Military suicides personal for Major's widow

In the 80's and 90's Vietnam veterans were committing suicide by the thousands but their obituaries would read "died suddenly" and somewhere there would be mention of service in Vietnam. No one wanted to talk about a combat veteran surviving combat but unable to survive being back home. The suffering was a well kept secret. But it was not just the veterans suffering. It was their families as well. Keeping it something only the family knew did nothing to help anyone heal.

What changed? Military families did. PTSD was no longer something to hide to some hero families ready to fight this battle. They stood up, got media attention and then the attention of congress. People like this widow shared their pain so that someone would do something to save the lives of other veterans.

Military suicides personal for widow

By Margery Eagan
Tuesday, March 15, 2011

Marine Maj. John Ruocco of Newbury was a real “Top Gun” type. Movie-star handsome, first in his flight-training class, a Cobra-helicopter attack pilot and squadron leader who flew 75 combat missions in Iraq.

Growing up in Lexington, he had close family and friends. He married his college sweetheart. In a family picture taken the day he came home in 2004, his two young sons are waving American flags. Ruocco wears a Red Sox [team stats] nation T-shirt and holds his wife Kim close.

Those who knew him thought John Ruocco had it all. Right up until the night he hanged himself in a California hotel room in February 2005, on Super Bowl Sunday.

“Let’s call Dad,” one of his ecstatic sons said after the Patriots [team stats] won. Then that son got off the phone and told his mother, “Daddy is crying. Daddy is not OK.”

Kim Ruocco said yesterday that, in fact, her husband had not been OK for some time. But she kept his secret: depression that worsened after Iraq.
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Military suicides personal for widow