The decorated Special Forces soldier who killed himself in a Cybertruck explosion on New Year’s Day confided to an ex-girlfriend, a former Army nurse, that he was suffering from great pain and exhaustion that she said were key symptoms. of a traumatic brain injury.
Green Beret Matthew Livelsberger, 37, received the Bronze Star five times, including one with a letter V for showing valor under fire. He had an exemplary military record, achieved in different parts of the world, and a baby born just last year. But he faced problems with the mental and physical strain of his service, which required him kill and witness the death of his companions.
Livelsberger bore that burden privately, but recently sought treatment in the military for the depressionaccording to a U.S. official who spoke on condition of anonymity to provide details that have not been made public.
He also found a confidant in the former nurse, whom he began dating in 2018.
Alicia Arritt, 39, met Livelsberger through a dating app while they were both in Colorado Springs. Arritt worked at Landstul Regional Medical Center in Germany, the largest U.S. military medical facility in Europe, where many of the soldiers with the worst combat injuries sustained in Iraq and Afghanistan were initially treated before being transferred to USA.
There he saw and treated traumatic brain injuries, or TBIs, that soldiers suffered from fire and roadside bombs. Such injuries are serious but difficult to diagnose, and can have lingering effects. that could take years to manifest.
“I saw a lot of serious injuries. But personality changes can occur later,” Arritt said.
In texts and images she shared with Arritt, Livelsberger revealed a part of what she was facing.
Skulls pierced by bullets
“Just some shocks,” he said in a text about a deployment to Afghanistan’s Helmand province. He sent her a photo of a graphic tattoo he got on his arm, which showed two bullet-ridden skulls to mark the lives he took in Afghanistan. He spoke about the exhaustion and pain, of not being able to sleep and reliving the violence of their deployment.
“My life has been a personal hell for the last year,” he told Arritt in the early days of their relationship, according to text messages she provided to the AP. “It’s comforting to have such a nice person come.”
On Friday, Las Vegas police released excerpts of messages Livelsberger left, which show that her death was intentional and was intended to serve as a “wake-up call”, but also to “cleanse the demons” he faced from losing companions and taking lives.
Political violence?
Livelsberger’s death outside the Trump Hotel using a truck produced by Elon Musk’s Tesla company has raised questions about whether this was an act of political violence.
Authorities said Friday that Livelsberger apparently harbored no resentment toward President-elect Donald Trump, and Arritt said they were both Tesla fans.
“I also had a Tesla that I rescued from a junkyard in 2019, and we used to work on it together, bond over it,” Arritt said.
The couple stopped speaking regularly after breaking up in 2021, and she had not heard from him in more than two years when he messaged her on December 28, and again on December 31. The messages, full of optimism, included a video of him driving the Cybertruck and another of its dancing lighthouses; The vehicle can synchronize its lighting with music.
But he also said Livelsberger felt things “very deeply and I could see him using the symbolism” of the truck and the hotel.
“He wasn’t impulsive,” Arritt said. “I don’t see him doing this in a rash manner, so my suspicion would be that he probably planned it.”
Arritt remained on active duty from 2003 to 2007, and was in the Army Reserve until 2011. He saw TBI symptoms in Livelsberger as early as 2018.
“He went through periods of withdrawal, and struggled with depression and memory loss,” Arritt said.
“I don’t know what led him to do this, but I think the military didn’t help him when he needed it.”
But Livelsberger was also sweet and kind, he recalled: “He had a really deep reserve of inner strength and character, and he just had a lot of integrity.”
Medical records and mental health
Pentagon deputy press secretary Sabrina Singh told reporters Friday that she has turned over all of Livelsberger’s medical records to local authorities, and encouraged soldiers facing mental health issues to seek care through one of army support networks.
“If you need help, if you feel like you need to seek some type of mental health treatment, or just talk to someone, look for the services that are available, whether on base or off base,” Singh said.
While they dated, when Livelsberger was struggling, Arritt encouraged him to get help. But he wouldn’t, saying it could cost him his ability to deploy if he was found medically incompetent.
“There was a big stigma in their unit, they were, you know, big, strong Special Forces guys, no weakness allowed, and mental health is a weakness, that’s how they saw it,” he said.