Joint Base Lewis-McChord soldier who killed self fell through cracks

We tell them to ask for help if they need it. Spc. Derrick Kirkland did. We tell them that if their buddies need help, tell someone. His buddies did. The Army sent him back to the states for help. That's where it all ended. All the efforts made before that were wasted because he was left alone after two suicide attempts. Any idea how many people including his family are asking "why" when it didn't need to happen? When they did everything they were supposed to do? Any idea what that kind of grief and "what ifs" does to the people left behind? I wonder if the person responsible for making the decision to give this troubled combat veteran his "privacy" has any clue so that something like this never happens again.

JBLM soldier who killed self fell through cracks, soldiers and mom say
Derrick Kirkland’s friends thought they got him the care he needed in southern Iraq when they told commanders the 23-year-old Army specialist had raised a shotgun to his mouth and threatened to kill himself.

MATT DETRICH The Indianapolis Star
Mary Corkhill Kirkland, 49 of Indianapolis holds a photograph of her son Spc. Derrick Kirkland, who committed suicide while serving in the Army.

Derrick Kirkland’s friends thought they got him the care he needed in southern Iraq when they told commanders the 23-year-old Army specialist had raised a shotgun to his mouth and threatened to kill himself.

Their alarms – and a second suicide attempt – led the Army to evacuate Kirkland early last year from his base to Landstuhl, Germany. His next stop was Madigan Army Medical Center at his home station, Joint Base Lewis-McChord.

But Kirkland’s distress, so apparent to fellow soldiers, fell short of what a Madigan psychiatrist regarded as “high risk behavior” that would have kept him in the hospital under constant watch.

Instead, the Army assigned him a private bedroom in the barracks south of Tacoma on March 15, 2010, and sent him to work with his unit’s rear detachment.
He hanged himself four days later.

Among the cases of troubled soldiers that played out badly:
• Since April 2010, four soldiers and two military contractors killed themselves within Lakewood’s city limits. The total number of Lewis-McChord soldiers committing suicide has held steady, with nine in each of the past two years and seven in 2008.

• In addition to the suicides that happen quietly, two Lewis-McChord killed themselves in the past year very publicly. In August, Spc. Brandon Barrett went AWOL and died in a shootout with police in Salt Lake City. In April, Sgt. David Stewart killed his wife and then himself off Interstate 5 in Thurston County. Police later found their 5-year-old son dead in their Spanaway home.

• Some soldiers who’ve sought counseling at Madigan report receiving superficial help that doesn’t address problems including sleep deprivation or depression. They worry that a failure to find the right therapist could lead to dangerous behavior or suicides.

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JBLM soldier who killed self fell through cracks