Posted on 08/13/2009 9:07:15 AM PDT by Starman417
Life and the internet are strange strange things. I've been trading emails and posts etc with Chris for years now. It wasn't at all uncommon for his duties, deployments, and family to make those virtual conversations sporadic from time to time. Well, Chris won't be returning emails anymore. He passed away suddenly on June 30, 2009.
Last Fall he and his wife Shannon had a baby girl, Lilly. Chris was so happy. We teased him about how awful it is to step on Barbie Doll high heels in the middle of the night, and he bragged about how his friends Mossberg and Remington were gonna help keep the boys away from his little beauty.
A few weeks later he deployed to Afghanistan. We still got emails from him. He sent pics, talked about the firefights, artillery barrages on Christmas night, and how, 'once you accept that if you step off the path you're in a minefield , and you're dead, it's not that bad. Ya just stay on the path.' He didn't love it over there in the ass-end of the planet by any stretch of the imagination, but he was extremely proud to be doing his duty-at least, that's what he told us in emails.
Chris was always brash, blunt, bold, and beautiful in his political commentary. He was in no uncertain terms not happy with the Democratic Party, its leaders or its followers. Time and again he posted here at Flopping Aces in response to DNC talking points about Iraq, Afghanistan, and the Global War on Terror. He would NEVER stoop to re-naming it 'overseas contingency operations in support of combat in Operations Iraqi Freedom and/or Operation Enduring Freedom. People would post that there were no WMD in Iraq, and he's show pictures and links and tell personal stories of his time there. They'd say there was no Al Queda in Iraq, and that Saddam and Bin Laden had no relationship, and he'd wig out with tales of what he had personally seen.
[SNIP]
I've been noticeably missing the past week or so for a number of reasons. Not the least of which is Army business, but I can't blame it all on work. At the end of the show, I publicly admitted that I'm having issues dealing with life.-CJ, writing on June 30th, the very day ChrisG committed suicide.
Back in March, I was about to transition to a new job and had interest in having another go at the military reserves, although I was rejected 2 years ago.
The recruiter I had begun talking to abruptly broke off contact. On March 18th, I sent an email to CJ of A Soldier's Perspective, venting frustration. He wrote back:
To their credit this time, the Army is busy with a lot of suicide prevention training lately, especially the recruiters. Maybe give them another week, but keep trying!
Just the day before this, CJ had posted on suicide prevention programs within the military.
On March 6th, about 2 weeks earlier, CJ's post began:
I want to address that Soldier, Marine, Sailor, or Airman that may have come here for answers. You may be contemplating suicide and you're seeking help over the internet. If this is your only outlet, please seek us out. My email address is on the sidebar and regardless of the time of day, you may contact me. If you need help, I will give you my personal phone number. Above all, don't go to extremes and try to kill yourself.I can promise you that this world is a beautiful place and you are an amazing part of it. Please don't leave people wondering what kind of world it would have been had you stayed in it! There is nothing in this world worthy of taking your life. Believe it or not, a failed relationship, a bad deployment experience, a failed job, delinquent bills, terrible leadership, the loss of a family member or friend – none of that is worth your life. I desperately urge you to take those issues in your life and become something bigger in spite of your problems. There are people who care about you deeply and want to help you through whatever you're facing right now. We may not understand, but we care and want help you through it. Once you take your life, it can't be taken back.
If you don't contact us for help, please go somewhere. Check out www.militaryonesource.com for people that can help. Go to your chain of command. Seek out a complete stranger. Go to a hospital or police department. Just do something besides trying to take your life. I don't know you personally, but I'd like to.
Although I've never met Chris, and had only limited contact and conversations with him, it's difficult for any of us- his friends and family members most of all- not to wonder what we could have done to have made the difference in his life that might have given him that one moment of pause he needed to get him through. I had seen CJ's post in March; around June or July, CJ himself came to grips with his own need to reach out for professional help and was diagnosed with PTSD. Chris ended his life in late June.
The "what if's" inevitably begin to swirl around in my head: What if I had followed through with a blogpost of my own, then? Even just simply linked to CJ's important post? Like so many intended posts, it never got made...Would Chris have seen it? Read it? Remembered it in his time of need? Contacted CJ? Sought help? Or would events have unfolded the way they did, anyway? What if I had bothered to correspond more with Chris? Sent him a kind word of support about how much we admire him for the hard job that he does daily for our country? Would I have noticed any possible signs that he was in trouble?
Having had an uncle who took his own life, I will say that the grief and guilt of those loved ones left behind can be enormous.
(Excerpt) Read more at floppingaces.net ...
Suicide, with a brand new child at home? I just can’t fathom it.
OMG how tragically sad. I am at a loss for words. RIP, Chris. Your hard times are over. Blessings to your family.
