Suicide Awareness or Healing Awareness?

Time to change the conversation, keep the topic
Wounded Times
Kathie Costos
September 4, 2014

Did you know that the New England Patriots didn't fit in with the rest of the colonists? Not the football team but the home team. The men and women, business people and farmers, risking their lives to take on the best military in the world at the time. They were hated and the loyalists were doing whatever they could to wipe the "traitors to the crown" off the earth and under the dirt. The Patriots were totally misunderstood but soon enough, people changed their minds. Unfortunately by the time folks woke up, the Patriots were no longer alive to hear the "appreciation" of newly freed from the British Empire.

Just got off the phone with one of my buddies, a Vietnam veteran talking about how it is all so easy to get too busy to call other veterans they served with. This was brought about because of Chuck Hagel saying veterans need to support each other. The topic didn't change but we ended up talking about fitting in with other people and that led to the discussion of the Patriots.

We were talking about how the Iraqis may need to get trained by watching some movies on the Revolutionary War to be able to take care of their own country and get rid of the ISIS on their own. After all, it isn't as if it hasn't been done before. Then we talked about fitting in as veterans. The National Guards and Reservists have a harder time because they don't go back to their bases, they go back to their towns and cities among civilians with no clue about where they were, what they did or why they did it.

I have that conversation with almost every veteran I talk to. You lament about how out of place you feel. "I just want to fit back in" but the truth is, you never really did. Thank God for that or you'd be like the rest of us only thinking of our own problems, whining about our bosses, kids misbehaving or our how much things cost without ever thinking about the real price being paid on a daily basis to retain the freedom the Patriots obtained while being hated for doing it.

I change the conversation for the same topic. You won't fit back in again because there was something different inside of you all along and that is why you joined the military. Maybe you had a family member/veteran but some didn't. Some shocked their families and friends when they joined. The truth is, less than 1% serve now and veterans are only about 7% of the population. You don't fit in with the rest of the population but you fit perfectly with other veterans.

As veterans, it doesn't really matter which branch or what decade or which war because you all belong to the same community. You are stronger together because you understand each other and in the community, you are 100% of it no matter if you supplied the troops in combat, did paperwork to get others paid or flew them back home. One more thing my buddy reminded me of. The slogan for the Vietnam War, "All Gave Some, Some Gave All." They all had a job to do and all jobs mattered.

NOT FITTING IN?
Depends on who you want to fit in with. Cops fit in with other cops. Firefighters fit in with other firefighters. They all live in neighborhoods with others, shop, go to church, kids play with other kids, but most of the time, they are with their "own kind" where they are understood like family. Why should veterans be expected to be different from them? Veterans hang around with veterans for a reason. They understand each other, support each other and heal together.

RELATIONSHIP PROBLEMS?
If you think you can't have a successful relationship then you don't spend much time with other veterans. We've been married 30 years this month. Think that's odd? Not really. Some of our friends have been married 40, 45 years and still hold hands. If you think that is odd, I met Melvin Morris and his wife Mary married for 53 years. Melvin has PTSD and is a Vietnam veteran. He earned the Medal of Honor in Vietnam but didn't receive it until this year.

It requires love above all. Staying together with Vietnam veterans isn't as hard as you think. When they came home, they didn't know what PTSD was. They didn't have any support and there were no older groups willing to "adopt" them into their groups. You may have heard about how badly they were treated, but you know only part of what it was like. Somehow they managed to find each other without the internet and social media groups. They found their own.

Wives went with them and we support each other. Again, while we lived near civilian families, we didn't really fit in with them all the way. We learned from each other and discovered we were far from alone.

MENTAL WEAKNESS?
One more bugaboo I find hard to tolerate. While the programming for emotions is in the brain, it isn't about weakness. It is about strength. Strength? Bet I shocked you on that one. The stronger you feel things, the more you care and the more you care, the more you feel pain. The trade off is, to stop feeling pain you'd have to trade feeling joys as deeply as you did.

Take a look at this picture.

Do you see hardness or do you see love?

There is a growing list of Medal of Honor Heroes talking openly about having PTSD. Are they "mentally weak" or do you understand how they could be affected by what they did for the sake of others? Do you think Army Rangers are tough or mentally weak? This is a perfect example of what we're talking about. Keep on thing in mind that while this is about an Army Ranger, a lot of Special Forces lives ended the same way.

The Army found Staff Sgt. Jared Hagemann's body at a training area of Joint Base Lewis McChord a few weeks ago.

A spokesman for the base tells KOMO News that the nature of the death is still undetermined. But Staff Sgt. Hagemann's widow says her husband took his own life - and it didn't need to happen.

"It was just horrible. And he would just cry," says Ashley Hagemann.

Ashley says her husband Jared tried to come to grips with what he'd seen and done on his eight deployments in Iraq and Afghanistan.

"And there's no way that any God would forgive him - that he was going to hell," says Ashley. "He couldn't live with that any more."

Ashley says her Army Ranger husband wanted out of the military.

"He just wanted to know what it felt like to be normal again," she says.

Staff Sgt. Hagemann had orders to return to Afghanistan this month for a ninth tour of duty.

Instead, on June 28, Ashley says her husband took a gun and shot himself in the head on base. She claims the Rangers never took his pleas for help seriously.

His story came out in 2011. They were sending him on his ninth tour. Mentally tough enough to do eight tours but still only human.

RESILIENT?
How much more resilient can a person be? Pardon my language but screw "resiliency training" since no one can train you do be what you already were. Like Boston Baked Beans, it may taste fine going in but comes out in an unpleasant way. It leaves you guys with the impression there was something wrong with you. There was something not only right about you but wow, stronger than anyone else. 

When I think of what all of you were willing to give up to serve, it is stunning. When I think about what it took for you to do what you did for the sake of those you were with, I just can't find the words. So why on earth would you think you were anything but mentally strong, committed and mind blowing courageous?

There is so much you don't know because most people just don't talk about it. At least not most of the folks you have been listening to. There are a lot of conversations going on all over the country and they can be heard in the veterans community. All you have to do look for a group near you where you can feel like you're back where you do fit in.