Soldier's suicide leaves family with unanswered questions

Soldier's suicide leaves family with unanswered questions
By Anna Canzano
KATU News and KATU.com Staff
Published: Dec 20, 2012

LONGVIEW, Wash. - It's the knock on the door that every military family dreads and it happened a year ago for the family of a Longview soldier. But that was only the beginning of their pain.

In the weeks and months that followed, the family of Spc. Mikayla Bragg learned from the military that her death was ruled a suicide.

Why would the young woman take her life? That's the question that is haunting her family and after they received a 205-page report on her death, they are troubled by what they have learned.

"When she told me that she was going to join the National Guard, I was like 'OK, Mikayla, I support you in whatever you do," her father, Steve Bragg, said when we asked him about his daughter's career in the military.

Days later, Steve Bragg would come home from work and learn that his daughter had instead enlisted in the Army. It all happened so fast - boot camp, deployment and suddenly his child was on the other side of the world.

"She was really happy with what she was doing," her father said. "She wanted to better herself."

After five months on the ground in Afghanistan, Bragg was awaiting Christmas and had purchased a plane ticket to return home.

So what happened at the Bagram airfield the morning of Dec. 21, 2011, when her body was found in a guard tower where she had been stationed?
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