High suicide rates and PTSD among vets

High suicide rates and PTSD among vets (video)
Detroit Free Press
Iraq War Legacy: High Suicide Rates and PTSD Among Vets: The official war in Iraq may be over but the battle scars still remain, both physical and emotional, for those who served, and for their families. Lindsay Claiborn reports.
March 16, 2013

Adding Guilt To The Grief

For many, like Denise Coutlakis, the grief is still raw. Her husband, Col. Todd Hixson, committed suicide in October 2009. The 27-year Marine veteran of several wars had been home just three weeks from his only deployment to Iraq.

When Coutlakis got the phone call saying that her husband had committed suicide, she says she did not know what to do. "I didn't know ... how to get my husband's body. I didn't know what to do next, so I called the Marine Corps," Coutlakis says.

She made the call on a Sunday, and Coutlakis says it took a while for anyone at the base to respond. "They showed up at some point and ... started talking to you about, 'This is what you need to do to move on. [Here] are the things you need to do. Here are the services,' and it gives you a sense ... [that] you have a list of things to do," Coutlakis says.

But Coutlakis says the list did not help her heal, and the suicide only added guilt to her grief.

When a service member dies in combat or in an accident, Coutlakis says, "nobody looks at the family and says, 'What was their responsibility in this? What did they not do?' " (Supporting Those Left Behind By Military Suicides by SARAH GONZALEZ, NPR October 21, 2010)