Father wonders when suicides due to combat will matter

Even in suicide, soldiers' families deserve condolences from president
By Gregg Keesling, Special to CNN
May 30, 2011 2:18 p.m. EDT

Chancellor Keesling and his father, Gregg Keesling in April, 2009

STORY HIGHLIGHTS
Gregg Keesling says his son, Chance, died by suicide when he was serving in Iraq in 2009
He says he learned later that the suicide would keep Obama from sending condolences
The White House is reviewing policy; what's taking so long, he asks? This sends wrong message
Keesling: Policy telegraphs that suicide is dishonorable

Editor's note: Gregg Keesling's son, Army Spc. Chancellor Keesling, died in Iraq in 2009. Keesling is president of Workforce, Inc. an electronic recycling company that help provide employment for those coming home from incarceration

(CNN) -- Two years ago, my son, Army Spc. Chancellor Keesling, died by suicide in Iraq. He was 25 and on his second deployment.

Shortly after his death, my wife, Jannett, and I learned of a long-standing policy in which presidential letters of condolence are withheld from families of American service members who die by suicide.

We wrote to President Barack Obama on August 3, 2009, asking him to reverse this policy, and since then we have tried to keep up a steady drumbeat for change. There has been a fair amount of media attention, including from CNN, and recently U.S. Sen. Barbara Boxer, co-chair of the Senate Military Family Caucus, and a bipartisan group of Senate colleagues sent a letter to the president on behalf of this issue, echoing a bipartisan request from House members.

We learned in late 2009 that the White House would be reviewing the policy, when then-White House spokesman Robert Gibbs told then-CNN reporter Elaine Quijano that the White House had inherited this policy and was reviewing it. Yet as of this writing, we and the hundreds of other families whose children have died by suicide while at war wait for a result.
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Even in suicide