After Iraq, a life unraveled

He went to war with a Marine regiment known as the Cannon Cockers, an artillery unit that rained explosive shells on the enemy in Iraq.

He did not stay long - less than three months in 2008. But Bradley Stone claimed he had been fully disabled by post-traumatic stress disorder and was taking medication as part of his mental-health treatment.

It is clear that he struggled with alcohol. And on the license for his second marriage, he listed his occupation as "disabled veteran."

In a patch of woods not far from his Pennsburg home Tuesday afternoon, police found Stone dead of self-inflicted cutting wounds - a gruesome end to a manhunt that began after he killed his ex-wife and five of her relatives in Montgomery County on Monday.

On Tuesday, service veteran friends of Stone's struggled to make sense of the killings. None condoned them. At the same time, they said, Stone had suffered.

"He saw war," said Seth Howard, 27, a Marine veteran of Iraq. "How are you supposed to be healthy after that?"

Howard was at Vets for Vets, a nonprofit center close to Stone's house in Pennsburg. He said the two often talked about their combat experiences.

Stone, friends said, was a Marine through and through, a family man who happily lent a hand to shovel snow, and a former sergeant who struggled with stress disorder and physical injuries from carrying heavy backpacks in Iraq.

Vietnam veteran Clyde Hoch, 68, said that he and Stone were not close, but that he considered the younger man "a pretty decent guy."

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After Iraq, a life unraveled