The theme song from MASH was "Suicide is painless" and that should point out that the issues tormenting our troops today are not new. But they are painful, crushing and sometimes overwhelming. They just took another one: On June 30th Major Chris Galloway took his own life. He had come back from Afghanistan in April, and things just weren't the same we're told. Why'd we lose him? Who the hell knows. There is no rational reason for doing such a thing, so using reason to figure it out is both impossible and ineffectual. It accomplishes nothing. In the end, he's still gone. For the sake of his wife, his kids, and for ourselves it's better to remember him for who he was. Given that he was so much to so many, there's a lot to think about. He was a husband, father, soldier, a writer for Flopping Aces, and I consider him my friend. We all consider him our friend. May God bless him and give him peace. He's earned it. F**K! Suicide is so horrible to contemplate. I have had some awful times in my life but it has never pushed me even near that direction. It breaks my heart to think about a warrior so beaten down, disoriented and broken that just turning out the lights is the only answer. The pain stops and then..... I join many others in saying please don't ever hesitate to contact me if you are in this kind of hell or know someone who is. jimbo at unclejimbo.com. I have no special magic, but I have spoken to plenty of people who were living or surviving their own personal nightmares. That is where the train wreck that has been my personal life comes in handy. I can empathize with plenty of *** raining down. The hardest thing is to tell the difference between the natural stoicism of a warrior and the haunted silence of a crashing one. I think it is time to start erring on the side of pissing off the stoics. No matter how shitty your life is right now, you have to find one reason to wake up another day. We have to remind everyone we know that their kids deserve to know them and that is reason enough to suffer any torment life can throw at you. And even without kids involved, why not decide to live just to piss off the people you hate. Dedicate yourself to that, and maybe just maybe things will get better. Maybe the hits will stop coming. My best friend didn't kill himself, he just kept eating pain pills until his insides exploded. The world was too mean a place for him and he just wanted it to stop. Well it did, at 36 just like Major Galloway. That is way too soon for someone to walk away from the chance to ever enjoy life again. Let's all look around and make sure we don't lose anyone else.
Read the complete post at http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Blackfive/~3/XoN67o6vk4I/suicide-is-not-painless.html
Posted
Aug 13 2009, 11:52 PM
by
BLACKFIVE