The late Ed Schneidman, the dean of suicidologists, established through many years of research into actual suicides that there are two necessary conditions--one is an abiding emotional pain--usually clinical depression but not always--and a precipitating or triggering stimulus that propels the individual to act.
It is a totally individual set of circumstances, sometimes can be discerned ahead of time, but not reliably. Yet, psychological autopsies often clarify the cause of the lethal act. As with most all behavior, it begins to make sense when you know the relevant facts.
This is the hardest thing for a family to deal with .I pray that his wife and children have lots of loving support.They will surely need it.
It has been fourteen years since my older brother committed suicide,and thinking about another family going through this is extremely sad.
RIP Major Galloway
Coming, back from the front, a wife who wants a divorce, it’s enought to cause a person to break....May God be with his family.
RIP Chris.
At times you live minute by minute...then its I can endure this for 10 minutes...soon its I can live this for a day...its a gradual climbing out of that hole until you see some light...
Back then depression was a big no no to talk about..My doctor gave me some very good insights...Once he said, "People think nothing of smiling or chuckling at some one that breaks a leg on the ski slopes and is hospitalized. But if some has to be hospitalized for the same amount of time due to a brain disorder, they are shunned...How true that was back then..Sometimes the brain just won't quit. Its called (the flight of ideas) something in the brain is screwed up and it won't shut up..lots of different symptoms that are unique to each person...You have to learn to deal with your symptoms one at a time...
Thought I never was hospitalized, I can sympathize with those that are...
Don't ever judge one that has taken that dumb step, at the time they could see no other way of stopping the pain...But to anyone that has the problem, I say to you, hang in here you can get out of that hole, you do it one day at a time..and have medications that work for you...It took trying many types before one worked for me...Now when I feel the symptoms coming on, I get on medication and when things get back to normal I wean my self off them...
It is sometimes years between bouts but knowing that its not hopeless anymore is freedom...like many disorders depression as remissions and exacerbation's...
But I was lucky as the psychiatrist I was sent to was good.
An as for prayer, it doesn't cure depression anymore than it cures diabetes. Prayer was the reason I took too long in getting help... God gave us doctors for a reason...
But at times the person has to change their responses to life...that is an individual change that only the person can figure out.
I had a very close friend who had a son dealing with clinical depression and she said she didn't know what to say to him.Her pain was in not being able to help..I sat down with him over a cup of coffee and we talked for hours...He still deals with it but that was 30 years ago. There is hope when it seems hopeless...Like with AA if you can find someone thats been in that situation, and can talk and find hope, thats everything...
I'll shut up for now, as I have written down more that I ever told anyone before....but it ends with a 70 year old mother of 5 grandmother of 13 who has had a great life..:P)
Further, meds don't do as promised every time. A friend accidentally od'd on SRRIs cuz the dosage was upped beyond belief causing seratonin syndrome.
In this case with our freeper, when normal thought is disrupted 24/7 by ptsd (kindling, slp deprivation, etc), it is impossible to be logical and rational.
Your comments show the stigma that exists in matters involving mental illness. Nobody wants to admit they have a problem cuz of the stigma of mental illness.
You turned out okay but every person is different.
Sad news. RIP
Condolences and prayers for his family and friends.
Heartfelt prayers for M1Tanker’s family.
Dear God in Heaven....take care of Chris and have mercy on him, and bless his family and his friends, and Lord, please, shine down grace on those young men in similar circumstances.....and help us to see the need to reach out....its a troubled world, no doubt, and we've messed it up down here mightly, but we know that YOU are in control.....
Such beautiful pictures of a beautiful family... I didn’t know Chris on FR, but may he be in God’s arms now, and his family surrounded by loving friends as they serach for the strength to get through the pain. May they truly understand it was not their fault. Gracious and merciful Lord, please comfort and heal this family.
Amen to your prayer, Cherry.
I went and checked out his posts and specifically remembered reading his last one at the time he posted it.
Dear Sir and your family,
You gave more than I can ever understand.
You suffered more than I can ever understand.
Thank you for my children’s safety.
May you know peace.
His last post here was bitterly critical of the new administration’s attacks on veterans: “ http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/2235002/posts?page=11#11 “
‘I have just returned from a tour in Afghanistan only to find that I am now considered a potential ‘terrorist’ by the DHS...
Meanwhile REAL terrorists from the left wing (ELF/ALF/PETA/ANSWER/ACT/ACORN/WWP/Code Pink/et al) and Islam (Jamal al Faqua, AQ, HAMAS, Hezbollah, Muslim Brotherhood, etc) are either causing real damage or planning major attacks and they are pointedly IGNORED. Some now receive government funding.
Un-freaking believable... Wait, considering the treason and collusion of the left in the past 8 years, very freaking believable, but still disgusting.’
If you would like to be added or dropped from the Michigan ping list, please freepmail me.
Lord, have mercy on this fallen soldier. Prayers for his friends and family left behind.
Very sad. Prayers.
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