Posted on Sep 21, 2015
Have you read CW4's message on preventing suicide: Seek help?
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http://www.usatoday.com/story/military/benefits/health-care/2015/09/17/cw4s-message-preventing-suicide-seek-help/32560013/
Have you read CW4's message on preventing suicide: Seek help?
This is great article for service members, veterans, retirees, and those suffering from PTSD or having suicidal thoughts. Read CW4's message below and click on the link for the rest!
Army Chief Warrant Officer 2 Cliff Bauman was four blocks from the Pentagon heading to a meeting on Sept. 11, 2001, when Flight 77 slammed into the building at 9:37 a.m.
Bauman sent the soldier he was with back to the office and ran ahead to help. He spent the next 36 hours applying his expertise as a telecommunications officer searching the rubble and flooded hallways for cellphones and their trapped owners.
When the rescue effort turned to recovery, he went home, washed his uniform and returned to work the following day, never considering what he'd been through.
But a year later, Bauman came across a newspaper article containing a letter from a son to his mother who had perished in the attack.
"I had crawled over half her body in the Pentagon," said Bauman, remembering the woman.
The poignant missive sent the stoic soldier into a downward spiral. He became withdrawn, began drinking more heavily and avoided sleep to shut out the nightmares. At a co-worker's request, he went to counseling but lied to the therapist about his situation, fearful for his job and security clearances.
While home on leave for the holidays, he scrawled a suicide note on a paper towel and took 22 sleeping pills.
Have you read CW4's message on preventing suicide: Seek help?
This is great article for service members, veterans, retirees, and those suffering from PTSD or having suicidal thoughts. Read CW4's message below and click on the link for the rest!
Army Chief Warrant Officer 2 Cliff Bauman was four blocks from the Pentagon heading to a meeting on Sept. 11, 2001, when Flight 77 slammed into the building at 9:37 a.m.
Bauman sent the soldier he was with back to the office and ran ahead to help. He spent the next 36 hours applying his expertise as a telecommunications officer searching the rubble and flooded hallways for cellphones and their trapped owners.
When the rescue effort turned to recovery, he went home, washed his uniform and returned to work the following day, never considering what he'd been through.
But a year later, Bauman came across a newspaper article containing a letter from a son to his mother who had perished in the attack.
"I had crawled over half her body in the Pentagon," said Bauman, remembering the woman.
The poignant missive sent the stoic soldier into a downward spiral. He became withdrawn, began drinking more heavily and avoided sleep to shut out the nightmares. At a co-worker's request, he went to counseling but lied to the therapist about his situation, fearful for his job and security clearances.
While home on leave for the holidays, he scrawled a suicide note on a paper towel and took 22 sleeping pills.
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Edited >1 y ago
Posted 9 y ago
Responses: 36
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Good article....if only it was that easy to get people to seek help.
You can preach to people that clearance levels, job opportunities, and promotion opportunities won't be effected but come on do any of us really believe that.
I'm not saying people should not look for help......I'm not saying people are not out there to offer help....I'm saying there is a stigmata (no matter if the corporate "we" wants to admit it or not) that goes with seeking help while on Active Duty.....very few people who care about their careers or military future are going to "seek help" via a mainstream initiative no matter how many times we tell them it's ok.....it's just a hard pill to swallow (especially the higher ranking you get)....again I'm not saying it will cause anything to happen to your promotion, clearance, or job position.....it's just hard to believe when you are inside looking out that if you go and seek help that they are not going to remove you from your leadership position, or mark down your EPR, or remove your clearance.
Anyway I guess what i'm getting at is please don't become complacent when it comes to your AD friends just because there are programs out there for them....most of them are not going to seek care.....it will only be because of intervention (or luck), as in the CW4's case, that a life is saved. .....
You can preach to people that clearance levels, job opportunities, and promotion opportunities won't be effected but come on do any of us really believe that.
I'm not saying people should not look for help......I'm not saying people are not out there to offer help....I'm saying there is a stigmata (no matter if the corporate "we" wants to admit it or not) that goes with seeking help while on Active Duty.....very few people who care about their careers or military future are going to "seek help" via a mainstream initiative no matter how many times we tell them it's ok.....it's just a hard pill to swallow (especially the higher ranking you get)....again I'm not saying it will cause anything to happen to your promotion, clearance, or job position.....it's just hard to believe when you are inside looking out that if you go and seek help that they are not going to remove you from your leadership position, or mark down your EPR, or remove your clearance.
