Suicide Note

Chaveso Cook

The radio chirped and a panicked voice came over the net.  “Cold Steel 6, Cold Steel 6 this is SGT Grant down at the motorpool, Sir.”  My CO respond, “Cold Steel 6 here.”  “Sir, uh, you better get down here ASAP, Sir.  SPC Jones[i]… he, uh, he just freakin’ shot himself in the chest and we’re out here trying to revive him. We just pulled him from behind a barricade in his shop… how copy, over?” I heard the CO’s chair abruptly thump the back wall of his office as it rolled away when he jumped upright. He bolted out of the door.  

It was two days before Christmas in 2006 and I was a battery executive officer in Iraq.  We were nine months into our deployment.  Conducting a Counter-Rocket, Artillery and Mortar mission (C-RAM), not only had we not lost anyone during our deployment but we had also saved many lives on and around our base.  It was supposed to be an easy deployment.

Jones was one of our commo guys.  A puzzling fellow, he kept to himself most of the time.  He would take any challenger on a chessboard and liked talking about astrology.  It was his first deployment.  He just made Specialist before our trip to Iraq and was only 21. We never really had any trouble with him outside of what we considered ‘distractors’; lack of? personal hygiene, oversleeping and a penchant for lateness.  That morning Jones was late again. 

His NCO had grown tired of Jones’ tardiness; he had a stack of counseling statements, had run through a number of corrective training measures and felt it was time to step up the punishment.  We woke him up, brought him in, and counseled him that morning.  We included a plan of action – a summarized Article 15.  Jones was very distraught and stormed out.  He went to his commo office in our motorpool across the base, penned a suicide note via email, barricaded the door, loaded his issued 9mm, turned it toward his heart and squeezed the trigger.  The nearby mechanics heard a shot followed by the hollow clang of an empty shell and the metallic thud of his weapon hitting the concrete.  Our mechanics acted swiftly, busting the door down and dragging his limp body out.  The first-aid they provided did not help.  

The face of Army suicide looks very much like SPC Jones.  Those who attempt it are generally junior enlisted soldiers who are single, white and male.  The events generally involve a firearm as opposed to an overdose, hanging or a cutting incident.  Historically, suicide in the military has been lower than that of the civilian population.  In 2004 that changed, however, and the Army rate has slightly exceeded the US population rates in recent years.[ii]  The greatest increase in military suicides has happened in the Army and Marine Corps, which have shouldered the greatest burden of ground combat.[iii]

Our resiliency training and Ask-Care-Escort (ACE) cards are helping by giving us a few tools, but they are simply not enough.  We need a larger discussion about reframing crises and contributing factors to facilitate post-traumatic growth (PTG).  PTG is not just about being the tennis ball and bouncing back versus being the egg that cracks.  It is about learning from your experiences in a way that builds strength, hardiness and new learning.  PTG is a reminder that “permanent disorder is not the inevitable outcome of trauma.”[iv]  Understanding and teaching ways to develop PTG as opposed to just resilience would not only help to lower causal factors leading to suicide, it could also help those of us that have to endure that after-effects when suicides do happen.

Moving toward PTG will require a greater understanding of the initiators of suicidal ideation.  Suicide attempts materialize from a confluence of many factors.  Compounding stress, financial issues, depression, weight/body concerns, and relationship difficulties are but of few.  Co-morbidity with PTSD, alcohol and drug abuse, and other behavioral health issues add to its complexity.  These contributing causes are all confounded by the stigma our formations have against seeking help.  Data from OEF and OIF tell us that a large percentage of those who would actually benefit from behavioral health treatment often do not pursue care due to a perception of potential peer disapproval.[v]  Having a little PTSD is almost seen as a mandatory insert added in one’s already stacked medical records; in a warrior’s military there is only time to ‘suck it up and drive on’.  Soldiers assume that everyone else is taking it all in stride, which creates a false sense of comfort with brokenness.  Those identified as having a true behavioral health issue may even adopt negative stereotypes, creating what some call a self-stigma.[vi] These trends all indicate that those who most need behavioral health care are traditionally the least likely to pursue it.  We need to curb these trends before we can ever grow from the inevitable traumatic events that occurred in Iraq and Afghanistan and will occur in other tours.  It all starts with more discussion.

As I visited Jones’ gray body in the CASH I wondered if we did all we could.  I wondered if I was a contributor to the lifelessness before me.  Did I see the warning signs?  Was I looking in the right places?  I knew that we needed to do a better job of helping him reframe the issues he was having.  Hopefully we do not have to have a higher suicide rate to transform our perceptions of mental health and what we teach with regard to how we react when trauma inevitably occurs.

End Notes