Will to live

Caution: This story contains frank discussion of wartime trauma and suicide

Smoke blurred the horizon as a young Army specialist steered his Humvee down a dusty road in Baghdad.

It was 2005, and war had decimated the outskirts of the city. Fires smoldered across the ruined landscape.

Piles of trash lined the road, and the soldier was jittery. He couldn’t tell which odd junk heap might conceal an IED. Straight ahead, a man stood on the roadside with a little girl of about 3 or 4 years old in his arms. She was squirming.

Suddenly, the man threw the girl in front of the oncoming convoy. In those few seconds, the soldier faced a terrible decision. Commanders told drivers never to stop for anything, since insurgents used all kinds of tactics to waylay them. Stopping would leave the convoy vulnerable to enemy ambush or IEDs.

So, he kept driving.

Three years later, that young soldier lay in a Texas mental hospital, after intentionally trying to overdose on sleeping pills. Next to him sat Capt. Todd Cheney, a U.S. Army chaplain.

Over six counseling sessions, Cheney slowly pieced together the young man’s story. He had grown up Baptist in Mississippi, but—like so many young people—left church and home to join the Army. He had a lot to live for, a wife and two daughters. But the terrible burden of that split-second decision in Iraq tormented his mind.

Service members don’t get time to process when something terrible happens in a war zone. They often compartmentalize trauma to deal with the pain. “You take your emotions, you stick ’em in a rucksack and you just march along,” Cheney said.

But the memories don’t go away. A year later, the soldier was still having nightmares about that moment in Iraq. Sometimes he dreamed it was his own two little girls crushed under the wheels of his Humvee. He didn’t want to live with the pain and confusion anymore.

Now, he lay in a psych ward with his life falling apart around him. After his suicide attempt, his wife took their daughters and left. He wrestled with the question “Can God ever forgive me?”

Cheney walked the man back through his childhood Sunday school lessons: “Tell me about Jesus. Tell me what you know about the gospel.” He reminded the soldier that God loves him, and God restores.

Missed diagnoses

The young specialist in that Texas hospital is one of many service members grappling with the fallout of their military experiences. When they return from war having done or seen things that violate their personal values, warriors fight to reconcile belief and practice.

This phenomenon is called moral injury. And it’s one of many hidden physical, psychological, and spiritual wounds service members may carry home. Others include post-traumatic stress disorder, traumatic brain injury, and military sexual trauma. They are among the consequences of the two-decades-long U.S. war on terror. They are also a main driver of soldier suicides.

Since the Twin Towers fell on 9/11, 7,057 military personnel have died in combat. But more than four times as many service members and veterans—30,177 and counting—have died by suicide. Suicide rates in the United States have climbed steadily since the turn of the century, but rates among veterans far exceed those.

The Department of Veterans Affairs estimates 17 veterans kill themselves every day, but retired U.S. Navy SEAL Frank Larkin—a former homicide detective and veterans advocate—suspects the number’s even higher. Amid an opioid crisis, it can be difficult to distinguish a suicide attempt from an accidental overdose.

The toll of service members’ “invisible wounds” is all too familiar to Larkin. He lost his son, Ryan—also a Navy SEAL—to suicide five years ago. He killed himself after returning from deployment with an undiagnosed traumatic brain injury (TBI).

Studies link TBIs and suicide risk, but Larkin said brain damage is hard to detect in living patients. Some doctors default to a psychiatric diagnosis.

But Larkin didn’t need doctors to tell him something was wrong with his son: “When you looked in his face, in his eyes, they were void of emotion.”

His son knew too. As they sat around an outdoor fireplace, Ryan told his dad he was just running out of gas. “I’m pretty banged up inside,” Larkin recalls him saying. “I’m not going to live to an old age.” He asked his dad to donate his brain for TBI research if anything ever happened to him.

Two months later, Ryan was dead. The writings and research he left behind showed careful planning to keep his brain intact. In keeping with his wishes, the Larkins donated Ryan’s brain to the National Institutes of Health for research. A few months later, the results came back: severe microscopic brain injury from blast exposure.

Suicides leave families with a singular, searching ­sorrow. A recent survey from the University of Kentucky estimates a single suicide can affect more than 130 people. “It’s a hole that you live with. It hurts every single day,” Larkin said. Suicides leave loved ones haunted by one searing question: Didn’t they know we loved them?

Opening locked boxes

Larkin channels his pain to help others through the ­program Warrior Call. It encourages service members to reconnect with battle buddies. Isolation is a common thread among veterans who die by suicide. TBI research advances slowly, and Larkin wants to ensure warriors aren’t alone while they wait.

