Tag: suicide

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Twenty-two veterans Take Their Own Lives Every Day Because of Depression

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Military news…

Actor, director and Hollywood icon Denzel Washington is the “Honorary Sergeant Major of the Army” for 2021.

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Veterans made headlines this summer for working together to bring home stranded Afghan allies, but they are also doing the same for deported U.S. veterans.

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The Army’s new missile-hauling Stryker was fired for the first time ever in Europe by soldiers assigned to the 5th Battalion, 4th Air Defense Artillery Regiment.

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Every sandwich is a sub sandwich if it has classified submarine info in it. Case in point: Federal prosecutors accused Navy vet Jonathan Toebbe of trying to sell sensitive information about the nuclear reactors for Virginia-class submarines by hiding a SanDisk inside a peanut butter sandwich.

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Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin must resign over his handling of the U.S. military’s withdrawal from Afghanistan, writes retired Marine Col. Andrew Milburn. Having served in Afghanistan as a special operations officer and having seen Secretary Austin’s career up close, Andrew is particularly well-qualified to weigh in on the subject.

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One of the military’s top cybersecurity generals wants to get rid of the Common Access Card. Used to enter buildings, log onto computers and even enter the chow hall, CACs are one of the few things nearly all service members have had in common over the past 20 years.

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Here is another excerpt from my upcoming book, Signs of Hope for the Military: In and Out of the Trenches of Life.

Move Out of Your Home Called Depression

So many people(over 19 million,) are silently struggling with depression or related demons. The depression rate in the military is very high as well. People do not do anything about it. It leaves them eventually because the person dies.

How can we get off this train of despair? Why do we let depression overtake us? Shouldn’t we be happy with our family and friends, and our loved ones around us? Is there a way to climb out of this dreadful trench and have a productive life?

Now that I made you also feel depressed. Let me share some thoughts with you, and see if you can see any light at the end of the tunnel.

  1. People seem to think that they will be embarrassed if they let someone know they are depressed. That couldn’t be further from the truth! Don’t you think your close family and friends would jump in to help you faster that a cat on a ot tin roof, if they knew you were hurting? Of course they would! Stop closing the door on others and be wallowing in your own self pity. Let people, and other soldiers, become your support system to get you out of your despair.
  2. Why do we let depression overtakes us? Because we become very vulnerable to the dark side when something goes wrong. We can’t just keep going on as if nothing ever happened. We either deal with it, or we crash like I did.
  3. Depression has many names by the way. It hides under the names of self-doubt, anxiety, fear, hopelessness, and self-pity. They are all different names, but they are all systems of the Big Kahuna depression. All of these nasty critters push us to into the lake of muck and mire, and we can’t seem to stay afloat. Don’t let this villian ambush you! Keep you eyes on the bight side of life, and not the dark side.
  4. With today’s modern technology, you can connect with your family no matter where you are in the world. I have used Skype, facetime, (I-Phones) Zoom, and speaker phones ot get as many people as I can. We talk and feel accepted.
  5. I just did that recently when I had a birthday party for my granddaughter. My son, who is the uncle of my granddaughter, couldn’t make it. We did a video connect through I-Box of all things. My son was able to wish my granddaughter happy birthday, and talk to all of us.

Unlike the dark ages when we couldn’t connect with technology at all, you can see and talk to anyone you want to get the feeling you are right there with them.

The Bottom line…

Tell the bad guys to get out of Dodge. Let the good guys come in and help you ride off tinto the sunset of peace.

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There is more to this chapter, but I will tease you into to buying the book to find out more.

You can come back and see more excerpts. Better yet… go to the top of this page and click on“Subscribe.” When you do all future posts will come directly to you inbox.

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Bed check…

How are you doing? Does it seem overwhelming at times. Do you feel the darkside lurking around you?

FEAR NOT!

There are 13,250 fellow veterans here who have your back.

But! It is just too much for you right now. GET HELP!

