After brother’s suicide, a helicopter pilot moves into chaplaincy

After brother’s suicide, a helicopter pilot moves into chaplaincy
Army Times
By Meghann Myers
Staff writer
Posted : Tuesday Sep 25, 2012

Almost as soon as Chief Warrant Officer 2 Jeremy Cover enlisted in the Army 10 years ago, suicide was front and center.

“One of the guys in my class had mentioned he wanted to hurt himself,” Cover said. “I was assigned as his battle buddy, so I went with him all day to his [behavioral health] visits.”

As a young soldier, he was a little irritated that he’d been called to take time out of his few free hours a day to babysit a fellow private. They didn’t say a lot to each other at the time, but Cover blames that on his inexperience.

“One of the misconceptions about suicide is that you don’t want to talk to the guy about it, because if you talk about it, you’ll give him ideas,” he said.

Now he finds that talking about it is the best treatment, because if they can talk about it, they’re less likely to actually do it.

Cover supervised half a dozen more guys in the following years. In his last combat mission before returning home from Iraq in March 2011, he flew a Blackhawk helicopter transporting the remains of a soldier who had committed suicide downrange.
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