Vets paint conflicting pictures

Cabot Peden spent a year in the Kuwaiti desert with Matthew Riehl, and not once did Peden get the sense his fellow medic in the Wyoming National Guard one day would switch roles and take a life rather than try to save one — as he did Sunday in a shootout with law enforcement officials at a Highlands Ranch apartment.

“From the time we went over to the time that we went home, I didn’t see anything that would indicate Sunday would have happened,” Peden said of their 200910 deployment as part of Operation Iraqi Freedom. “Medics are a bit of a special breed where we have generally an overwhelming desire to help the Joes.”

Like many of Riehl’s friends and acquaintances, Peden still is trying to understand what prompted him to start a firefight at his home

that led to his death, the death of Douglas County sheriff’s Deputy Zackari Parrish and injuries to four other law enforcement officers and two neighbors.

What several of Riehl’s associates with military backgrounds agree on, however, is that his time in the Army Reserve and the Wyoming Army National Guard was not an obvious driving force behind his downward spiral.

“I know that Matt was very well liked and well-respected by the guys he trained to go overseas with,” said Peden, who shared a tent in Kuwait with Riehl and other medics for about nine months.

Peden said their primary assignment in Kuwait was escorting supply convoys in and out of Iraq and that a typical mission involved an overnight trip. He wouldn’t say whether Riehl dealt personally with a wounded or dead soldier, but he generally described their experience as fortunate.

“You spend your year with a head on a swivel and you’re always wondering what is going to happen that night. But that’s a typical day,” Peden said. “We were pretty fortunate, because it was a pretty quiet year. We were relatively safe.”

Izaak Schwaiger, a Marine who went to law school at the University of Wyoming with the shooter, was left with a different impression of Riehl and his military career — which began in 2003 with the Army Reserve and ended in 2012 with an honorable discharge from the Wyoming Army National Guard, according to National Guard officials.

Schwaiger wrote online that Riehl approached him in 2007 with a desire to go hunting and get “his first kill.” Schwaiger turned him down — “there was too much of that kind of talk from wannabe soldiers,” Schwaiger noted — but later the two found themselves trip with a mutual friend.

“Matt showed up with a .300 (Winchester Short Magnum), way more gun than any neophyte shooter has business shooting,” wrote Schwaiger, now a California attorney who specializes in police brutality cases. “And he couldn’t shoot it to save his life. Kept saying his optics were wrong, but he just didn’t know how to shoot.”

Schwaiger added: “There he was, out there on the prairie, a small and puny kid with a thousand-dollar rifle that just wanted to kill something for the sake of killing it.”

But Schwaiger maintains Riehl’s attack “had nothing to do with him being a veteran” and “everything to do with him being a puny, powerless eunuch flailing desperately through life in pursuit of an imagined manhood.”

Military officials said Riehl’s time in the service didn’t include any significant red flags, although the Department of Veterans Affairs noted he was given a 20 percent service-connected disability: 10 percent for a spinal problem and 10 percent for ringing in the ears.

Deidre Forster, a spokeswoman for the Wyoming Army National Guard, said she wasn’t aware of any discipline leveled against Riehl or any issues surrounding his service. She also said she didn’t know if he saw any combat.

“I don’t believe he did,” Forster said.

There are signs, however, that Riehl’s life began to unravel around 2014. That’s when he experienced a psychotic episode and was hospitalized at a VA facility in Wyoming for three weeks, during which time he briefly escaped. After his apprehension, Riehl was placed on a 72-hour mental health hold.

About a year later there was an “urgent contact” for mental health, according to documents provided by the VA to Congress — although VA officials aren’t releasing details of either incident.

“VA cannot ordinarily discuss the specific care of release,” VA spokesman Curt Cashour wrote in a statement.

It’s unknown whether the VA reported Riehl to the National Instant Criminal Background Check System or if the agency even had to.

Wrote Cashour: “Veterans are reported to the National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS) if they are adjudicated as incompetent by the Veterans Benefits Administration for purposes of managing their monetary benefits.”

U.S. Rep. Mike Coffman, R-Aurora, said that’s a question he’s pursuing.

“I think I need to look at (what) was the responsibility for the VA to report this information and have it go into the database,” he said.

A Laramie gun shop owner called police Sunday after the shooting to report that Riehl purchased nine guns and two gun receivers, including a Plum Crazy AR15 receiver with a magazine that can hold 100 rounds, a Laramie police report says.

David Smith, the owner of Dave’s Guns, said he did gun checks each of the 11 times he sold a gun to Riehl. He called police because he thought the information might help investigators. The gun purchases apparently came before Riehl was placed on the mental health hold.

Late last year there was an attempt by some of Riehl’s friends to get through to him — as he had posted disturbing messages online. Leon Chamberlain, a retired behavioral health officer who knew Riehl from the Wyoming National Guard, was asked to reach out to him.

Before, Riehl “seemed like an easygoing kid,” Chamberlain said. “Conscientious, and (he) got along with others.”

But when Chamberlain tried to contact Riehl last year, he said it “wasn’t the Matt that I remember.”

“He just responded with some real bizarre texts,” he said.