By Megan McCloskey
Stars and Stripes
Published: July 27, 2010
PHOENIX — On the first day of 2010, Jeanette Baker sat down at the kitchen table to eat a late breakfast of takeout from Filiberto’s Mexican restaurant. Her family, sleepy and still recovering from New Year’s Eve festivities, recounted the highlights of what she missed after she went to bed.
Jeanette assumed her youngest, 23-year-old Spc. Jonathan Hughey, who was home on leave from Fort Hood, Texas, was at his girlfriend’s house. Why else wouldn’t he be bouncing around the kitchen? He was always the first one awake.
Oh, he’s here, her daughter said, describing how Jonathan’s boisterous teasing of his girlfriend had driven her home in a huff.
“That little butthead,” Jeanette said. “I’m going to go in there and tell him off.”
She walked back to Jonathan’s room, the same bedroom he had as a child, opening the door as she knocked. The light was on, and Jonathan was lying on the floor on his back, the way he slept when he got home from basic training.
She sighed and shook her head at what looked like spilled Kool-Aid on the floor.
“What are you doing?” she asked.
Jonathan didn’t move.
On the first day of 2010, Gen. Robert Cone, the commander of Fort Hood, paused to reflect on the base’s recent dip in suicides, wondering what he and his senior leaders were doing right. The numbers showed real progress: After 14 suicides in 2008 and 10 through August 2009, in the last four months of the year there had been only one.
Then word came that Spc. Jonathan Hughey had shot himself in the head.read more here
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