Service members are especially vulnerable when separated from their comrades—whether moving to a new unit after deployment or leaving the military for good. The letdowns and frustrations of civilian life add fuel to the fire. Suicide attempts often happen spontaneously when ordinary problems stack up. Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) can act as a trigger.

That’s what happened to retired 1st Sgt. Tommy Scott. He considered ending his life several times after retiring near Fort Campbell, Ky.

Scott entered the land of catfish and blues after five combat deployments and 27 years as a front-line infantry soldier. He felt absolutely lost: “I don’t know how to change the oil in my car, but I know how to chase bad guys.”

Everything seemed trivial next to his experiences in the Middle East. He felt his wife was always nagging him about the carpet or the vacuum cleaner: Didn’t she know people were dying in Afghanistan? She told him he had changed, but he tried to tune her out.

One day, Scott noticed his son falling asleep in church. On the way home, he lectured him about how he shouldn’t stay up all night playing video games. His wife jumped to defend their son, and Scott exploded in anger.

When they got home, his wife and son changed their clothes and escaped to her parents’ house. But Scott’s anger kept boiling as he cut the grass later that day. Before he knew what he was doing, he had marched into the house, entered his bedroom, grabbed his pistol, and shoved it against his head.

He didn’t pull the trigger, but his violent reaction baffled him: “Why did I want to kill myself?” He had no clue.

Eight years later, Scott started getting migraines out of the blue. He couldn’t watch TV. He kept the blinds shut. And he lay in bed for a month.

That was when he packed up and told his family he was off to Florida. He loaded his Harley in his truck and drove away. He planned to ride a route on his bucket list. And then? “Blow my head off.”

In Florida, he got blackout drunk every night to suppress the pain. Scenes of blood and gore kept replaying in his mind. He remembered watching his buddy die. But sitting there at the bar, he also recalled something one of his commanders told him at a company reunion. He had described a soldier’s memories as locked boxes on a shelf. When the boxes spill, repressed memories surface, and the reckoning is terrible. Scott realized that was exactly what had happened while he lay bedridden.

A weight lifted from his mind at the thought. He knew moving forward would require him to process his experiences. But he needed to do it piece by piece, not all at once. He had to move at his own pace, not “next Wednesday at 3:15,” on a counselor’s schedule.

Strength in numbers

Scott has had a lot of frustrating experiences with military and veteran health services. Once, he tried to see a counselor at Fort Campbell after having a panic attack in a Walmart parking lot. But the person on the phone told him he would have to wait three weeks for an appointment.

Scott’s experience with veterans’ mental health ­services isn’t unusual. Appointment wait times are long, making it hard to develop trust and consistency. Service members can feel belittled or misunderstood talking with counselors who don’t share their experiences.

Service members also face a strong stigma surrounding mental health issues in the military. Scott felt like he’d be ridiculed as weak if he talked about his struggles with PTSD. But he found refuge in the company of other veterans once he realized he wasn’t alone.

Some of Scott’s soldiers from Fort Campbell invited him to a group called Hero Hunt that organizes hunting and fishing trips for veterans and first responders. He thought they were crazy to wake up at 3 a.m., go sit in trees, and shoot deer. But he prayed about it and decided to go. He told his wife: “I think I can make a difference out there.”

A year later, Scott is one of 20 Hero Hunt ambassadors. He compares joining the program to breaking a fever: instant relief flooded his body with his comrades around him again. Now, he works with others who come to the group for help: “You could see it in their eyes: They’re sick just like you are.” He watches them finally exhale when they realize they aren’t alone either.

Scott said vets need each other to identify problems. “When that guy looks you in the face and says, ‘There’s something wrong with you,’ that’s when the real healing starts,” he said.

Scott has a strong support network in his wife, his kids, and his friends. But he worries about young soldiers who don’t have people to help them pull through. They face the highest suicide risk after their service, with rates almost three times higher than their civilian peers. Many join the military to escape rough home situations and leave lacking basic job training and coping skills.

That responsibility weighs heavily on retired Sgt. 1st Class Tim Moriarty. He served with Scott in Afghanistan and led his “boys” into combat in Ramadi, Iraq—a stronghold of the Islamist insurgency in 2005.

On his first night patrol in the country, Moriarty killed an insurgent standing about 30 feet away from him. Out of 43 firefights on a single day in Iraq, an embedded reporter estimated some 30 happened in Moriarty’s area of the city. Men died constantly, their “bodies dropping like flies.” He lost one of his best friends.

