Over dinner last night, my good friend and former colleague Tom Kotynski pointed out an article in the “New Yorker” that he said was journalism at its best. He’s right.

“The Last Tour, a decorated Marine’s war within,” by William Finnegan is the heart-wrenching tale of Travis Twiggs, who was deployed into combat five times, diagnosed with PTSD and wrote about what he hoped was his recovery in the “Marine Corps Gazette” last January.

That turned out to be an illusion.

Twiggs later came to believe that the acronym was merely a euphemism for a weak Marine. and he toughed it out for as long as he could — just four months. Last May, he shot his brother and himself to death after what appears to have been a failed double suicide attempt in their Toyota Corolla.

What jumped out at me, though, was the letter that one of Twiggs’ friends, Maj. Valerie A. Jackson, also a Marine, wrote to the “Marine Corps Gazette”: “There are many programs in place now to help those suffering from PTSD. By the time Twiggs got involved in those, though, it was far too late. His problems should have been identified after each deployment, and when the commands realized he needed serious help (after the second deployment), he should have been prevented from deploying again. Period. I realize that a symptom of the disease is an overarching need to be in the fight. But there comes a time when someone with some influence needs to say, ‘No Staff Sergeant, enough is enough. You’ve done your part.’ … The Twiggs family should not be mourning the loss of their husband, father and son. We let them down, and we let SSgt. Twiggs down.”

Amen to that, Maj. Jackson.

Twiggs’ story is a heartbreaking one, almost like a very expensive Purdy shotgun that blows up in your face. And that’s an apt analogy. Expensive weapons can be destroyed when their owners neglect to take proper care of them.

The same is true of our soldiers. They require faithful care and periodic inspection to make sure they’re capable of carrying out their tasks, to make sure that there are no cracks and potential malfunctions.

Our armed forces haven’t been doing that, and they should. A Purdy shotgun and a soldier are alike in many ways, but there’s one critical difference — when the shotgun jams, it doesn’t leave behind a widow, fatherless children and grieving parents.