Motorcycle ride beginning in Grand Forks will bring awareness of PTSD

Motorcycle ride beginning in Grand Forks will bring awareness of PTSD
GRAND FORKS, N.D. - Soldiers and former soldiers and people who care about soldiers will ride again Saturday for Joe Biel, maneuvering motorcycles over safe roads and remembering when Joe tried to make safe the bomb-strewn highways of Iraq.
By: Chuck Haga, Grand Forks Herald
GRAND FORKS, N.D. - Soldiers and former soldiers and people who care about soldiers will ride again Saturday for Joe Biel, maneuvering motorcycles over safe roads and remembering when Joe tried to make safe the bomb-strewn highways of Iraq.

Spc. David Young last heard from his squad leader two years ago.

It was natural that Biel would make that last call to Young. They had served together, Joe operating the heavily armored “buffalo” up front, Dave in a Humvee, as they searched for hidden explosives.

When they came home in late 2006, after disposing of more than 400 IEDs, after nearly losing Young in one explosion, Biel didn’t return to his home in South Dakota. He moved in with Young in Devils Lake, and they both stayed in the North Dakota National Guard at Camp Grafton.

The call came in the evening of April 26, 2007. They had been back from the desert for six months.

“He said, ‘Tell everybody I love them,’” Young said. “He said goodbye, and he said he was sorry.”

Young alerted a few other soldiers that Joe was in trouble as he raced to his buddy’s side.

Joe held a loaded gun.

“We tried to get him talked out of it,” Young said. “Three other soldiers who worked with Joe were there, and we said, ‘We’re going to get you help.’ We tried everything.

“It just wasn’t enough. Everything had built up so much inside him.”

There has been little if any public mention of Joe Biel’s suicide. Young is deeply reluctant to talk about it, except to confirm that it happened before his eyes — and to warn that it could happen again.

So, he and the others will get on their motorcycles Saturday and ride, in the second annual Joe Biel Memorial Ride, “to make people aware of post-traumatic stress disorder and suicide and how it affects soldiers’ lives every day.”

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Motorcycle ride beginning in Grand Forks will bring awareness of PTSD