Iraq War vet sheds light on veteran suicide prevention

Iraq War vet sheds light on veteran suicide prevention after executive order

KTXS
by Rachel Aragon
March 5th 2019

Weis said what veterans need is for people across the country to take an interest in veterans, both in what they went through and who they are as a person now.

“Not feeling sympathy for them or feeling bad for them, but it’s about bringing them up,” he said. “Letting them know you’re there.” 

DAYTON, Ohio (WKEF/WRGT) - It’s a national crisis that’s caught the attention of the White House.




According to the Department of Veterans Affairs, 20 veterans commit suicide each day.

“Today we can help end this crisis,” President Donald Trump said Tuesday.

He signed an executive order aimed at bring the number of veteran suicides down.

The executive order creates a new task force that aims to get to the root of the problem.

"The task force will be charged with developing a national research strategy, so that we can more effectively identify, intervene, and help veterans during a time of need,” he said.

“It’s a step in the right direction,” Iraq War veteran Justin Weis said in response to executive order.
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SHOT AT DAWN:WWI 15 Welsh Soldiers Executed for Shell Shock

Shot at dawn: The 15 Welshman executed during the First World War - by their own side
Wales Online
By Rachael Misstear
Oct 05, 2014

A picture of Private William Jones (left) with an unidentified soldier

Private William Jones was one of as one of 306 young British soldiers who received the ultimate punishment for military offences

Private William Jones was probably suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) induced by the horrors of the Great War.

But after deserting the young solider turned himself in – and later found himself blindfolded and put before a firing squad.

The young solider from the Vale of Neath was one of 306 young British soldiers – 15 of them serving in Welsh ranks – who received the ultimate punishment for military offences such as desertion, cowardice, falling asleep or striking an officer. They were all shot at dawn.

In 2006 a blanket pardon was issued for the men who died this way following a petition in the years after the First World War.

Now a new book by Neath author Robert King, who campaigned and supported the petition, portrays the brutality faced by the 15 Welshmen who all faced this terrifying end.

Shot at Dawn looks at how during the First World War the concept of ‘shell shock’ – now known as PTSD – was not known and was not accepted as an excuse for desertion or any of the other offences which resulted in men being shot.

“Jones was a stretcher bearer in France who went missing on June 15, 1917, after taking a wounded soldier to the dressing station.

“The job of a stretcher bearer entailed going out into no-man’s-land collecting wounded and dead soldiers and their body parts and returning them to the dressing station.

“It was a horrendous duty for such a young man and it could have unhinged him, causing him to desert.”
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Mortuary affairs, present traumatic stress

PRESENT-TRAUMATIC STRESS
Death shapes life for teams that prepare bodies of fallen troops for final flight home
By Martin Kuz
Special to Stars and Stripes
Published: February 17, 2014

About this series

Stars and Stripes is looking at the mental health of U.S. soldiers in Afghanistan and how they cope with war’s internal burden while deployed. This series is produced with the support of a Rosalynn Carter Fellowship for Mental Health Journalism.

BAGRAM, Afghanistan — The first body was the most difficult. Pfc. Durell Siverand found a family portrait in the dead soldier’s wallet that showed him posing with his wife and two daughters. A mortar blast had killed him on the day he turned 21.

Siverand, one year older, had landed in Afghanistan less than three weeks earlier with the 54th Quartermaster Company of the 82nd Sustainment Brigade. The mortuary affairs unit occupies a large metal hangar at Bagram Air Field, some 40 miles north of Kabul. In this space, where a small wall sign reads “Dignity Reverence Respect,” death controls the order of life.

Siverand and Pfc. Alex Valdivia belong to one of the company’s two teams of mortuary affairs specialists. As the “dirty hands” crew of their eight-member team, they prepare the bodies of fallen troops for the final flight home.

Before deploying, Siverand worked in a morgue for a short time, and after arriving at Bagram last summer, he spent several days observing the unit that the 54th replaced. He was nervous but ready on the morning of his initial 24-hour shift.

By evening, after delivering the private’s remains to a cargo plane, he felt unmoored.
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