Cpl. Brandon David Meyers' Mom wants to save others

Honoring Son Lost To PTSD Suicide, Marine’s Mom Finds Her Purpose
CBS Chicago WBBM
Brad Edwards
With Wendy Widom, Social Media Editor
August 7, 2014

CHICAGO (CBS) — One shot in the head. After two tours in Iraq, it took only one bullet to end a proud Marine’s life and to break a mother’s heart.

Brandon Meyers of Plainfield, IL was the boy next door. He was a sweet and smart goofball who loved his family and spent days on end fixing up cars with his dad. Selfless by nature, Brandon gave generously to those around him. From the age of six, says his mother, Wendy Meyers, Brandon had a dream: to become a United States Marine.

After high school graduation, Brandon joined the U.S. Marine Corps. For him, Semper Fi was more than a motto. It was a solemn oath to serve and protect America. When training ended, Brandon immediately deployed to Iraq for his first tour, which lasted nine months. Following a brief return to the U.S., he deployed again. His second tour lasted 19 months.

When Brandon returned home in 2012 his mother saw immediately that something was amiss with her son.

“You could see in his eyes a lot of hurt,” Wendy says, her own eyes welling up with tears. On a particularly grueling night, Wendy’s husband woke her up with a frantic shake. Their son was on the roof. Brandon told his father he was doing sniper duty.

“He never, he never left Iraq,” Wendy says.

Brandon was diagnosed with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), a medical condition reported to afflict at least 400,000 American veterans who served in Iraq and Afghanistan. Of those men and women with PTSD, only 50 percent seek treatment, and only half of these veterans receive what a RAND study considers “minimally adequate” treatment.

Brandon sought help for PTSD. He reached out to the local VA Hospital. The treatment plan, which included therapy sessions by teleconference, brought little relief. Wendy watched helplessly as her son sank into a quiet despair. “Scatter my dust in Iraq,” Brandon told his mom. “Because that’s where I died anyhow.”

On June 27, 2013, the day before Brandon’s beloved Blackhawks celebrated their Stanley Cup victory with a parade in downtown Chicago, Brandon disappeared. As more of Wendy’s texts to her son went unanswered, she began to cry, sensing that something was wrong. A few hours later, her worst fears were confirmed. With a shot to his head, Cpl. Brandon David Meyers, USMC, ended his life.
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Iraq Veteran wanted ashes scattered in Iraq before suicide

"Brandon told his mother, ominously, that when he died, he wanted his dust scattered in Iraq, because he had already died there anyway."