Here is a toll free nmber to call 24/7. There are highly qualified counselors there to help you, and they will not hang up until they know you are Ok.

1-800-273-8255…texting 838255.

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Remember:

You are never alone.

You are never forsaken.

You are never unloved.

And above all…never, ever, give up!

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You’re as Important as First Responders When it Comes to Saving Your Buddies Life From Suicide

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Military news…

An anonymous person wrote a letter threatening to charge the U.S. Army with war crimes for administering COVID-19 vaccines, mask mandates and COVID testing. Best of all, after accusing the service of “crimes against humanity and genocide,” the writer ends with a polite “Have a blessed day!” 

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A 21-year-old recruit died earlier this month on his first training day at Marine Corps Recruit Depot Parris Island, South Carolina. However, the circumstances surrounding the death of Pvt. Anthony Munoz is still unclear, as the Marine Corps is keeping those details close to the chest.

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An Army lieutenant colonel supposedly wrote a widely-read resignation letter alleging a “Marxist takeover of the military,” but the Army has decided not to say anything about it. The reason Lt. Col. Paul Hague thinks Marxists are taking over is because of the COVID-19 vaccine mandate.

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Willingly or not, Army Gen. Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, has been pulled into partisan politics. How did this Green Beret, who started his tenure as one of President Trump’s “tough guys” become the fall guy for both Democrats and Republicans?

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An American drone strike in Kabul on Aug. 29 that killed 10 innocent civilians was based on faulty intelligence. Specifically, the intel asserted that a “key element” of an impending attack was a white Toyota Corolla, which happens to be the most ubiquitous vehicle in Afghanistan and has been described as “the car of Afghanistan.”

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It doesn’t matter that you’re not a medic, or a therapist, or a first responder. The fact is, you are now the one connection to life that they have. And that’s just part of the first step of Duane K.L. France’s brief but intense guide to helping veterans who are contemplating suicide. It’s a tough position to be in, but one where you may save a life, if you know what you’re doing.

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Of Interest…..

Veterans get free entrance to national parks, refuges and other public lands

Veterans, Gold Star Families, current Military and their dependents have free access to approximately 2,000 public locations spread out across more than 400 million acres of public lands, which host activities to fit any lifestyle, from serene to high octane, including hiking, fishing, paddling, biking, hunting, stargazing, camping and much more.

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For the last few posts I have been sharing the Table of Contents from my upcoming book, Signs of Hope for the Military: In and Out of the Trenches of life.

Here are some Chapters…

El-li-wa means come here in Korean

My first sexual experience

Skosh the Dog in our Quonset Barracks

Skosh loses all of her babies

Just One More Drink

Woke the next morning by a truck with the dry heaves

R & R in Tokyo, Japan

Hung onto a belly dancers hips

Do I Need to be Tough in the Military?

I severely burned my hand while on duty and stayed at my post

There’s a Tear in my Beer Since You Left me My dear

A lot of Dear john letters came in the Military

Really?

I knocked an old man down just for the fun of it.

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Be sure to come back and see more Chapter titles. Better yet…

Go to the top of this page and click on “Subscribe.” When you do all future posts come directly to your inbox.

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Checking on you to see how you are doing. Are your days OK, but the nights are fearful?

FEAR NOT!

There are over 13,010 fellow veterans on this site who have your back.

However, if the nights are too long and dark, GET HELP!

Here is a toll free number to call 24/7. There are highly qualified counselors there to help you. They will not hang up until they know you are OK.

1-800-273-8255…texting 838255

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Remember:

You are never alone.

You are never forsaken.

You are never unloved.

And above all…never, ever, give up!

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+If you like what you see, please subscribe at the top of this page where it says, “subscribe.” When you do, all future posts will come directly to your inbox. Also, if you know some else who could benefit from this site, please let them know .

