Veterans Feel Like They Are Just Numbers

'We're just numbers,' local veteran contends 
Observer
Alyssa Choiniere
Digital News
April 9, 2015

“The easiest way for them to deal with us is for us to just kill ourselves because we're just numbers.”

Retired Marine Cpl. Christopher Morris didn't know where else to go, so he stayed there, in his Morgantown apartment, wishing heavy metal would drown out his racing mind, wishing his eyes would stop darting up to the bullet hole in the ceiling, wishing his thoughts would stop drifting toward the New River Gorge Bridge.

Morris knew he didn't want to go out like his roommate who left the bullet hole behind after his suicide. But he was running out of options.

After months of trying to get the care he needed from the Department of Veterans Affairs for post-traumatic stress disorder and chronic injuries caused by a bomb blast, he was close to giving up.

“They're trying to get things, on the outside, to look better,” he said. “The easiest way for them to deal with us is for us to just kill ourselves because we're just numbers.”

On March 30, veteran Michelle Langhorst, 31, of Plum, shot herself in the head at the H.J. Heinz Campus of the VA Pittsburgh Healthcare System in Aspinwall, according to the Allegheny County Medical Examiner's office.
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