Remembering a hero Sgt. Coleman Bean

Remembering a hero
Family and friends mourn the loss of Coleman Bean, 25
BY BRIAN DONAHUE Staff Writer
Coleman Bean was a lot of things to a lot of people. He was a son, a brother, a soldier, and to seemingly everyone who knew him, a good friend. He was someone they could count on to be there, in times of need and in happy times.

When he took his life on Sept. 6, he left those who knew him in shock. But he also left them with 25 years of cherished memories, the kind that could only come from a fun and thoughtful kid who became a loving, caring young man. It's Coleman's indelible character, and not the way he left, that his East Brunswick family — his parents Greg and Linda, younger brother Paddy and older brother Nick — will always hold on to.

Greg Bean, who is executive editor of Greater Media Newspapers, knows how he'll recall his middle son. Most prominent in his mind is the memory of Coleman stopping by unannounced the night before he died.

"I was sitting here watching TV, and he poked his face in the dining room window and made a funny face at me," Greg recalled, adding that Coleman, living in South River after returning from his second tour in Iraq, had been dropping over for dinner often, knowing Greg was on leave from work and was cooking a lot.

"He came in and said, 'What'd you make for dinner?' I said, 'I didn't know you were coming, so I didn't make enough for you.' So he made a triple-decker peanut butter sandwich and chips, and sat here and talked baby talk to my new dog, who he had just fallen in love with. … But I'm going to remember that night, because he was just happy and joking, and we made plans to go to the movies the next day and to the gym together on Monday. … I've got a million memories; we went through pictures the other day, and all of them bring back lots and lots of memories, but the one I'm gonna keep with me is just the way he was the day before he died."

In the early hours of the next morning, the family would learn, Coleman got into a one-car accident in West Long Branch, was hospitalized briefly, returned home to his apartment in South River and shot himself. His family and friends would react with shock and sadness, and also with anger that he would leave them this way.

Greg Bean's anger is also directed at the U.S. Army. After Coleman returned from nearly a year in Iraq in 2004, he was diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) for issues including extreme anxiety attacks and depression. Despite the diagnosis, the Army sent him back to the war in 2007.

"He had gone to the V.A. and seen a bunch of people [at] the Lyons campus. … He was diagnosed with PTSD and some other troubling issues, just lingering issues from Iraq," his father said. "The problem is that the V.A. doesn't really have anything to do directly with the Army. When he got called back, the Army said, 'Well, we don't care what the V.A. says about you. If you want a deferment from that, you have to get it from an Army psychiatrist.' "

Coleman feared that if he went to an Army psychiatrist, he'd spend the next deployment cleaning latrines or some other unwanted duty.

"The fact that he was diagnosed with [PTSD] didn't have any impact on him being deployed a second time. I think that's wrong. I think that's horrible that a soldier could be seeing a Veterans Administration doctor and that carries no weight with our Army," Greg said.
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