A Veteran's Suicide on 60 Minutes: Lessons Learned? Posted: 03/12/2013 3:34 pm
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The 60 Minutes piece last Sunday on the life and death of Clay Hunt, a Marine who earned a Purple Heart serving in the Marines in Iraq and Afghanistan, demonstrated how much we have yet to learn about the epidemic of suicide in our returning troops and veterans.
What shocked so many is that Clay was "the poster boy" for how someone "should" return from war. He "did all the right things." After coming home, he became proactive, helping create Team Rubicon and participated actively in Ride 2 Recovery. In 2010 he stormed the hill with IAVA, advocating and using his own experience to help others as part of their Ad Council Mental Health PSA program. He sought help at the VA, took his meds, tried to revive his sense of purpose through meaningful public service, had good friendships, and exercised vigorously. How then could Clay Hunt take his life?
First, Clay's death reminds us that it is difficult if not impossible to prevent someone intent on killing himself from doing so. But, if we do not examine the lessons yet unlearned, we run the risk that his death, and the deaths of hundreds of thousands of veterans by their own hands, will have been in vain. And that is unacceptable.
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What are we missing?
Let's start with the word "haunted" from the 60 Minutes piece. I have heard the word hundreds of times talking with returning veterans. Unprocessed traumatic residues, or ghosts, literally haunt and consume the present. The future does not exist. Nowhere in the piece do we see Clay finding a way to genuinely process what he had been through and transform the ghosts of his military service, among them the losses, the helplessness, and the questions about mission that we hear about. Clearly Clay, like thousands of veterans, remained plagued and tortured, despite his stellar external adaptation to civilian life. Even his tentative forays at opening up to his parents belied this haunting.
Second, We each have an inner world. Not all anguish can be successfully addressed by "doing something." This includes altruistic public service, and using one's experience to help others. Undeniably noble and often useful to others, sometimes we end up ignoring and bypassing our own inner demons and postpone addressing them. Sometimes tragically. I'm not sure that dedicated and well-meaning people and organizations in veteran services today fully appreciate this. We tend to underestimate the inner world, at our peril.
Third, it's tough to bear painful emotion. We don't "get" inner anguish, and we can be allergic to emotional pain. When we sense it we tend to jump in and try to "fix" it. In a recent study the most frequent reason soldiers gave for attempting suicide was ... intense emotional pain. No duh! Did we need a study to tell us that? This is one of those simple truths we all "know" but doggedly refuse to face and let sink in. It is our resistance to letting it inform our experience and responses that we need to address.
Fourth, there is the "poster boy" image of Clay. This image was held by many working in the veteran services field, some of them veterans, some of them his buddies. We must challenge this image and examine the reasons for it. Did it buoy our spirits? Make us feel more hopeful? No more "poster boys" (or girls); okay?
Fifth, Clay "did all the right things." According to whom? The fact is that traditional psychiatric treatment, including medications, is not enough. Selfless public service, trying to reconstruct a sense of meaning and purpose, is not enough. Good friends are not enough. Vigorous exercise is not enough. As critical as a good job is, jobs are not enough. All of these are elements in the healing process, but they are not enough.
We must learn, and relearn, that there are no silver bullets -- and no silver "laundry lists." Not EMDR, not Prolonged Exposure Therapy, not Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, all evidence-based therapies that can sometimes decrease disturbing symptoms. And not newer integrative modalities such as meditation, yoga and qigong, which are developing an evidence base of their own. No quick fixes can extinguish inner emotional pain.
None of these address the deeper layers of the human psyche and the human heart. There is a path to healing and prevention hidden in plain sight. Although not a panacea, it mobilizes the natural healing powers of the communities we belong to. I call it turning ghosts into ancestors. Its research data was published in a peer-reviewed journal of the American Psychological Association and it emerged from the DCoE's review of thousands of reintegration programs as the only one that both met their major criteria and had significantly positive outcome data. DoD and VA have referred hundreds of service members and veterans, their families, and their caregivers, to this program, the Coming Home Project, with results that have earned it a stellar reputation. I'm not saying this approach would have prevented Clay from taking his life. But it is worth asking why a proven, trusted community-building post-traumatic growth program is dying on the vine for lack of funding.
I think as a country we are caught up in our collective aversion to profound suffering in general, and the wrenching anguish that is war trauma in particular. We are so blinded that government agencies and corporations, and even well-funded non-profits, are throwing hundreds of millions of dollars at "evidence-based" programs for PTSD that do not address the appropriate register of experience and so unfortunately will continue to come up short when it comes to genuinely healing the inner anguish of our veterans and more effectively preventing them from killing themselves.
