By all accounts he was a good soldier, then committed suicide

Families are franticly searching for ways to help but find little hope as they watch someone they love get to the point they can find no hope things will get better tomorrow. How can they? When the men and women serving in the military come back home, families go from euphoria when they believe all is well now they're home to believing they have just entered into hell with a stranger causing all kinds of problems in the house and they have no clue how to cope or what to do to help. As a matter of fact, too many families don't understand they need help in the first place. They end up blaming the veteran simply because they don't know what they are dealing with.

Their lives fall apart and the veteran, well, he or she is left to hang onto whatever hope they can that tomorrow will bring a better day, some miracle will arrive in time to save them, or, the day they will "get over it" finally arrive. It won't come unless they get help to heal. The other problem is, too often either help does not come because the family does not know where to find it or no matter what they do, they cannot get the help that is supposed to be there waiting.

More often than not even when the veterans do receive help, it is in the form of pills and not therapy. So we here the military and the VA get it, came up with suicide prevention programs along with a list of "new programs" that will take care of the problem, but as evidence has shown, their programs have not worked enough to stop the rate of suicides and attempted suicides from rising. Too often an official will say that "we're saving lives" and then we believe they finally got it only to find out months later, what they've done has left a gaping wound left over few are able to recover from.

Pvt. Greg Tilton ran out of reasons to stay alive and we have ourselves to blame for this. Not his family and not Tilton himself, but the rest of us because they never received what they needed to recover from what was asked of him. When we talk about casualties as a price of war, Tilton and his family should also be found among them, but they won't be.

Family Seeks Answers From Army After Son Commits Suicide
Thursday, December 17, 2009 5:43 PM

WORTHINGTON, Ohio — After losing their son to suicide, one family was urging the U.S. military and other families to take action before more lives are lost, 10TV's Cara Connelly reported.

On the day before Thanksgiving, Army Private Greg Tilton, a Worthington native, shot and killed himself in his apartment near Fort Riley, Kan.

Tilton, 20, had recently returned from a tour of duty in Iraq.



"By all accounts he was a good soldier - he was an excellent soldier," Tilton's father Tim Tilton said.

The family has a box full of medals to prove it.

Tilton's father said his son was a sensitive young man, who told his parents he shot and killed an 11-year-old suicide bomber while on duty in Iraq.

Tim Tilton said that violence took a tool on his son and his mental health.

"There is a huge disconnect; he had a counseling session in Iraq but when he returned, up until the day he died, he never had another one," Tim Tilton said.

Tilton's wife Molly was calling 911 for help after she said he began having a flashback to Iraq, but authorities did not arrive in time.

"We don't need any more of our soldiers doing what my son did. He was in such a dark place and not in his right mind when this happened," Tim Tilton said.

Suicides among members of the military are expected to set a record this year, Connelly reported.

The Army said one in five soldiers returns home from war suffering from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.

The Tilton's said the military needs more counselors and are urging military families to speak out and demand help.
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Family Seeks Answers From Army After Son Commits Suicide