Families in the shadows of military suicides hopelessly take their own lives too

Quiet Crisis

“You have an increase in suicides when hopelessness exceeds the resources,”

In the shadow of record military suicide numbers, spouses and children face it, themselves.
American Legion
by Ken Olsen
September 1, 2013

Her husband suffered a skull-shattering bullet wound in Iraq. She lost her job. Her car was repossessed. A psychiatrist misdiagnosed her, then threatened to commit her if she didn’t take medication that made her feel crazy. These are some of the reasons Torrey Shannon tried to kill herself. Twice.

“It piles on and piles on, and you wake up one day and say, ‘I can’t take it anymore,’” she says.

Twelve-year-old Daniel Radenz killed himself just days after convincing doctors at Darnall Army Medical Center in Texas that he didn’t need to be hospitalized, despite warnings including drawing graphic suicide pictures and writing on the walls of a school bathroom with his own blood.

After Daniel drew detailed pictures of people shooting themselves in the head, his parents took him to Darnall. “We were very uneasy,” Tricia says. “We thought he needed hospitalization with the pictures and the things happening at school.”

Daniel convinced doctors he was OK, and they sent him home. He hanged himself within a week. “I thought he went into the kitchen to get a sandwich with his dad. His dad thought he was outside with me. He was out of sight five or 10 minutes. That’s all it took.”

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