Marine who pushed suicide prevention took own life War casualty on the home front A poster boy for suicide prevention, Houstonian becomes another statistic LINDSAY WISE , HOUSTON CHRONICLE | April 9, 2011
Marine veteran Clay Hunt had a tattoo on his arm that quoted Lord of the Rings author J.R.R. Tolkien: "Not all those who wander are lost."
"I think he was a lot more philosophical about life than a lot of us are, but trying to search for some inner peace and the meaning of life, what was the most important thing," said his father, Stacy Hunt.
His son's quest ended last week when he took his own life at his Sugar Land apartment.
The 28-year-old had narrowly escaped death in Iraq four years ago, when a sniper's bullet missed his head by inches. But he wrestled with post-traumatic stress disorder and survivor's guilt over the deaths of four friends in his platoon who weren't so lucky.
"Two were lost in Iraq, and the other two were killed in Afghanistan," said his mother, Susan Selke. "When that last one in Afghanistan went down, it just undid him."
In many ways, Hunt's death is all too familiar: the haunted veteran consumed by a war he can't stop fighting.
Suicides among Texans younger than 35 who served in the military jumped from 47 in 2006 to 66 in 2009 — an increase of 40 percent, according to state records.
The problem seems increasingly intractable. Efforts by the Pentagon and Department of Veterans Affairs to stop the alarming rise in military suicides nationwide through training and screening have had limited success. 'He tried everything'
Hunt's suicide was baffling to friends and family, but not because he hid his struggle or failed to get help. It baffled them because he faced it, head-on, leading from the front like any good Marine.
Hunt had become a poster boy for suicide prevention. He appeared in an award-winning public service campaign to encourage returning veterans who feel isolated to reach out to their peers for help.
"He tried everything," said his best friend Jake Wood, a fellow Marine. "He tried the medication, he tried (humanitarian) service, he tried moving back closer to family. He tried everything under the sun, and he was fully self-aware. I think that's what kind of surprised everybody. We thought that Clay was taking the steps to try and avoid something like this. It's unfortunate that he wasn't able to."
Hunt was born at Houston's Methodist Hospital on April 18, 1982. He grew up in the Memorial area, a tow-headed ball of energy who played tackle football, read voraciously and loved to collect turtles.
"But he definitely didn't move at a turtle's pace at anything," his mother said. "He was ADHD with kind of a big H — very hyper, very outgoing," she recalled, referring to Hunt's childhood diagnosis of Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder.
Hunt graduated from Stratford High School in 2001. He headed to College Station to attend Blinn College, with the goal of transferring to his dream school, Texas A&M.
A few years later, when the paperwork for Hunt's transfer was almost done, he called his father. "Dad, I just feel I'm wasting your money," he said. Hunt said he wanted to be part of something bigger than himself.
He enlisted in the Marine Corps infantry in May 2005.
"Clay said to me at several points, 'I want to be given a task and complete and do it well,' and that's kind of how he was made," his mother said. "Give me a mission, put me on the ground, let me go do it." A warrior's poise
In January 2007, Hunt deployed to Iraq with 2nd Battalion, 7th Marine Regiment. Before he left, his parents traveled to California to see him off. His father remembers marveling at his son's self-assurance. He attributed the young man's newfound poise to months of intense training and to the bond he had built with fellow Marines.
"He was like, 'Dad, don't worry, don't worry, don't worry,' " the elder Hunt said. "But he was so confident. He was feeling pretty good."
Six weeks later, Hunt called his father by satellite phone from Anbar Province.
"His voice had changed," his father said, "and for the first time in my life, I could tell he had a touch of fear in his voice."
Three friends from Hunt's company had died in the space of a few weeks, "basically right in front of his eyes," his father said.
"He didn't feel invincible anymore," his mother said.
One of those killed was Hunt's friend and bunkmate, Lance Cpl. Blake Howey, 20. After his death on Feb. 18, 2007, Hunt moved from his top bunk and started sleeping in Howey's bottom bunk. "He just felt like it brought him closer to Howey," his mother said.
Not long after Howey died, Hunt was driving a Humvee when a sniper fatally shot Lance Cpl. Nathan Windsor, 20, who was walking in front of the vehicle.
"Clay felt very helpless in that firefight because he was stuck driving a Humvee, and he wasn't able to do anything," Wood said. "He wasn't able to fire his weapon."
