Staff Sgt. James Wilson, Marine, Cop, National Guardsman, died

When they die during combat, we say "Fallen" and when they die as cops, it becomes "in the line of duty" but when they die by their own hands after surviving all of it, we don't seem to have the right words to use.

Puzzled friends grieve for soldier-cop who took his life after crash
Published: Tuesday, March 22, 2011
By MATTHEW KEMENY, The Patriot-News

Like many in the military, Staff Sgt. James Wilson had a tough exterior.

He had a take-no-crap attitude, was always focused on his next mission and when you gave him a job to do, he did it right the first time.


But those who knew the 42-year-old Highspire man well said Wilson also had a lighter side. He loved to make people laugh, played practical jokes and often could find humor in serious situations.

Most of all, though, Wilson was emotionally grounded, his friends said, which is why everyone seems baffled that he would take his own life.

Wilson, a part-time Highspire police officer, shot himself in the head Sunday night after he crashed his Jeep on South Eisenhower Boulevard in Lower Swatara Twp., police said. A member of the Pennsylvania Army National Guard’s Company C, 1st Battalion, 110th Infantry, Wilson had returned from Afghanistan in November after being stationed there about nine months.

Wilson survived the crash, the police chief said, but died from the gunshot wound. A witness who walked up to the Jeep about 8:30 witnessed the shooting, Chief Richard Wiley said.

From 2005 to 2009, more than 1,100 service members took their own lives, an average of one suicide every 36 hours.

Wilson’s friends weren’t aware of any personal problems he might have had. He joined the Marines after he turned 18 and had previously been deployed to Iraq with the 56th Striker Brigade before he was sent to Afghanistan in February 2010.

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Puzzled friends grieve for soldier-cop