A highly decorated Special Forces soldier who died by suicide in a Cybertruck explosion on New Year’s Day confided to his former girlfriend, who worked as an Army nurse, that he faced severe pain and fatigue that she says are major symptoms of traumatic brain injury.
Green Beret Matthew Livelsberger, 37, has earned the Bronze Star five times, including one with the V device for gallantry under fire. He had an exemplary military record that spanned the globe and a new baby last year. But he was suffering from the psychological and physical burden of his service, which required him to kill and make him witness the deaths of his fellow soldiers.
Levelsberger has mostly borne that burden in private, but recently sought treatment for depression from the military, according to a U.S. official who spoke on the condition of anonymity to provide details that had not been made public.
He also found a confidant of the former nurse, whom he started dating in 2018.
Alicia Arit, 39, and Levelsberger met through a dating app while in Colorado Springs. Arit served at Landstuhl Regional Medical Center in Germany, the largest U.S. military medical facility in Europe, where many of the worst combat casualties from Iraq and Afghanistan were initially treated before being flown stateside.
There she witnessed and treated traumatic brain injuries, or TBIs, suffered by troops from incoming gunfire and roadside bombs. Such infections are serious but difficult to diagnose, and can have long-term effects that may take years to appear.
“I’ve seen a lot of bad injuries. But personality changes can happen later,” Ariete said.
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In the texts and photos he shared with Ariete, Livelsberger slightly lifted the curtain on what he was up against.
“Just a few concussions,” he said in a text message about the deployment to Helmand Province in Afghanistan. He sent her a photo of the tattoo he had on his arm of two skulls pierced by bullets, marking the life he took in Afghanistan. He spoke of exhaustion, pain, being unable to sleep, and reliving the violence he experienced while deployed.
“My life has been personal hell for the past year,” he told Ariete during the first days of their dating, according to text messages she provided to the AP. “It’s refreshing to have such a nice person come along.”
On Friday, law enforcement officers in Las Vegas released excerpts of letters that Livelsberger left behind, making it clear that the way Livelsberger killed himself was intentional, and was intended as a “wake-up call” but also to “purge the demons” he was facing from… Losing his fellow soldiers and taking them away. life.
Livelsperger’s death in front of the Trump Hotel using a truck produced by Elon Musk’s Tesla has raised questions about whether this was an act of political violence.
Officials said Friday that Livelsperger appears to harbor no ill will toward President-elect Donald Trump, and Ariete said she and Levelsberger are Tesla fans.
“I also had a Tesla that I rescued from a junkyard in 2019, and we were working on it together and bonding over it,” Arit said.
The couple stopped speaking regularly after their split in 2021, and she hadn’t heard from him in over two years when he suddenly texted on December 28, and again on December 31. The upbeat messages included a video of him driving his car. the Cybertruck and another one of its dancing headlights; The vehicle can synchronize lighting and music.
But she also said Livelsberger felt things “very deeply, and I could see him using symbolism” for both the truck and the hotel.
“He wasn’t in a rush,” Arritt said. “I don’t see him doing it recklessly, so my suspicion is that he might have been thinking about it.”
Ariete served on active duty from 2003 to 2007 and then was in the Army Reserve from until 2011. With Levelsberger, she saw symptoms of a TBI as early as 2018.
“He was going through periods of withdrawal, suffering from depression and memory loss,” Arit said.
“I don’t know what made him do it, but I think the army didn’t give him help when he needed it.”
This undated photo, provided by Alicia Ariet, shows former Army Special Forces soldier Matthew Livelsperger, who died by suicide in an e-truck that exploded in front of the Trump Hotel in Las Vegas on New Year’s Day, Wednesday, January 1, 2025.
Alicia Ariete via AP
But Livelsberger was also kind and gentle, she recalled: “He had a great deal of inner strength and character, and he had a great deal of integrity.”
Pentagon Deputy Press Secretary Sabrina Singh told reporters on Friday that she had turned over all of Livelsperger’s medical records to local law enforcement and encouraged troops facing mental health challenges to seek care through one of the military’s support networks.
“If you need help, if you feel like you need to seek any type of mental health treatment, or just talk to someone — to seek the services that are available, both on base and off base,” Singh said.
When Livelsberger struggled while they were dating, Ariete urged him to get help. But he will not do so, saying it could cost him his ability to deploy if he is found medically unfit.
“There was a lot of stigma in his unit, they were, you know, big, strong Special Forces guys there, and there was no vulnerability allowed, and mental health is vulnerability is what they saw,” she said.
Livelsberger seeking treatment for depression was first reported by CNN.
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