Eric Hall, a war-wounded U.S. Marine was found dead in a culvert in the county of Charlotte, not far from his residence in Clark County, Florida. Hall was wounded in the leg by a make-shift explosive device while serving in Iraq three years ago. During the same explosion in which Hall was injured, he witnessed a close friend become decapitated. Relatives and those close to Hall say he was suffering from ‘Post-Traumatic Stress Syndrome’ and that he would often shoot at imaginary enemies, using his hand like a pistol. Last month the marine went missing after a gameplay session of Call Of Duty 4. “He just got up and said he had to go,” Courtney Birge said about the incident. This was the last time anyone saw Hall alive.

This was not the first incident to suggest Hall was suffering from PTSS, he also caused a traffic accident in his home state of Indiana when he mistook a traffic jam to be an Iraqi roadblock.

Hall was found a short distance from his motorcycle, located on the side of the road. The cause of death was not immediately released, but the man that found the body believes he may have been trying to shelter himself from a small brush fire.

If this were any other game it might be easy to call foul, but much of COD4 takes place in a fictionial country that shares a lot of similarities with Iraq. I think that a story like this should draw more attention to the care U.S. Veterans should be receiving than anything else. However, I have a feeling a certain someone (who shall remain nameless) will add this incident to his ever-growing portfolio of anti-gaming rhetoric.