Issac Sims spraypainted note to Mom during standoff

What are we doing? What are we really doing when these reports come out all the time as more and more families blame themselves when the truth is, they are really the last who should carry the responsibility on their own shoulder. The DOD promised to make them resilient while pushing their programs even though when asked why suicides went up they had to admit they didn't know. Men like General Odierno say it is because they lack intestinal fortitude and do not have supportive families.

Wonder if he's ready to tell that to Issac Sims' Mom?

The DOD shows absolutely no signs of learning anything but we can. We can change the conversation away from raising suicide awareness and turn it into helping them know how to heal enough to want to stay alive. We can stop settling for raising awareness about PTSD and actually start letting them know what it is and why they have it topping it off with how they can heal.

The Congress doesn't care. They already proved that one and too many charities are in it for themselves instead of doing the work the promised to do. It has to be up to all of us to make a difference that will really matter or we'll see more Moms with signs their kids left behind.

A standoff between Issac Sims and police leads to his fatal shooting
Stars and Stripes
By Martin Kuz
Published: November 4, 2014

“If I had known what was going to happen,” Shawn said, “I wouldn’t have called the cops. I can’t forgive myself for that.”

Patricia Sims holds a sign that reads "#1 Mom" that her son, Issac Sims, spray-painted during a five-hour standoff with police on May 25 in Kansas City, Mo. The confrontation ended when officers fatally shot him.
MARTIN KUZ/STARS AND STRIPES

Part three of a four-part series
Part one Issac Sims said of the Army, "This is my tribe. I'm never leaving."
Part two Issac Sims tried unsuccessfully to get help from the VA

KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Patricia and Shawn Sims stared at the body of their dead son. His blue eyes were closed. His unlined face revealed none of the torment of his last days. He looked like a boy dreaming.

Kansas City police had shot and killed Issac Sims, 26, in the garage of his parents’ house a day earlier. His death was a bloody coda to a five-hour standoff that began after officers responded to Shawn’s 911 call.

Father and son had argued the morning of May 25. In frustration, Issac Sims shot several rounds from an AK-47 outside the house. Shawn told the 911 dispatcher that he wanted police to take his son to the Veterans Affairs Medical Center for treatment.

Sims, an Army veteran who deployed twice to Iraq, had battled the effects of post-traumatic stress disorder after moving back to Kansas City last year following his discharge.

He sought in vain to enter an inpatient program at the VA hospital two miles from his parents’ home in the weeks before his death. His erratic behavior near the end of his life exposed a mind still at war.
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