The Life and Death of Sonny Mazon

We Are Failing Our Veterans With PTSD: The Life and Death of Sonny Mazon
Posted: 02/ 7/2012
Kevin Bell
Graduate Student, Army Veteran

When I spoke to his mother on the night of February 4, Sonny Mazon's body was still alive. In reality though, Sonny left this world a week ago when he hung himself in his prison cell and slipped quietly into a comatose oblivion. I was aware that Sonny had left the Army in the summer of 2010, but I long wondered about his adjustment to civilian life. No more.

He didn't get the help that he needed to heal the pain of his memories from Afghanistan, and as he withdrew from his friends and family he descended into an abyss of sadness. His relationship with his girlfriend had always been problematic, but it became violent. He hurt her badly in a fit of rage, was arrested for domestic abuse, and chose to end his life.

We shouldn't whitewash over the violence of his actions, but the context of his life story does help us to see his crime in a different light. I met Sonny Mazon when I took over our newly created infantry platoon in 2008. We were a Frankenstein's monster of a unit that was cobbled together from other platoons, but before long we had become something special. Privates like Sonny were a huge part of that.
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