Anyway I guess what i'm getting at is please don't become complacent when it comes to your AD friends just because there are programs out there for them....most of them are not going to seek care.....it will only be because of intervention (or luck), as in the CW4's case, that a life is saved. .....
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Thanks for sharing then Army Chief Warrant Officer 2 Cliff Bauman's story and how he helped on the Pentagon on 9/11/2001 COL Mikel J. Burroughs. I have known many suicides over the years and others who like myself had planned suicide but by the grace of God didn't succeed.
On that clear fall day I was supposed to go on for a meeting to discuss some things I was doing for the Army on my own not as part of a specific task with a deadline. I was sitting at my kitchen table reading the Bible and praying and received a phone call from New York that the twin Towers had fallen. I had lost track of time and started to get ready to drive to the Pentagon when I got a phone call telling me that the Pentagon had been hit and there would be no way fro me to get into the building.
As events became clearer I volunteered to be mobilized and was called back first as a volunteer in October soon after my mom died while I was at her sick bed. There was a lot of heroism on 9/11 in NY City and at the pentagon. There was a tremendous amount of grief as well.
A couple at our church lost their dear friends who were their neighbors who were on the plane that hit the Pentagon.
A classmate and friend was in LTG Maude's office watching the events in NY City on TV and went to the bathroom on the A ring. The plane hit the Army G-1's office on the E-ring and the flames shot down the hall and severely burned my friend who was the only one to survive from that office.
I have encouraged this friend at times. He persevered while struggling with guilt and the pain of his own burns. Many friends and family members helped him.
People planning suicide feel painfully alone even when they are in the midst of other people. If you see or sense somebody going through a dark period in their live try to make true contact with them - sometimes just sitting with a friend can be tremendously beneficial. Listening is much more important than talking in these times.
On that clear fall day I was supposed to go on for a meeting to discuss some things I was doing for the Army on my own not as part of a specific task with a deadline. I was sitting at my kitchen table reading the Bible and praying and received a phone call from New York that the twin Towers had fallen. I had lost track of time and started to get ready to drive to the Pentagon when I got a phone call telling me that the Pentagon had been hit and there would be no way fro me to get into the building.
As events became clearer I volunteered to be mobilized and was called back first as a volunteer in October soon after my mom died while I was at her sick bed. There was a lot of heroism on 9/11 in NY City and at the pentagon. There was a tremendous amount of grief as well.
A couple at our church lost their dear friends who were their neighbors who were on the plane that hit the Pentagon.
A classmate and friend was in LTG Maude's office watching the events in NY City on TV and went to the bathroom on the A ring. The plane hit the Army G-1's office on the E-ring and the flames shot down the hall and severely burned my friend who was the only one to survive from that office.
I have encouraged this friend at times. He persevered while struggling with guilt and the pain of his own burns. Many friends and family members helped him.
People planning suicide feel painfully alone even when they are in the midst of other people. If you see or sense somebody going through a dark period in their live try to make true contact with them - sometimes just sitting with a friend can be tremendously beneficial. Listening is much more important than talking in these times.
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MSgt Thomas Mason
You said it right! I have known a few fellow veterans I could sit with, no conversation, I just felt comfortable and secure being with that person. When we spoke it was always in broken sentences - I knew what he was saying without hearing the whole thing. We clicked. God bless them all!
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Unfortunately, MSGT Stacy's comments are all too true. I remember my professors and other mentors warning me to avoid any even incidental contact with the Mental Health System, or the professionals that work in that field. In my 40+ years of military and private-sector experience, organizations "talk-a-good-game" when it comes to getting help with psychological/psychiatric issues. However, I have never seen anyone who had contact with the Mental Health System who did not have their livelihood (and eventually their life) completely de-railed. Until we give the mentally ill the same formal legal protections we give other classes of people, they will continue to be abused, cheated, and victimized by an insumountable wall built of ignorance, fear, discrimination, and prejudice that keeps them suffering and struggling in silence and undeserved shame.
Just my $0.02 .......