Marines’ suicide prevention poster boy commits suicide
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Marine veteran Clay Hunt had a tattoo on his arm that quoted Lord of the Rings author J.R.R. Tolkien: “Not all those who wander are lost.”
On March 31, 2011, he committed suicide. Today his family grieves for their boy who is indeed lost, and I grieve for them. Combat can be a cruel mistress and she can survive the horror for years. Semper fi marine.
Here is the story summary from Newser:
When Clay Hunt killed himself at his Houston apartment last week, he became exactly the sort of grim military statistic he’d battled so hard against. The 28-year-old had faced survivor’s guilt and battlefield trauma head on, starring in a lauded public service ad campaign that urged his comrades to get help. But ultimately, the deaths of his comrades weighed too heavily on him. “When that last one in Afghanistan went down, it just undid him,” his mom tells the Houston Chronicle.
“He tried everything,” said his best friend Jake Wood, a fellow Marine. “He tried the medication, he tried (humanitarian) service, he tried moving back closer to family. He tried everything under the sun, and he was fully self-aware.” The head of the non-profit that sponsored Hunt’s ad agrees. “This was a guy who was doing all the right things, and we lost him,” he says. “If it can happen to Clay, then it can happen to anyone.”
On April 1st, a Fox News article declared that the United States Marine Corps has stepped up its efforts to quell the recent rise in suicides within the service. The article highlights the loss of Marine Cpl. Daniel O’Brien to his own hand in 2009.
All branches of the military are working hard to remove the stigma associated with reporting psychological issues. The old way of thinking was to “suck it up” if a soldier or Marine was having problems coping. Now, the Marines are deploying psychologists to forward operating bases in Iraq and Afghanistan so troops have a ready ear without facing the stigma of being sent back to headquarters for counseling.
More than 1,100 people packed Memorial Drive United Methodist Church on Monday, April 4, for Hunt’s memorial service. Veterans came from all over the country.
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Remember him with pride.
What our soldiers do to protect us and our ways doesn’t bare thinking about.
Old Blounty gets bad press over here musically speaking. As an old punk I probably shouldn’t say I’ve always liked his stuff but I do… – especially given his background.
Cried when I first saw that vid….cried again.
Very powerful song and video. I know the purpose of military training is to remove individuality and replace it with teamwork and obedience, but when their service is done, then it should also be the responsibility of the military to retrain these kids to return to civilian life. They will never be the way they were before service, but to just throw them back into civilian life with no re-acclimation is unfair, unjust and unhealthy for everyone. The military also has to remove this macho bullshit about asking for help. It is not a sign of weakness, it takes more guts to admit there is a problem, the kids that ask for help should be examples not abused.
Back in WW I PTSD was called ‘Lack of Moral Fibre’ and could get you a month of ‘Jankers’ (punative menial duties – latrine cleaning being a prime one)
By mid-1940 that had been dropped and, for the time, there was some exceptional work done in the field by UK MIL.
Now, in a world run by accountants, we’re almost back to LMF
Very sad and so unnecessary.
Terrible state of affairs. Disturbing video, should be on the evening news.
I’m sure the Pentagon and the rest of the military industrial complex will sleep fine tonight.
Thank you for this HO!
Knowing you were Ex-Mil, I hesitated to say anything.
UK GOV buried deep, and keeps buried, the suicide rates of our lads (and lasses.) It’s it’s a tragedy and travesty.
Thanks for your consideration HO and I’m very glad you shared this with all of us.
FYI Captain Blount wrote that song while in Kosovo. The musicians on the track were there with him. When I find Back to Bedlam I will credit them by name. From memory, there’s a Sgt, another Captain, and a Private.
It gives that song really quite an additional gut punch, over and above the song itself.
One of my oldest and dearest friends, The Captain, spent a lot of his time in Bosnia cleaning up after people who blew their own heads off rather than face another day of finding mass graves and the bodies of those immured alive. War has always been a ghastly, ghastly business, and they sell it as glamour. To quote Marillion: The dole queue to The Regiment, a profession in a flash. It may be that, but it’s far from walking on beaches with tottie and abseiling.
They really don’t sell it on the truth of the matter. The old lie ‘dulce et decorum est pro patria mori,’ indeed…
Let another Captain, Captain Blount to be precise, have my last word