Lately, the entire Army has been undergoing mandatory, intensive suicide prevention training in an attempt to stem the tide, as it were, of alarmingly increasing numbers of suicides within our ranks. Whereas the previous training consisted of bland statistics and check-the-block PowerPoint slides, the current training is at least a refreshingly honest effort at quality, thought-provoking stuff. In groups, we watch an interactive video with different scenarios and discuss how we would react in given sitations. (I found this website of resources which, among other things, contains a Good Charlotte video that's worth the download.) Most of the scenario-based training focuses on PTSD, which is apparently the most common root cause of Soldier suicide attempts. Statistically, the overwhelming majority of Soldiers who take their own lives do so out of broken relationships.
All of this makes me think of Jimmy, and even today it's still hard for me to sit through suicide prevention classes.
A couple of years ago, Jimmy was a fellow Captain at Fort Sill, Oklahoma. We worked together in the same unit, and had a lot in common -- we were about the same age, got commissioned at Officer Candidate School around the same time, married and had kids in our very early 20's, and both spent enlisted service time in Military Intelligence. Neither of us had yet been deployed to the Middle East, and we had both recently been to Korea. He was a Field Artillery officer who taught MLRS (making him a bona fide rocket scientist), and we would often swap stories of past experiences that usually involved either stupid Soldier tricks, consumption of copious amounts of adult beverages, or some combination of the two. We had a shared fondness for beer, although his tastes were far more, um, economical than mine. One time, Jimmy, me, and a third Captain/friend sandbagged a physical fitness test because we were mad at our boss (read: we did the bare minimum). Another, he put together an excellent weekend golfing tournament for the unit.
Late in 2005, Jimmy and I were both picked to help stand up a brand-new school for Lieutenants. As instructors we shared many experiences and built a strong bond with other officers and NCO's, many of whom were from other Army branches like Military Police or the Adjutant General Corps. We worked long, tough hours training newly-minted officers from all over the Army -- from Finance, Transportation, and Personnel officers to Signaleers and Infantrymen -- and collectively suffering the trials of establishing a new training system on a post that didn't really want or have room for it.
But in the midst of all that, Jimmy's wife was leaving him and their teenaged kids. In our few talks about that, he professed to be happy about it, almost relieved. One day he walked into my office and told me his daughter was missing and he was sure she had run away with her boyfriend. I offered to help and told him my wife (who works at a local retail store) would watch out for her. We knew his wife from unit social functions, but that was about it.
Just a few weeks later, one morning in November, I was in the batttalion conference room preparing to sit in a staff meeting for my boss. The commander asked me to come out in the hallway, and he and my boss told me that Jimmy's body had just been found in his truck by a park ranger next to a lake in the Wichita Mountains Wildlife Refuge, which borders the northern edge of Fort Sill (and is my favorite place for long bicycle rides). He had apparently placed a lighted charcoal grill in the cab of his truck, closed the windows, and started writing his last note.
For at least a few of us, we now had to stop everything and focus on what to do next. His wife had been notified, we appointed a Casualty Assistance Officer, and later that day I volunteered to escort Jimmy's body to Atlanta for the funeral. We had to get his effects together -- the things he left behind in his office, the uniform he would be buried in -- and plan the memorial service. Some of us remarked that Jimmy will owe us big time in the afterlife.
But the training missions still had to continue. Some 150 officers were in the field for their last exercise, and just after dinner that evening the battalion commander assembled the troops and let them know what happened. Right before that, my boss asked me to take charge of Jimmy's platoon. That night they were scheduled for a 10-mile ruckmarch (hike) across the rolling-plains backcountry of the post, culminating in an all-out assault right after dawn on a mock Iraqi village.
After the commander briefed the troops, I introduced myself to Jimmy's platoon. A short while later, two Lieutenants approached me and said that the rest of the platoon was assembled in a building at the field site. They were understandably despondent, and didn't feel like they could continue their training missions. I addressed them all -- I don't remember exactly what I said, but it must have been inspiring. I'm sure I said something about death being an unfortunate part of what we Soldiers do; I do know I told them that because Jimmy was my friend, and I would lead them through this last difficult training mission. So starting at about 3 a.m., we solemnly walked through the starry Oklahoma night, with me in front the whole way. Not one person complained. I walked for Jimmy.
Three days later, another Lieutenant in the platoon approached me and said that the 30-plus Lieutenants had collected enough money to plant a tree and erect a small memorial stone in the courtyard near the barracks, in Jimmy's honor. He had asked what the procedures were to request such a thing through the proper approval channels and as I started explaining it, I stopped myself -- and told him that sometimes, it's easier to get forgiveness than permission. Go ahead and make it happen, LT, I'll cover you. It turned out that young officer had just a year before been a Staff Sergeant in a unit Jimmy commanded, and Jimmy had helped him get to Officer Candidate School.
That week I had the even more difficult task of accompanying my friend to his final resting place (in the National Cemetery in Canton, GA), and presenting flags in his honor to his grieving mother and widow. For those who have never witnessed one, a military funeral is a truly significant emotional event -- I have attended several over the years in various capacities, but never for a friend. One thing I will not forget: the minister at the funeral had been a boyhood friend of Jimmy's, and he said that he refuses to believe that this man's life should be judged by one irrational act.
In the aftermath, we learned more things about Jimmy that we never knew. His daughter had run away to her mother and accused Jimmy of an unconscionable act that we never in a million years would believe he would even be capable of (and still don't). The daughter was subsequently hospitalized and couldn't attend the funeral services. Jimmy had an older son from a previous relationship, that Jimmy didn't even know about until the boy was about 15. Now 18, I met him at the funeral and he was the spitting image of his father. Among other things, the widow later complained to the battalion commander that the memorial service held on post inappropriately condoned his suicide (neither of us attended, as it was the day before his funeral we were in Georgia preparing for). Several months later, she wrote her Congressman complaining that the Line of Duty investigation had not been completed (thus holding up potential benefits outside of life insurance) -- and even demanded that the tree and marker be uprooted and destroyed.
It has been said that suicide is the ultimate act of selfishness; I happen to agree. To those of us who knew him, Jimmy never displayed any sign of wanting to take his own life. And he surely wanted it that way -- he was the kind of person who always seemed to do whatever he made his mind up to do. He was a deeply troubled man, but didn't show it. In retrospect, even had I known then what I know now, even through all the Army training, I can't say I would have done anything differently. Jimmy once told me that many years ago, he proposed to his wife on the top of Mount Scott (the highest point in the Refuge); the lake where he was found is close to the foot of the mountain, and I believe he would have done the deed on the mountain if the winding road to the top were not closed at night.
Had he lived, we might never have been lifelong friends. But as such things happen, we might have crossed paths again anywhere in the world -- Iraq, Kuwait, the Fort Sill PX -- we would have had that little bit of camaradarie that results from shared suffering. Which is why I will always share a bond with those who knew him and I will remember him fondly when I see the tree and marker that still stand, drink a cheap beer, or go on another idyllic bicycle ride through the Refuge.
But Jimmy was my friend, and I will always miss him. So it goes.
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