chuckle I’m a sergeant in my country’s army the reason that I’m sending you this message is because of a tragic incident in our unit this week a young enlisted soldier committed suicide he shot himself with his issue rifle this came as a shock to all of us he was a bright smart and happy guy damn I’m seeking your advice chuckle do you have any advice on how I as a leader can talk to the guys about it how does a group of soldier soldiers cope with a loss when the reason is so tragic thank you and it obviously condolences to the team and the family of the soldier and I think what you have to do in this situation is you gotta as a leader you got to bring this out in the open I don’t think one of the worst things you can do is pretend that it didn’t happen pretend that the problem is gonna go away and I think what you have to do is you have to explain it which is weird because in this case explaining it means admitting that you can’t explain it because you can’t explain it or you’re not gonna be able to you’re gonna be making up something that you’re guessing at right you’re not gonna know what individual what what individual situations caused this to happen you know cuz who can make sense of that I mean a bright smart happy guy it doesn’t make sense and and and while you can’t explain why you I think you have to address it as a reality and I think you gotta address it as something that your platoon needs to fight against just like they would fight against the enemy or what is the threat the threat is depression the threat is loneliness the threat is helplessness the threat is feeling like there’s no way out and being aware of those threats is what allows recognition of the enemy so that you can fight him so I think you got to talk about this with you guys I think that they will become aware of what they need to look out for in others and in themselves so they can alert the platoon that you know Joe have you guys talked to Johnny man he seems you know Johnny seems a little off right now we should check in on him we should talk to him or self-recognition man I’m feeling like depressed about something I’m feeling dark it doesn’t I don’t know what I’m gonna do right and on that last podcast that we did I read a couple excerpts in words from some various combat veterans and I touched on the fact that several of them from different times from different wars had written the same thing and they wrote basically that death would be liberating and that it would be an escape from the hell of war from the memories of war and and I should have hit on that harder because III think that what that means to me what that tells me is that is that having those thoughts doesn’t necessarily mean that there’s something wrong with you right it doesn’t necessarily mean that you’re losing it these you know the the the writings that I’m talking about the book and then the writing from a guy that I knew doesn’t mean that you’re losing it and I think that people think to themselves oh I’m I’m thinking about how death would be an easier way right now and and they think that by thinking that they’re they’re totally screwed up when I think the realities that is or I even think the reality of the situation is that that’s obviously a fairly normal thing to think about and you know i when i was in Ramadi I I def li I wasn’t thinking about killing myself but I definitely saw that dying in combat was would be a relief to the stress that I was under no doubt and and I didn’t want to die but I’ll tell you what we joked about it I joked about I joked about it with Lafe mm-hmm I’d be like hey if we get a firefight tonight first thing we do is crack a green chem light on my chest so the enemy knows exactly where I am it’s like we’re joking yeah because we’re under a lot of stress but I think my what I’m trying to say is that those feelings are those thoughts don’t mean that you’re done they just mean that you’re human they just mean that you’re human and I think if you keep them bottled up then they might explode so that’s what I think you need to do if that’s what I need to tell your men that these thoughts happen and that your platoon your team needs to be on guard against them and the best way to be on guard is to be vigilant to look for the signs to look for behavior and talk about and then being able to ask for help it’s one of the big problems these guys don’t want to ask for help because we’re macho yeah I don’t need help with anything where our egos are too big so we don’t ask for help and so we have to put our egos in check we got to pay attention to each other and there’s gonna be some people that you’re gonna have to pry this out of them right they’re not gonna willingly talk about it so I think that’s what you have to do so that you can get somebody some professional up I’m not a psychiatrist obviously and and in a normal infantry platoon there’s no psychiatrist in there but you need to recognize because you’re the first line of defense and how can you get that somebody to a professional that can help them and to be honest this doesn’t only apply to soldiers right it applies to everyone don’t let these thoughts fester in your brain you got to get them out you’ve got to put them out in the light all right you got to put them out in the light so they so they dry they’re like a vampire they dry up and they whither and they they turn to dust mm-hmm you know that’s what you want to do your expose em so you can get the professional help and get things under control so that’s the leadership be straightforward with your troops tell them the truth explain the enemy threat that’s what we’re talking about and how you as a platoon are gonna look out for it and then obviously you got to grieve the loss you gotta mourn your fallen comrade and then you also have to get back to work get back to soldiering get back to preparing for the enemy that you will face on the battlefield with with a new awareness that there’s a nother enemy that can lurk inside the platoon and inside the individual and that you have to protect each other just like you protect each other from a real enemy so that would probably be the the route that I would go good luck brother with that this a hard one for sure
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