"I am tired of getting phone calls telling me that my friends have killed themselves." These veterans want an honest conversation about life after combat.
Category
🗞
NewsTranscript
00:00I am tired of getting phone calls telling me that my friends have killed themselves.
00:30For many years, for me, I chose to focus on the negative, and that behavior after seven
00:43years led to me sitting at my kitchen table, putting my Glock in my mouth, and trying to
00:49end my own life.
00:52I'm thankful every day that I failed at that attempt.
00:59I served for six years, and when I left, I took with me post-traumatic stress disorder,
01:07anxiety, and depression.
01:09I was having multiple panic attacks.
01:11I couldn't even drive, I couldn't go to school, I couldn't work, I couldn't function.
01:16It's been a roller coaster of ups and downs, from anxiety to depression to feeling hopelessness
01:23to feeling like I'm a burden on the ones I love.
01:27I've been out in the military now for 13, 14 years, and it's always thought over time
01:32that it would get better, and it doesn't.
01:48The Veterans Administration has let down the veterans in this country.
01:52I go to a VA appointment.
01:55All they do is up my medication and give me more.
01:58I'm supposed to take five or six pills a day, two, three times a day.
02:02All it does is numb me.
02:03It does nothing to how I feel.
02:05I can still feel it.
02:07I still feel the anger.
02:09I still feel the hurt.
02:10I still feel the guilt.
02:12If you get enough nerve to ask for help, to reach out for help, and you call, and then
02:19you have to wait six to eight weeks, who knows what's going to happen in that time?
02:24You have veterans that are committing suicide inside VA waiting rooms, leaving letters behind
02:30saying they're trying to bring attention to the horrible care they're receiving, and what's
02:34the response to the politicians in the Washingtons on the Democratic and Republican side?
02:38Silence.
02:54Silence.
02:55Silence.
03:11The alarm needs to be raised about veteran suicide more than just the 22-a-day because
03:18even those that aren't acting on it, they're having the thoughts.
03:22they're living that life of it's not worth it and I don't know what to do and
03:27maybe they're not doing active suicide but they're passively thinking about
03:31suicide which means thoughts of driving off cliffs of never waking up of life
03:37not being worth it or being told we're not strong enough. There is no shame in
03:43having PTSD. There is no shame in having injuries from war. That shame is the
03:50shame we bring to it and I want to change that.