Military's suicide prevention plan too late for Sarasota family

Military's suicide prevention plan too late for Sarasota family
By HOWARD ALTMAN
The Tampa Tribune
Published: June 25, 2012

Friday afternoon, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta told the Department of Defense/ Department of Veterans Affairs suicide prevention conference that "we can do more. We must do more. And together we will do more to prevent suicide."

The next day, on a rainy afternoon in Sarasota, Luzdary Yepes cried and, over the phone, told me she wishes they did do more.

Two years ago. Before her son, Giovanni Andres Orozco, a 20-year-old veteran of the Iraq war, held his friends at gunpoint and then turned the weapon on himself June 10, 2010.

Yepes said that when her son came home from Iraq, he had a week to "detox" in New Jersey.

"A week is not enough when they see the kind of crap we don't even know about," she said. "They train them so well to fight, but they don't train them to come back. It's almost like when you train a dog to bite, and then you have to bring them to where little kids are and let them loose. It is not right."

Speaking at the conference in Washington, Panetta unveiled a four-track suicide prevention plan. It calls for increased responsibility by military leaders, especially junior officers and NCOs; improved quality and access to health care; elevated mental fitness and increased research into suicide prevention.
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