Hunt told his mother it was like watching a bad movie. "He said that scene played in his head," Selke said. "He said it would be on replay, rewind all the time."
A few days later, a sniper's bullet ripped through Hunt's left wrist. He'd rested his chin on that hand right before the shot rang out, and moved his head at the last second.
"I would've thought you'd feel like the luckiest guy on the earth that you got shot and they missed your head, but that's not how he felt," his father said. "He felt he didn't deserve it." Became sniper himself
Hunt's wrist wound was his ticket home, but he hated leaving his buddies in Iraq.
He had no choice. Hunt was evacuated to Germany, and then California, where he threw himself into helping rehabilitate a badly injured Marine from his unit.
A year later, after graduating from Marine sniper school, Hunt deployed again, this time to Afghanistan, where two more friends were killed.
When Hunt left the Marine Corps in 2009, his mother bought him a shadow box. Inside he put his medals and pictures of those four fallen Marines from his platoon. He kept it by the door in his apartment.
"Every day he looked at that, and thought of his guys," his mother said.
"He could never really leave behind the feeling of, 'Why me? Why did I make it and the other guys didn't?' " his father said. Civilian life not easy
Like many vets, Hunt had a bumpy transition from the military.
It took him 10 months and a series of doctor visits to get disability payments after the VA lost his paperwork.
He dropped out of Loyola Marymount University last year, and a two-year marriage ended in divorce. He told his parents that he'd come close to killing himself at least twice in the past six months.
But he found a renewed sense of purpose in volunteerism. He lobbied for veterans' rights on Capitol Hill, helped build bikes for Ride 2 Recovery, a mental and physical rehabilitation program for injured veterans, and volunteered in earthquake-stricken Haiti and Chile with Team Rubicon, a nonprofit founded by Wood that rechannels military veterans' skills to humanitarian aid work.
"I think it was incredibly therapeutic for him, for all of us really, to be able to go to a place like that and do nothing but help people," Wood said.
In recent months, Hunt focused on the future. He moved back to Houston. He bought a truck. He found a job at a construction company. He got medication for his depression and PTSD. He moved into a new apartment and started dating. He even considered re-enlisting.
On March 31, though, Hunt didn't show for work. He stopped answering his phone. His frantic mother drove to his apartment. Maintenance workers forced their way in and found Hunt dead from a self-inflicted gunshot wound.
His mother desperately wants to know what was in his mind when he pulled the trigger.
"I thought we were over that hump," Selke said. "He said, 'Mom, stop worrying.' He said, 'Mom, there have been so many times I've thought about it, but I love you guys too much, and I just don't want you to have to go through that.' So I know whatever happened, it had to be something he just couldn't control. He did not want to do this." Funeral drew 1,100
Active-duty military suicides hit record numbers in recent years. No statistics track how many veterans like Hunt have taken their own lives after leaving the service, said Paul Rieckhoff, executive director of Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America, the nonprofit group that sponsored the public service ad featuring Hunt.
"This was a guy who was doing all the right things, it seems like, and we lost him," Rieckhoff said. "If it can happen to Clay, then it can happen to anyone. This should be a wakeup call for America."
More than 1,100 people packed Memorial Drive United Methodist Church on Monday for Hunt's memorial service. Veterans came from all over the country.
Wood flew in from California to deliver a eulogy for his brother Marine.
"He thought the world was supposed to be a better place than it is, and he lived every day of his life thinking, perhaps naively, that his efforts could make the world be what he thought it should be," Wood said.
When Hunt woke up every day and his efforts seemed in vain, that made him more depressed, Wood said.
"Clay, I think that you realize now just how loved you were," Wood said. "You have a church full of people who are honored to be here, and we love you."
Former Marine Clay Hunt (2 after a battle with Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder ShareThis Filed Under: Suicide - Gunshot Published: Apr 16, 2011 @ 9:47 PM
Handsome and friendly, Clay Hunt so epitomized a vibrant Iraq veteran that he was chosen for a public service announcement reminding veterans that they aren't alone.
The 28-year-old former Marine corporal earned a Purple Heart after taking a sniper's bullet in his left wrist. He returned to combat in Afghanistan. Upon his return home, he lobbied for veterans on Capitol Hill, road-biked with wounded veterans and performed humanitarian work in Haiti and Chile.
Then, on March 31, Hunt bolted himself in his Houston apartment and shot himself. Friends and family say he was wracked with survivor's guilt, depression and other emotional struggles after combat.
