Marine writes of suicide attempt and feeling worthless

The DOD started their "training" in 2009 after another failed program. It is the same one they are pushing now. This is the result.

For nearly 10 years I identified myself as a Marine, but in the wake of my medical retirement in December 2012, I had no identity. Things couldn’t have been stranger for me. I had come to accept my retirement and was excited for the future. But now, two days before my retirement date, every ounce of shame, fear and sadness that I thought I should have felt during the two years I waited for my medical board to come back came rushing down upon me.

In 2009 I wrote that if they pushed this program, suicides would increase. They did.

"If you promote this program the way Battlemind was promoted, count on the numbers of suicides and attempted suicides to go up instead of down. It's just one more deadly mistake after another and just as dangerous as sending them into Iraq without the armor needed to protect them."
Each branch of the military uses the same type of training under different names. None of them work. As the military felt emboldened with the numbers slightly down for Army suicides, they don't mention that last year was the highest on record even though there was only one more war left to fight instead of two. Even though they were less serving because of cuts. When you read the following story, think about what you just read.

My Suicide Attempt and My Struggles to Get Help
New York Times
By THOMAS JAMES BRENNAN
November 5, 2013

“To the woman I love with my whole heart and soul: You are finally free of the terror I have caused in your life,” I wrote. “I am sorry for everything I have done to you. I deserve every bit of sorrow I feel.”

“Never forget how much I love you and cherish the times we spent together,” my letter continued. “I’ll hopefully see you on the other side.”

Writing a suicide note to my wife on Dec. 28, 2012, was much easier than I thought it should be. I was also surprised at how easy it was to then swallow an entire bottle of sleeping pills. But lying down and accepting my fate was the easiest by far.

I stared intently at my grease-stained pair of Marine Corps-issued boots strewn across my bedroom carpet. I locked my gaze on the debossed eagle globe and anchor on the outside of each heel. I wondered if asking for help for my post-traumatic stress disorder and traumatic brain injury was the smartest decision – after all, it had ended my career.

The way my leaders had treated me tore me up on the inside, and their words haunted me.

They had convinced me that I was not a Marine in pain, but someone looking for free benefits from the Department of Veterans Affairs.

At work, at home, in bed, all I could think about was how my career in the corps had ended in such a terrible, tasteless fashion, with my peers and leaders turning their backs on me because I had enrolled in treatment.

I felt worthless.
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Thomas James Brennan is a military affairs reporter with The Daily News in Jacksonville, N.C. Before being medically retired last December, he was a sergeant in the Marine Corps who served in Iraq and Afghanistan with the First Battalion, Eighth Marines. He is a member of the Military Order of the Purple Heart and the recipient of a 2013 Dart Center honorable mention.