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The Loss of a Buddy During Your Time in the Military is Hard at Best

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My last post caused quite a stir. Talking about suicide is not an easy thing to do, but when 22 veterans take their own lives EACH day then we need to reach out.

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Military news…

It’s a bad day for one Missouri bar after a video went viral over the weekend of a bartender berating a group of six service members who tried to get drinks with their military identification card. The bartender, identified as Josh Weitkamp, refused to serve them, appeared to bend and throw away one of the service members’ military IDs, told them they “don’t even look old enough to know about f—ing 9/11” and then denied that they were in the military at all, which is funny because at least a few have been to Iraq and Afghanistan.

Hazing is always terrible, especially when it involves being tied up to a target. Hazing is always terrible, especially when it involves being tied up to a target on a live-fire range while fighter planes drop ordnance near you for 20 minutes. But that’s what one French Air Force pilot said his fellow aviators put him through in March 2019. The pilot recently filed a criminal complaint because he felt the French military was not taking the matter seriously enough.

‘Wait, they just now started doing this?’ is a perfectly reasonable reaction that the 18th Airborne Corps wants anyone found guilty of sexual assault or harassment to be immediately separated from the Army. But it’s true: the new policy marks a major departure from how such crimes are handled elsewhere in the service, and it’s a direct result of soldier feedback to their leadership.

Remember that scene from The Matrix where Neo orders up a big honkin’ arsenal of virtual guns? Well that’s what the deck of the USS Monterey looked like last week. After the Navy ship stopped a small boat in the North Arabian Sea that was chock full of Type 56 assault rifles, PKM machine guns, sniper rifles, rocket propelled grenades and kaboodles of other kinds of firepower. In fact, the cache was so large it took the crew 36 hours to unload all of it.

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One of the many things that sticks out in my mind about my time in the military was the loss of lives during peacetime.

In my book, Signs of Hope for the Military: In and Out of the Trenches of Life, I wrote about two buddies I lost while in Korea. Neither one of them were in combat.

The first one was a buddy that I signed up with to get into the military. We went through basic together. We went through MOS training together, and was sent to Korea together.

When we got there, he was sent to another part of Korea. Things went Ok for a few months until I was notified that he had died from some kind of crud he caught there.

I couldn’t believe it. He died from an illness? I found out it happens a lot in foreign countries. I still think about him to this day.

The second incident was right in my own company at Camp Red Cloud, outside of Uijeongbu, Korea.

A close buddy had been drinking heavily, and went out into the village to be with a girl. He was coming back to the Camp, and he was staggering very badly. He could hardly walk.

As he was walking he fell into a “honey bucket.” A honey bucket is where the locals keep their human waste for fertilizer. It is about seven feet across. My buddy actually suffocated.

We had no idea it had happened until our morning formation the next morning. I noticed a gap where he was suppose to be in the ranks. I didn’t think much about it. However, the company commander came out and announced that he had died the night before.

We all were in shock. He was a good guy that everyone liked.

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These and many other stories like them will be in the book that will come out this fall. Be sure to follow this site to see the latest on the book.

Better yet, subscribe now by clicking on the subscribe button at the top of this page. You won’t have to come back here to find out more. It will be sent straight to your inbox each time I post.

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How are you doing? Did you lose a buddy while in the military? It is hard at best to even think about it.

FEAR NOT!!

There are more than 11,800 fellow veterans subscribed to this site who have your back.

BUT! If you heart is broken, and you need further assistance, GET HELP!

Here is a toll free number you can call 24/7.

There are highly qualified counselors there to help you. They will not hang up until they know you are OK. AND IT IS FREE!

Never face another day that causes you to hurt.

1-800-273-8255 Option # 1

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Remember:

You are never alone.

You are never forsaken.

You are never unloved.

And above all…never, ever, give up!

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+If you like what you see, please subscribe at the top of this page where it says, “subscribe.” When you do, all future posts will come directly to your inbox. Also, if you know some else who could benefit from this site, please let them know about it.