, died from a self-inflicted gunshot moments before the rented Tesla Cybertruck he was driving exploded outside the Trump International Hotel Las Vegas, authorities have said. Livelsberger had struggled with what he endured in combat and confided in an ex-girlfriend that he experienced health problems linked to repeated concussions.
Such invisible wounds can hinder a person’s ability to regulate their behavior and lead to substance abuse, insomnia and other serious problems such as suicide, experts say. Recent legislation and Pentagon programs have emphasized screening and self-reporting for such injuries, but critics cast doubt on whether the Defense Department and individual commanders are moving with suitable alacrity.
A particular concern, they said, is the culture inherent to Green Berets and other Special Operations forces, a high-speed, secretive working environment where Livelsberger spent the majority of his military career. Operators pride themselves on toughness and resiliency, and often elect to gut out mental and physical ailments for fear that acknowledging they need help will put them at risk of being pulled from their duties.
While senior leaders have sought to change that culture, such efforts do not always take hold among rank-and-file troops, for whom reliability is important social currency, said Katherine L. Kuzminski, a military policy expert at the Center for a New American Security.
“I don’t think that that permeates to the interpersonal relationships between those in Special Operations,” Kuzminski said of the institutional push to destigmatize behavioral health care. “There is always the risk that your personal reputation could be harmed if it’s known that you’re really having a problem.”
The FBI and local authorities in Las Vegas have said that Livelsberger is “likely” to have suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder, a condition that can include depression, anxiety or other behaviors, but they did not say how they arrived at that conclusion.
Military officials have not made such a declaration, citing privacy laws.
Law enforcement authorities have not disclosed a motive but recovered writings from Livelsberger’s phone and other messages he wrote indicating he wanted to “relieve myself of the burden of the lives I took” and draw attention to alleged war crimes in Afghanistan.
At the time of his death, Livelsberger was on authorized leave from his duty station in Germany with the Army’s 10th Special Forces Group, where he had recently begun a specialization in drone warfare. He had access to and used a program for Special Operations troops that provides “holistic care in physical, cognitive, medical and support resources as appropriate to each individual,” said the Army’s chief spokesperson, Brig. Gen. Amanda Azubuike. He did not display any “concerning behavior” before being granted time off, she said.
The Army is conducting its own investigation of the circumstances surrounding Livelsberger’s suicide, officials said, which is standard when soldiers die in uniform. The inquiry is expected to scrutinize whether leaders or fellow soldiers in his unit, or his health-care providers, missed signs of distress.
A military official familiar with the matter, who like others spoke on the condition of anonymity to be candid, defended Livelsberger’s leaders, calling them “engaged,” and sought to distance his care team from what happened outside the Trump hotel.
“No one tells their mental health provider they plan to blow up a building,” the official said. “I truly think that was a snap decision.”
Col. Allie Weiskopf, the director of public affairs for U.S. Special Operations Command, said personnel assigned to elite military units are screened annually to assess their psychological health. Additionally, once every three months senior leaders are expected to discuss with their troops the resources available to them and work to dispel persistent myths about seeking behavioral health care, she said.
Typically, providers can see patients in less than two weeks, often within three days, or the same day if they have an emergency, Weiskopf said.
“Our data shows that service members are seeking help,” Weiskopf said. The Washington Post requested the command’s data but was told it was not readily releasable.
The deep bonds forged within such units are vital for completing the complex missions they are assigned, but that codependency can exact a cost, former Special Operations troops said, describing feelings of guilt that can occur if they were to miss a combat deployment or important training. That leads many to downplay or ignore mental and physical ailments, they explained. Rather, people who need help often wait until the end of their military service to seek care.
“Sometimes you don’t necessarily get the full military medical treatment that you should because you’re worried about how it could impact you while you’re in service,” said a former Special Forces officer who served with Livelsberger in Afghanistan. “Stigma,” he said, “still exists for mental health help.”
A recent study funded by the military’s Special Operations Command set out to understand why some troops may or may not seek care, Weiskopf said. The results are not finalized, but preliminary findings “do not indicate that the stigma of behavioral health was a primary barrier,” she said.
Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., who co-led legislation intended to improve treatment and screening for head trauma among service members, told The Post that Congress must “take a closer look at how Master Sgt. Livelsberger’s apparent brain injuries may have contributed to the tragedy” in Las Vegas. Bipartisan reforms passed last year were a start, she added, “but we need to do much more.”
There is an evolving understanding in the Pentagon that brain injuries aren’t just a combat problem and can manifest as a result of normal duties, too, including through smaller shock waves in weapons used in training, said Kuzminski, the military policy expert.
Yet the Defense Department has been an obstacle to some change, according to a Senate aide, who said the Pentagon moved to block additional reforms from inclusion in the most recent defense policy bill. “Despite the obvious need for more research and data, DOD has been resistant to creating blast exposure logs,” the aide said. The Senate’s version of the bill included provisions for exposure logs, but they were not in the final version signed into law.
The Pentagon disputed that assertion and defended its approach for handling traumatic brain injuries, saying it has made strides and boosted resources and care. A program launched in 2022 has focused on collaboration between military and medical communities to focus on brain health, mitigate hazards and reduce long term impacts, said Joshua Wick, a Pentagon spokesman.
An initiative launched last year will screen all incoming troops and establish a baseline of brain health that can be followed over time to better inform treatment, Wick said, and those with increased exposure will be tested more frequently.
Brain injuries in troops have presaged other high-profile violence. Robert Card, the Army reservist who killed 18 people in a shooting in Maine in 2023, grew paranoid and heard voices before the attack, family and colleagues said. A study of his brain after Card took his life found significant damage consistent with blast exposure that probably played a role in his behavioral changes.
The injuries were linked to his work at a grenade-training range, where he may have endured thousands of low-level blasts.
The Army downplayed the ties between his job and brain trauma but concluded leaders in his unit failed to act on warning signs of his erratic behavior before the attack.
Special Operations troops, who often deploy more than conventional military personnel and commonly have long careers in those jobs, face substantial risk for issues such as post-traumatic stress and traumatic brain injuries. In training and in combat, U.S. commandos deploy explosive charges to breach doors, fire anti-armor weapons and absorb a lot of other wear and tear.
Cumulatively, the job’s demands can jar the brain in big and small ways.
Researchers have labeled such health challenges “Operator Syndrome.”
Alicia Arritt, a nurse who dated Livelsberger on and off from 2018 to 2021, told The Post previously that he had shared with her that he struggled with a cloudy memory, poor concentration, difficulty maintaining relationships and intense guilt over his actions on the battlefield.
Such difficulties are common issues reported by troops with histories of blast exposure and multiple deployments, said James Stone, professor and vice chair of radiology research at the University of Virginia, who studies brain injuries among service members.
In particular, there is mounting evidence that Special Operations troops like Livelsberger have a high degree of exposure to blasts from training and deployments, according to a study led by Stone. The study found explosions increased brain inflammation and reduced volume and thickness of brain structures, impacting functions such as memory, motor skills and emotional regulation.
Screening for brain injuries has become more prevalent in the operator community, the former Special Forces officer said, though considerable challenges remain.
“Most in the [Special Operations forces] community have some level of TBI,” he said. “The issue is figuring out how severe. It is not easily screened for … the physiological signs are not easy to catch.”
