Suicide shocks Montana into assessing vets' care

[babylonsister]

Suicide shocks Montana into assessing vets' care
By Chris Adams | McClatchy Newspapers

* Posted on Friday, December 28, 2007


HELENA, Mont. — Chris Dana came home from the war in Iraq in 2005 and slipped into a mental abyss so quietly that neither his family nor the Montana Army National Guard noticed.

He returned to his former life: a job at a Target store, nights in a trailer across the road from his father's house.

When he started to isolate himself, missing family events and football games, his father urged him to get counseling. When the National Guard called his father to say that he'd missed weekend duty, Gary Dana pushed his son to get in touch with his unit.

"I can't go back. I can't do it," Chris Dana responded.

Things went downhill from there. He blew though all his money, and last March 4, he shot himself in the head with a .22-caliber rifle. He was 23 years old.

As Gary Dana was collecting his dead son's belongings, he found a letter indicating that the National Guard was discharging his son under what are known as other-than-honorable conditions. The move was due to his skipping drills, which his family said was brought on by the mental strain of his service in Iraq.

The letter was in the trash, near a Wal-Mart receipt for .22-caliber rifle shells.

All across America, veterans such as Chris Dana are slipping through the cracks, left to languish by their military units and the Department of Veterans Affairs.

more...

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/homepage/story/23867.html

[JFN1]

1. Sad

And who in our government cares? If our soldiers were fetuses, there'd be plenty of high level concern...

[flashl]

2. K&R n/t

[UndertheOcean]

3. extremely sad, tragic.

If he owed money they would pestered him everyday ,, :(

[UndertheOcean]

4. the military acts as is mental health injuries are not real injuries

That letter drove him to the edge.

[benEzra]

7. Sad, but true.

the military acts as if mental health injuries are not real injuries

Sad, but true.

[texastoast]

5. So sad

We are just not supposed to kill each other.

[UndertheOcean]

6. kick

[varkam]

8. I can't believe they have to be shocked into doing what they should've done in the first place.

Just breaks my heart.

[Karenina]

9. Chris turned his anger onto himself

MANY MORE will project it outward.