He was buried next to his brother Kevin, a college student and ROTC cadet who died by suicide a few months earlier. “Land of the Free Because of the Brave” was written on a white cloth and left at the graveside of their son Jeff, killed in Iraq by an insurgent’s IED. This is the story of service members, veterans and families who battled the darkness of depression and suicide in the military, including the stories of Mark and Carol Graham. Driving across the Coronado Bridge in San Diego, every light pole held a sign with an “800” suicide help-line telephone number reminding me that suicide happens every day, both in the military and in the broader civilian world.Īnd yet, my experiences did not prepare me to read Yochi Dreazen’s The Invisible Front: Love and Loss in an Era of Endless War. Several months later, walking behind the horse drawn caisson carrying my shipmate, my friend, past the thousands of white stones in Arlington National Cemetery, the question remained: Why? Suicide was not new to me. On that early August day, the darkness took over and he died by his own hand. He had returned to civilian life and was serving in the Navy Reserve, but he was also suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and traumatic brain injury (TBI). I had run into him again the day of my retirement ceremony and later at Camp Slayer, Iraq. Yochi Dreazen, The Invisible Front: Love and Loss in an Era of Endless of War (Crown Publishers, 2014)īack from Iraq for less than a year, I went to check a friend’s blog only to find the obituary of a shipmate, a sailor I had served with at CENTCOM at the beginning of Operation Iraqi Freedom.
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