Moriarty stayed in Ramadi for a year. On his last day, he attended a memorial service for a fallen soldier. Then he caught a helicopter out. As the bird rose into the air, Moriarty watched through his night vision ­goggles as firefights and tracers lit up the city below. He felt like he’d abandoned his fallen comrades.

Escaping with his life offered small comfort: Moriarty was more afraid of coming home than of dying.

Turbulent landing

Reentry into civilization is overwhelming and means leaving the camaraderie of familiar ranks. Once, Moriarty found himself in a Texas stadium watching the Cowboys just days after battling for his life with carjackers in Iraq. The contrast was deeply jarring.

Of the total number of troops deployed, few soldiers fight on the front lines like Moriarty and Scott. But everyone faces the daunting transition to the civilian world. Moriarty thinks expectations are what crush ­people. He compares it to the disappointment of saving up for a vacation only to find it doesn’t live up to the hype.

Service members leave the military with an expectation of respect. They are used to being trusted and relied on. But they have to start over when they come home.

Family troubles made Moriarty’s transition even more difficult. He was going through a divorce. On top of that, his grandmother was murdered: “My world was falling apart around me.”

He wanted to keep going to war with his boys, but instead the Army made him an instructor at a National Guard post. He was angry and sick. He couldn’t concentrate, even to take notes.

Eventually, Moriarty decided to get help. He found a civilian counselor who taught him about his brain and encouraged him to develop better hand-eye coordination. He started doing word games, reading, and art. He opened a business and focused on his kids. Later, he started taking his soldiers to the same counselor.

The teaching assignment allowed Moriarty to “take a knee” and kick his addiction to adrenaline before retirement. He learned to shop without the military commissary and to navigate health insurance. It was a gradual off-ramp most service members don’t get.

Since then, Moriarty’s made a lot of progress in ­coping with his PTSD. He used to have terrible nightmares about all the comrades he’s lost. He still has dreams about war, but he’s overcome his fear of them.

That doesn’t mean he’s immune to the lure of ending his life. He admits he sometimes still thinks about it. But he presses on to find meaning in his suffering. He also feels a lifelong duty to his boys. It can create a domino effect when a respected soldier kills himself, and Moriarty’s unit has lost far too many men already.

Recently, he was looking at old unit pictures and was shocked at how many of the men are gone: “Nobody knows this many people who have killed themselves.” It’s been over a year since the last unit suicide, and Moriarty said that’s unusual.

Hope and healing

As the suicide epidemic continues, military chaplains work in the trenches with warriors in crisis. Todd Cheney now serves as deputy garrison chaplain for ­soldiers stationed in Baumholder, Germany. Recently, he responded to yet another suicide.

The soldier who killed himself was a noncommissioned officer who arrived just a few weeks earlier. He had been going through a divorce, but his commander and sergeant major never suspected he was at risk.

Deaths like this leave chaplains and other service members with many unresolved questions. Instead of asking why, Cheney focuses his attention on caring for those left behind: “We try our very best to blanket the unit that’s hurting.” He sent a pastoral care chaplain to spend time with the commander and junior soldiers.

Others work with military personnel during the transition back from deployment. One National Guard chaplain gathered his troops in the chapel before releasing them to their families. He told them to take 3x5 cards and write down anything from the past 12 months that brought them guilt, shame, or bewilderment. Then he led them in burning the cards and reminded them of Psalm 32: “Blessed is the one whose transgression is ­forgiven.” Some chaplains lead weekend retreats to help warriors process combat experiences.

Healing is a slow, excruciating process. Sometimes Cheney catches glimpses of it. In that Texas hospital, he prayed with the specialist who’d tried to overdose on sleeping pills. He prayed for Christ to renew him as a man, a husband, and a father. After he left the hospital, the man reconciled with his wife, and they started attending church and counseling together.

But such forward progress isn’t always consistent. Some soldiers drop counseling when navigating trauma becomes too painful. Cheney doesn’t force the issue. He won’t push people toward faith or recovery unless they want it for themselves.

Cheney longs for soldiers to embrace the love of God and receive Jesus by faith, but he knows that won’t ­happen every time. Either way, he tells soldiers they are overcomers, not random victims of trauma.

Sometimes he just listens while soldiers think and feel for themselves. He sees it as a call to support them while they fight. And he offers his presence as a reminder: “Look up and find your hope in God.”