Hunt's death has shaken many veterans who served in Iraq and Afghanistan. Those who knew him wonder why someone who seemed to be doing all the right things to deal with combat-related issues is now dead.
"We know we have a problem with vets' suicide, but this was really a slap in the face," said Matthew Pelak, 32, an Iraq veteran who worked with Hunt in Haiti as part of the nonprofit group Team Rubicon.
After news of Hunt's death spread, workers from the Tragedy Assistance Program for Survivors met with veterans visiting Washington for the annual lobbying effort by the nonprofit Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans, or IAVA. A year earlier, Hunt had been with other veterans in dark suits calling on Congress to improve the disability claims process.
He had appeared in the group's ads encouraging veterans to seek support from an online network of fellow veterans.
Snapshots posted on Facebook reflect a mostly grinning Hunt. In one, he has a beard and is surrounded by Haitian kids. A second shows him on the Capitol steps with fellow veterans. There's a shot of him from the back on a bike using his right arm to help push another bicyclist who is helping to guide an amputee in a specially modified bike.
Friends and family say Hunt suffered from depression and post-traumatic stress disorder. But with his boundless energy and countless friends, he came across as an example of how to live life after combat.
"I think everybody saw him as the guy that was battling it, but winning the battle every day," said Jacob Wood, 27, a friend who served with Hunt in the Marines and in Haiti with Team Rubicon.
But some knew he was grieving over several close friends in the Marines who were killed in Iraq and Afghanistan.
"He was very despondent about why he was alive and so many people he served with directly were not alive," said John Wordin, 48, the founder of Ride 2 Recovery, a program that uses bicycling to help veterans heal physically and mentally.
In 2007, while in Iraq with the Marine's 2nd Battalion, 7th Regiment, Hunt heard over the radio that his 20-year-old bunkmate had died in a roadside bombing. Hunt later wrote online about sleeping in his bunkmate's bed. "I just wanted to be closer to him, I guess. But I couldn't — he was gone."
A month later, Hunt was pinned by enemy fire in his truck as a fellow Marine, shot in the throat by a sniper, lay nearby. Hunt wrote that seeing his friend placed in a helicopter, where he died, is "a scene that plays on repeat in my head nearly every day, and most nights as well."
Three days later, a sniper's bullet missed Hunt's head by inches and hit his wrist. He didn't immediately leave Iraq. His parents say Hunt asked to fly to a military hospital in Germany a day later so he could accompany a fellow Marine who was shot in both legs.
"I know he's seen some traumatic stuff in his time and I guess he holds that to himself," said Marine Sgt. Oscar Garza, 26, who served with Hunt in Iraq. "He was a very compassionate Marine, a very passionate person, one of the few people that I know that has a big heart and feels a lot of people's pain and makes it his own."
Hunt's mother, Susan Selke, said after Hunt was wounded, she'd hoped her son would get out of the military. Instead, he went to school to be a scout-sniper and went to Afghanistan. He seemed to do well. He was honorably discharged in 2009, married and enrolled at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles.
He was frustrated by the Veterans Affairs Department's handling of his disability claim. He also piled up thousands of dollars in credit card debt as he waited for his GI Bill payments. Hunt found an outlet to help improve the system by doing work with IAVA. He helped build bikes for Ride 2 Recovery and participated in long rides.
Using his military training, he went to Haiti several times and Chile once to help with the countries' earthquake relief efforts. He proudly told his parents of splinting an infant's leg, and after meeting a young orphaned boy in Haiti named D'James, tried to persuade his family to adopt him.
"If I had one thing to say to my fellow veterans, it would be this: Continue to serve, even though we have taken off our uniforms," Hunt wrote in an online testimonial for Team Rubicon. "No matter how great or small your service is, it is desired and needed by the world we live in today."
Hunt's friends say he was an idealist and voiced frustration that he couldn't make changes overnight. He also questioned why troops were still dying.
"He really was looking for someone to tell him what it was he went over to do and why those sacrifices were made," Wood said.
Last year, Hunt's life took a downward spiral. His marriage ended, he dropped out of school and he began to have suicidal thoughts, his mother said. She said Hunt sought counseling from the VA and moved in temporarily with Wordin in California.
Things seemed to improve for Hunt in recent months after he returned to his hometown of Houston to be near family.
He got a construction job, leased an apartment, bought a truck and began dating. He called friends to discuss the possibility of re-enlisting. In the days before he died, he hung out with friends, and he had plans the following weekend to do a Ride 2 Recovery bike ride. He even told Garza he couldn't wait to see him at a Fourth of July reunion with other Marines.
