Why are family member last to know about military suicides?

December 22nd, 2007 1:35 pm
After a suicide, military families wait — and wait — for answers


Associated Press

WASHINGTON: It can take months — even years — for the families of troops who kill themselves in Iraq and Afghanistan to learn about the circumstances leading up to the death, including if their loved one left a suicide note.

To obtain all investigative materials related to the deaths, the families are required to file one or more Freedom of Information Act requests.

Liz Sweet, whose son Sgt. T.J. Sweet, 23, of Bismarck, N.D., was fatally shot in his barracks in 2003 in Iraq in what she says the Army has determined to be a self-inflicted wound, is still waiting to obtain her son's service and health records.

Sweet said she participates in an online forum with other families who lost a loved one due to a non-combat death in Iraq such as a suicide, and a common problem is that the families don't know what to ask for and where to file requests.

"I don't feel that there is a great deal of attempt on the military's part to make sure that families have what they need," Sweet said.

Chris Scheuerman, of Sanford, N.C., whose son Pfc. Jason Scheuerman committed suicide in Iraq in 2005, said he only learned that his son had left a note when it arrived in the mail more than a year later in an envelope with documents he had sought by filing a Freedom of Information Act request.

At least 152 U.S. troops have committed suicide in Iraq and Afghanistan since the start of the wars.
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