Sitting in an orange jumpsuit with his hands cuffed to his belt and his movements watched carefully by two jail guards, Christopher Gillette doesn't look like someone to be afraid of. Christopher Gillette
He's slight and young, and there is confusion and pain showing in his eyes. He had no idea, he says, when he awoke Tuesday that he would be spending that night in a jail cell.
But Gillette is an angry man. The 30-year-old Arkansas native is an Army veteran suffering from injuries incurred in the military during two stints, he says. He's a former soldier who still thinks in military terms, and he resents what he believes is a lack of government respect for people who served their country.
He can't get the help from Veterans Affairs he believes he needs, and he's tired of trying, hurting and failing, he says.
On Tuesday morning, in a class at Texas Woman's University, his anger boiled over and he talked about riding in the back of a pickup truck with an AK-47 through the streets of Washington, D.C.
He scared the students in the class and he put into motion a series of events that ended with his present incarceration on a charge of making a terroristic threat.
Before that, in a long, undated letter to U.S. Rep. Michael Burgess, R-Lewisville, he ranted about the government's failure to help him along with numerous other subjects such as the Kennedy assassination, the confiscation of weapons from residents in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina, taxes and the two-party political system in the United States.
The letter promised that he would speak at a Lewisville Town Hall meeting Feb. 24. It made demands of a written apology from the federal government to him and full compensation for his injuries. And there were threats:
"I will begin preparations to begin offensive combat preparations against the federal government. These preparations will include great care not to target civilian non-combatant personnel, specifically women and children, and will not include the use of explosives or political assassination as a means of political change," he wrote.
Gillette says he did speak at that town hall meeting and that Burgess' office is trying to help him.
He tried hard to become an Army Ranger after joining in 1999, he said. He was injured during one of the strenuous tests and that dream died. He joined the 82nd Airborne Division and spent six months in Kosovo, he said.
After he served that hitch, he joined the Arkansas National Guard in 2005. He suffered a back injury during training, he said, and it is that injury - an anterior-posterior pelvic rotation - he says that causes him unending pain.
He graduated last year from North Central Texas College in Corinth on the Dean's List. He enrolled in 15 credit hours at TWU because he has great respect for the university, he said, but now, because of pain he cannot endure, he is failing.
He grew angry in class Tuesday "for no particular reason," he said during the interview at the Denton County Jail. He told the professor he was not trying to disturb the class but he needed to be heard, Gillette said.
"I told them I feel like I want to drive to D.C. and tear the city apart brick by brick. I may have said I would ride in the back of a pickup truck with an AK-47, but I said I wouldn't hurt women and children."
Gillette said he does not own an assault rifle or any other weapon.
He could be dangerous, he said, but only "given any rules of engagement are strictly military standard."
When he left the university after he left class he had no idea of the trouble that ensued behind him, Gillette said. He drove to Dallas to a VA clinic. He called Burgess' office and chatted with an employee there, he said. Then Denton police called him, and he agreed to cooperate. He never did get to see a doctor, he said.
He emphasized that law enforcement officers from all the agencies he dealt with were professional and did not harm him. He has no criminal record, he said, and he has two honorable discharges.
"I hope the American people would be outraged by this," Gillette said. "I've done my time for the government, and now it's time for the government to fulfill its obligation to its soldiers. This government is not taking care of its most selfless citizens.
"I am a soldier," he said. "Not a butcher."
DONNA FIELDER can be reached at 940-566-6885. Her e-mail address is dfielder@dentonrc.com .