Then he was dead.
"Clay was always a fighter," Wordin said. "He was always a guy to stick things out and he basically quit life, and I was mad that he felt he had to do that at that particular time." Hunt's friends and family count him a casualty of war — just like his buddies who died in the battlefield.
They are committing suicide while serving the government as a paid oppressor...It's an acceptable level of suicide. Sometimes people have mental breakdown after obvious immoral violent acts against fellow human beings. The military needs to do a better job brainwashing and suppressing a soldiers guilt.
Firearms and suicide among veterans Leo Sher, M.D.
A research group from the Portland State University and Oregon Health and Science University in Portland, Oregon, has published an important report on firearm suicide among veterans (1). The authors analyzed the data from the National Violent Death Reporting System (NVDRS). Currently, 17 states (Alaska, California, Colorado, Georgia, Kentucky, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New Mexico, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Oregon, South Carolina, Rhode Island, Utah, Virginia, and Wisconsin) participate in the NVDRS, i.e., the authors were able to use the data from 17 states. They estimated the all-age and age-specific suicide rates among veterans and nonveterans; the rates of firearm suicide among veterans and nonveterans; the proportions of suicides involving firearms among veterans and nonveterans; and the relative odds of firearm use among suicidal veterans. Researchers found that the risk of firearms in suicidal behavior was significantly higher among those with military experience regardless of gender and age. The authors explain this observation by the availability, familiarity, and acceptability of firearms as decisive factors in the choice of guns as a suicide method among veterans. Researchers also found that the rates of firearm suicide for the youngest male and female veterans were higher relative to other age groups. Although this study has some limitations, it clearly shows the heightened risk of firearm use among suicidal veterans. Previous studies have shown that suicidal veterans are more likely to own a firearm than their nonsuicidal counterparts, and veterans are also more likely to use a firearm to commit suicide compared to members of the general population
DoD statistics show military suicides at a record high. According to the New York Times, military personnel are slightly more likely than the general civilian population to die as a result of suicide: ~ In 2008, there were 20 suicides out of every 100,000 members of the military population, ~ while the figure for civilians was 18 per 100,000.
These figures change when you adjust them to reflect for age: ~ comparing military personnel to comparably-aged civilians, military personnel were actually less likely to commit suicide than their civilian counterparts, according to a 2012 report by the Armed Services Health Surveillance Center.
The modern conservative is engaged in one of man's oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness. John Kenneth Galbraith
DoD statistics show military suicides at a record high. According to the New York Times, military personnel are slightly more likely than the general civilian population to die as a result of suicide: ~ In 2008, there were 20 suicides out of every 100,000 members of the military population, ~ while the figure for civilians was 18 per 100,000.
These figures change when you adjust them to reflect for age: ~ comparing military personnel to comparably-aged civilians, military personnel were actually less likely to commit suicide than their civilian counterparts, according to a 2012 report by the Armed Services Health Surveillance Center.
they are trained to SURVIVE AND ASSAULT THE other humans around them
Again, the response of a Random Word Generator Bot.
The modern conservative is engaged in one of man's oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness. John Kenneth Galbraith
point being, they are not trained to assault themselves but to assault the other human as directed.....
assault the other human as directed..... they are trained to SURVIVE AND ASSAULT THE other humans around them
Really? How do you know this??? Is this from personal experience or something that you've read? You post as if you know from first hand experience about these things, yet what you post had little to do with my experience... but maybe you are right and I am wrong.
The modern conservative is engaged in one of man's oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness. John Kenneth Galbraith
assault the other human as directed..... they are trained to SURVIVE AND ASSAULT THE other humans around them
Really? How do you know this??? Is this from personal experience or something that you've read? You post as if you know from first hand experience about these things, yet what you post had little to do with my experience... but maybe you are right and I am wrong.
my father was a marine/g-father WW2 battle of the bulge...not to mention countless elderly I've taken care of and listened to their stories....
bottom line....MILITARY IS NOT CIVILIAN WHEN IN ACTIVE WITH AN ACTIVE WAR/POLICE DUTY and you're on it.
trained to kill or be killed if needed, the enemy of course.
...you are a product of your environment, your environment is a product of your priorities, your priorities are a product of you......
The replacement of morality and conscience with law produces a deadly paradox.
STOP BEING GOOD DEMOCRATS---STOP BEING GOOD REPUBLICANS--START BEING GOOD AMERICANS
Logged
after a battle with Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder
