Actually this goes out to ANYONE here in crisis.
A couple days ago a friend of mine, an 82nd Airborne combat veteran killed himself.
I haven’t mentioned this on this site or any other, just to my brother, Combat Beard.
About a month or two back he was cooking my wife and I a wonderful dinner at his girlfriend’s house. I good naturedly ribbed him about his cooking skills, “Do you really know what you’re doing? I graduated Le Cordon Bleu with honors.”
He did. He had worked in several upscale restaurants, in France and in the United States.
If he was lying, it didn’t show. The meal he prepared was superb.
Afterwards, we drank, bull-shitted and shared stories.
Flash-forward to a week ago. He hit a car while driving drunk. The operator of the vehicle he hit was OK, and his car was only minorly damaged. My friend’s car, on the other hand, was totaled. He fled the scene.
A couple days later, his girlfriend tried to contact him via phone, text, Facebook, etc. No response.
She didn’t worry too much because he had disappeared on occasion for a few days before.
But not this time.
This time he chose to hang himself.
I know he was struggling with PTSD and using THC and alcohol to calm those feelings. But I guess they stopped helping.
There are, sadly, scars that some cannot forget or put behind them.
His passing marks the fourth person I’ve known to have purposely taken their own lives.
I don’t want there to be another.
I read posts from a regular here today that worried me, so here I am.
It doesn’t matter who that person is.
All I want is to let everyone and anyone who reads this site know if you want to talk to someone, if you just want someone who will listen and has “been there and done that,” I’m here. And I won’t judge.
Just email Defcon and Mr. Anderson will forward me that mail.
I’m tired of good people dying and I want it to stop.
I guarantee that anything and everything you chose to share will be 100% confidential.
Maybe this might help at least one person. Maybe many. Maybe no one.
But I want to be able to look at myself in the mirror and know that at least . . . I tried to do something.
Thanks.
