Spoiled Children of Divorce


Bad Children of Divorce – Stephen Green, Rapist-Murderer-Soldier

Today there is news that an ex soldier in Iraq has been found guilty of having Murdered a family in order to rape the 14 year old daughter.  The ex-soldier is Stephen Green from Texas.  He and a group of other soldiers had planned the rape.  Green’s murders apparently came as a surprise.  They were stationed in a particularly troublesome spot in the war zone known as The Triangle of Death.  A Washington Post article by Andrew Tilgman tells about his meeting with Green and his group.  It’s called “I came over here because I wanted to kill people.”  Apparently, the reporter didn’t pay attention to Green’s words because he had heard this sort of brute honesty from all the soldiers.  The article alluded to a troublesome childhood so grudgingly I looked to see if Green was a Child of D.  Despite his minor offenses with the law and an angry personality Green was allowed into the military during a time when enlistments were down.

I’ve sort of been watching all this attention on Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder regarding the Iraq War and have wondered if the problem is just now receiving attention or if all the Children of D are enlisting in order to get away from stressful situations and then are buckling under the extra stresses of war.

Green was born on May 2, 1985.  Spent early years in Midland, TX.  Parents divorced but don’t know what age.  Green moved to Seabrook Texas with his Mother.  She remarried when he was around 8 years old.  Reports say that Green had a troubled, angry personality from about Junior High School years onward.  His Mother is said to have “had problems” and was jailed for 6 months in 2000 and he went to live with his Father back in Midland.  He dropped out in 2002 while in the 10th Grade but managed to get his equivalency degree in 2003 from a Community College.  Green was in trouble with the law for minor offenses of smoking, pot, alcohol consumption.  It was noted on the records that he must have had trouble at home because he didn’t list either parent as a contact.  Green lived with his estranged step-father for a while at some point.

Source from The New York Times: http://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/14/us/14private.html



What’s Eating Gilbert Grape? Exemplary Children of D – Johnny Depp

Johnny Depp gave an incredible performance of an oldest Son growing up while living with a helpless, obese, single mother and younger brother  in the movie:  What’s Eating Gilbert Grape?

Probably not really good Holiday Viewing, though.  Just happened to think of it right now.

Johnny Depp is a Child of D.  His parents would have divorced around the time that Depp was 15.  Here’s an except from his biography on Wikipedia.

Depp was born in Owensboro, Kentucky, the son of Betty Sue Palmer (née Wells), a waitress, and John Christopher Depp, Sr., a civil engineer.[3] He has one brother, Danny, and two sisters, Christie (now his personal manager) and Debbie. … The family moved frequently during Depp’s childhood, and he and his siblings lived in more than 20 different locations, settling in Miramar, Florida, in 1970. In 1978, Depp’s parents divorced. He engaged in self-harm as a child, due to the stress of dealing with family problems and his own insecurity. He has seven or eight scars from practicing self-harm. In a 1993 interview, he explained his self-injury by saying, “My body is a journal in a way. It’s like what sailors used to do, where every tattoo meant something, a specific time in your life when you make a mark on yourself, whether you do it yourself with a knife or with a professional tattoo artist”.[8]

1980s

Depp’s mother bought her son a guitar when he was 12, and Depp began playing in various garage bands. His first band was in honor of his girlfriend, Meredith. A year after his parents’ divorce, Depp dropped out of high school to become a rock musician. As he once explained on Inside the Actors Studio, he attempted to go back to school two weeks later, but the principal told him to follow his dream of being a musician. …