BUCYRUS — Matthew Livelsberger –who defended his country as a U.S. Army Green Beret for two decades — suffered from pain and exhaustion at the end, and was also critical of his nation’s government.
The 37-year-old Bucyrus High School graduate left behind notes describing those feelings when he shot himself in the head and blew up a Tesla Cybertruck with a crudely-made bomb in the front of the Las Vegas Trump International Hotel.
“This was not a terrorist attack, it was a wake-up call. Americans only pay attention to spectacles and violence. What better way to get my point across than a stunt with fireworks and explosives?” Livelsberger, 37, wrote in a cell phone notes app, according to a story in the New York Post.
Livelsberger was an active duty master sergeant (E-8) after serving 19 years in the U.S. Army as a Special Forces operator, joining in 2006 after graduating from high school in 2005.
Assistant Sheriff Dori Koren of the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department said investigators were able to access one of two phones found in the Cybertruck and viewed writing in an app that seemed to serve as a journal, documenting some of Livelsberger’s movements and state of mind from Dec. 21 to New Year’s Eve.
In another letter recovered by police, the soldier, who reportedly suffered traumatic brain injuries during his service around the world, implored his fellow servicemembers, veterans and all Americans to “WAKE UP.”
“We are being led by weak and feckless leadership who only serve to enrich themselves,” he wrote, according to authorities.
“We are the United States of America, the best country people to ever exist! But right now we are terminally ill and headed toward collapse,” he wrote.
Livelsberger was known to be a “Rambo-type patriot” and staunch supporter of President-elect Donald Trump, according to his uncle.
The highly-decorated soldier, who earned five Bronze Stars during his military career, confided to a former girlfriend via text in the days before the Las Vegas incident.
He told that girlfriend, who had served as an Army nurse, that he faced significant pain and exhaustion. She said those were key symptoms of traumatic brain injury, according to a story by the Associated Press.
Alicia Arritt, 39, and Livelsberger met in 2018 through a dating app while both were in Colorado Springs. Arritt had served at Landstul Regional Medical Center in Germany, the largest U.S. military medical facility in Europe, where many of the worst combat injuries from Iraq and Afghanistan were initially treated before being flown to the U.S., the AP reported.
In texts and images he shared with Arritt, Livelsberger raised the curtain a bit on what he was facing, according to the AP.
“Just some concussions,” he said in a text about a deployment to Helmand Province in Afghanistan.
He sent her a photo of a graphic tattoo he got on his arm of two skulls pierced by bullets to mark lives he took in Afghanistan.
Why did I personally do it now? I needed to cleanse my mind of the brothers I’ve lost and relieve myself of the burden of the lives I took.
MSgt. Matthew livelsberger
He talked about exhaustion and pain, not being able to sleep and reliving the violence of his deployment.
The pair stopped talking regularly after they broke up in 2021, and she had not heard from him in more than two years when he texted out of the blue Dec. 28, and again Dec. 31, according to the AP.
The upbeat messages included a video of him driving the Cybertruck and another one of its dancing headlights; the vehicle can sync up its lighting and music.
But she also said Livelsberger felt things “very deeply and I could see him using symbolism” of both the truck and the hotel, the AP said.
But Livelsberger was also sweet and kind, she told the AP: “He had a really deep well of inner strength and character, and he just had a lot of integrity.”
When Livelsberger struggled during the time they were dating, Arritt prodded him to get help. But he would not, saying it could cost him his ability to deploy if he was found medically unfit, the AP said.
“There was a lot of stigma in his unit, they were, you know, big, strong, Special Forces guys there, there was no weakness allowed and mental health is weakness is what they saw,” she said.
The AP reported Livelsberger had an exemplary military record that spanned the globe and also became a father last year. But he struggled with the mental and physical toll of his service, which required him to kill and caused him to witness the deaths of fellow soldiers.
Livelsberger mostly bore that burden in private but recently sought treatment for depression from the Army, according to a U.S. official who spoke on condition of anonymity to provide details that have not been made public, the AP reported.
(Above: MSgt. Matthew Livelsberger reportedly appeared on a History Channel military reality show 12 years ago. He and his partner, Tim Kennedy, won the event.)
A note he left on his phone before the New Year’s Day incident seemed to indicate that struggle.
“Why did I personally do it now? I needed to cleanse my mind of the brothers I’ve lost and relieve myself of the burden of the lives I took,” he wrote.
Spencer Evans, special agent in charge of the FBI’s Las Vegas division, added that the investigation, along with a consultation with the Army, determined Livelsberger likely had post-traumatic stress disorder, according to the NBC news.
He also said investigators are aware there were potential “family issues or personal grievances in his own life that may have been contributing factors,” the news network reported.
After detectives gained access to one of the phones, they are said to have found two “letters” that “include grievances regarding political, social, cultural, personal, and other issues.”
Livelsberger, who was home on approved leave in Colorado, reportedly got into a domestic dispute with his new wife around Christmas over his alleged marital infidelities. He left the house and began the 800-mile journey that led him to Las Vegas in a rented Cybertruck.
Seven people suffered minor injuries when the truck, which was filled with fireworks-style mortars and gas canisters, exploded around 8:40 a.m. Pacific time, according to a story published by ABC News.
Pentagon deputy press secretary Sabrina Singh told reporters Friday it has turned over all Livelsberger’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 that you need to seek any type of mental health treatment, or just to talk to someone — to seek the services that are available, either on base or off,” Singh said.
Evans said authorities have not established any connections between the Cybertruck explosion and the alleged terrorist attack that occurred in New Orleans hours earlier that killed 14 people on Bourbon Street.