At Memorial Day: Another Iraq Vet, With PTSD, Suicide
Posted May 25, 2008 09:01 AM (EST)
On Memorial Day weekend, yet another American family is mourning the death of son who survived the war in Iraq -- only to fall victim at home from post traumatic shock disorder.
The family lives in Corpus Christi, Texas, and the Marine was Chad Oligschlaeger, age 21, who committed suicide this week at the Twenty Nine Palms base in California.
While the cause of his death is still being investigated, family members say he was taking eight different types of medications to deal with post traumatic stress disorder after serving two tours in Iraq.
I've been chronicling these stories for nearly five years, and the surge in such reports in recent weeks is truly troubling.
Byron Smith, Oligschlaeger's uncle, told a local TV outlet, "the first tour he came back and he asked for help, and they sent him back over there. I guess that was their idea of help. He did what a marine does -- he went over there."
His father, Eric, said, "The second tour ... I don't think he was ready to go back. I think he was fighting it. I think he was afraid to go back."
"We sent these kids over there, we're putting them through things that we'll never see in our lifetimes. Things we see in the movies that are not real, it's real to them," said Christine Judan, a family friend of the Oligschlaegers.
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Chad did NOT commit suicide. He succumbed to an accidental overdose of medications prescribed to him for treatment of his PTSD. Chad would never have willingly chosen to leave his friends, family, and fiance.
ReplyDeleteYou could be right because it wouldn't be the first time that medication caused the problem to become worse. The headline came from the reporter, mine was the "lost fight against PTSD" part.
ReplyDeleteEven if he did commit suicide, he did not do it "to" his family and everyone he loved. He would have done it because his need to heal was not being met and the pain was just too great.
My only suggestion to you and his family is that no matter if this was on accident or he wanted to go, they had nothing to do with it. It was nothing they did or did not do. It was a deep wound from living through some horrible things. PTSD is a normal reaction to abnormal events because he was only a human. Sometimes the pain is so great that to keep from feeling it, they need to trap out even good feelings.
My thoughts and prayers are with the family.
The Cpl. Chad Eric Oligschlaeger Foundation for PTSD can be found at http://www.cplchado.org
ReplyDeleteYou can find the rest of his story there.
Thank you Mel for the link. I just read the update. This just happens over and over and over again. It is hard enough to get them to go for help and when they do, when they get to the point they know they need help, it should all be there for them. Too many like this young Cpl. would still be here if it had been ready for them.
ReplyDeleteDrug, deploy and deny is not an answer to healing PTSD.