Widow Tells What Happens After War

Widow recounts husband's stateside struggles
Jacksonville Daily News
Bianca Strzalkowski
Posted Jul. 13, 2015

“There was no reason he should have been deployed, we just weren’t getting the answers that we wanted or needed,” Heather said. “I think basically it was slap a Band-Aid on it and then send them back in.”

Jerome “Chad” Lechlinski took his own life on June 4 in his Jacksonville home. His widow hopes sharing his story will help others.

A Jacksonville man is one of the latest casualties of war, but his death did not occur in the foreign lands of Iraq or Afghanistan — his battle was lost at home.

Jerome “Chad” Lechlinski was a jokester, his wife Heather says, always looking for a way to make people laugh. On the inside though, Chad was fighting an internal enemy that not even his family fully realized.

Chad took his own life on June 4 in his Jacksonville home.

His widow hopes sharing his story will help others.

The 31-year old graduated from Dixon High School in 2002. He joined the Marine Corps to follow in his family’s long lineage of military service. In 2004, Heather and Chad Lechlinski met online while he was deployed to Cuba.

His wife had little familiarity with the military, but she moved to Onslow County to be with him and his family. His career in the infantry never slowed with continuous deployments to Africa and Iraq. During his first Iraq deployment in 2005, a suicide bomber attacked the vehicle Chad was driving, causing the death of one of his gunners. That incident was the start of something changing within him.
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