Never shall I fail my comrades, Army Ranger and suicides of brothers

They are willing to accept the risks facing whatever comes in combat. Some pass it off as part of the deal when they joined. I guess that way citizens can just ignore their pain. To lose a friend in combat is something they are ready to endure even though it breaks their hearts. To lose a friend after combat because of what was asked of them is something no one should be willing to accept under any conditions. So why do we?

Why do we allow them to suffer the way this Army Ranger did taking the blame upon his shoulders wondering what he could have done differently? Isn't that the question we should have been asking of ourselves years ago?

A Former Army Ranger Copes with His Friends' Suicides, and Asks What He Could Have Done to Help Them
The Daily Beast
6 HOURS AGO
BY TED JANIS

Every day 22 veterans commit suicide. Former Army Ranger Ted Janis struggles with the suicides of his own friends and affirms the role that veterans can play in helping each other.

Shamil Zhumatov/Reuters

I will never forget the first day I heard the Ranger Creed, the motto of the Army Rangers that every soldier learns by heart before joining the famed unit. It was the fall of 2006, and my class of United States Army officers, the first to have joined out of high school after the attacks of 9/11, was preparing to deploy to Iraq and Afghanistan. The hallowed passage laid out what was expected of us in the years to come, as we fought in Anbar deserts and the labyrinth of Baghdad, battled from Pashtun poppy fields to the valleys of the Pech River. I didn’t realize it at the time, but the third stanza would forever haunt me: Never shall I fail my comrades. While tragic and testing, losing friends in combat was expected. It wasn’t until I had left the military and friends kept dying, taking their own lives, that I felt I failed.

On this past Veterans Day, I contemplated writing about the epidemic of veteran suicide, in honor of two friends. They had come home from fighting overseas and killed themselves. I decided against it. I did not want to darken their lives by bringing their deaths into the harsh glare of the media. I wanted to avoid causing any more pain to their grieving families, to avoid the renewed anguish that the sight of their names in print would bring.

Three weeks later, a third friend joined their ranks. Again, the pain was fresh and the shock numbing. And again the scouring for clues and agonizing over what I could have done.

This third friend and I had learned the Ranger Creed together all those years ago; then he went overseas and tested what it really meant. He served for six years before leaving the military and joining the civilian world. Wrestling with demons born in Afghanistan, he had lost his job, quarreled with his girlfriend and given away his dog. He hanged himself the day after Thanksgiving.

‘It wasn’t until I had left the military and friends kept dying, taking their own lives, that I felt I failed.’
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